It was a very cold morning, indeed. We both struggled a bit to get up, but we knew had to get on the road. We packed up as quickly as we could since it was so cold and then got ready to head the little bit back into town to get milk. Just as we were leaving the church, a car pulled in and we had a chance to talk to one of the parishioners/ or pastor, I'm not sure which. When he saw us with the bikes, he figured out pretty quick that we had slept outside back there. He didn't have a problem with it and wished us good fortune on our travels. Once we got our milk, we looked around for a warm place to eat breakfast inside. After a bit of searching without any luck, we ended up going to post office. We took our bowls and spoons, cereal and milk, and went and sat on the floor in lobby. It must have been pretty funny for people to see that came in to get their mail. No one bothered us though or seemed to have a problem- I guess they understood that it was cold out and that's why we were in there. Crazy little memories of strange things that we have done while on this trip, but that kind of stuff all comes with it. After we ate, I rinsed out our bowls as fast as I could in hopes of not freezing my fingers off, and then we were on the road again. After only going a couple miles down the road, we had to stop and add some more layers- face masks and thicker gloves, it was just that cold already. Chills right to the bone.We had quite a few enjoyable roads to ride on today. Some had a pretty small shoulder, but the traffic wasn't going that fast so it was nice. The wind, yet again, didn't seem to help us at all. It just made us colder and slowed us down. We made it to a little town and since I was already getting really hungry and "feeling a little shaky" as I get when I haven't eaten, we had a quick granola bar break in a parking lot before continuing on. The hills at first today, were big rolling hills. After the town of Douglasville, where we stopped for our snack, the hills were still big an rolling, just much steeper. We crossed over into another of the hundreds of counties we've been to- Paulding County, which is the home of Country Music Star Travis Tritt. After making it to the town of Hiram, where we planned to stop for lunch, we at first got a little worried. The tiny little old downtown section didn't have any restaurants, or stores. We were really hoping for someplace we could eat indoors, just to get out of the cold. That is one thing about this last leg of the trip- with the cold weather, our food bill will definitely go up, but there is no sense in freezing our tooshies off either. After a couple more hills, we went from being surrounded by trees to a major highway and every store you could possibly want. We found ourselves a Subway restaurant and went there for lunch. We made a quick stop at Wal-mart to get some food for dinner since we weren't sure how far we would make it and if there would be a grocery store in the place that we stopped. Not too long into our afternoon ride, snowflakes began coming down. They were small and nothing was sticking to the ground, so it wasn't a big deal. I do prefer snow though, if it is this kind- because even though it's cold- we don't get soaked like when it rains. The hills continued after lunch; up and down rollers and then a pretty long climb right before getting into Cartersville, the town we had hoped to make it to today. We were definitely getting into the foothills of the Appalachians now. When we rolled into town, we saw our favorite place, McDonald's and took a little break to check the internet figure out where things were in town. Although there were a few churches in town, we had a hard time finding a church tonight. We looked all over for a church with a car and for a church that would actually be suitable to set up at but didn't have much luck, until we went to the Bilingual Methodist church. we saw a few lights on and a car outside. We knocked on the door and a funny thing happened. At first, we didn't hear anyone, but then just as we were about to walk away, we heard someone knocking back. We said hello through the door and eventually found out that the guy inside was the cleaning guy. He was nice enough to give us the pastor's number. We gave her a call and didn't get an answer at first. Then a little while later, as we were still riding around looking for a place to park for the night, she called us back! Her name was Angela, and she said we were fine to camp there at the church under the pavilion by the fire pit! She also invited us to breakfast/ church in morning. It was a perfect spot, especially since we were expecting some more snow tonight. For dinner Joey and I had our favorite meal, but this time a family size bag that we had to cook in two rounds because our pan was too small. Since it was so cold out, we cooked right in tent. It's not the best thing to do, but it sure did get us warmed up a bit! There was a really nice bathroom for a change, at the gas station across the street. That was a life saver, because I found out that my turtle kneck was damp from the downpouring rain we had a few days ago. The water proof bags do a pretty good job of keeping everything dry, but anything in the very bottom of the bag usually gets a tad bit damp from the condensation. I was able to get my shirt nice and dried out, and warm, using the hand dryer. I typed for a while, again, completely inside my sleeping bag. That never seems to work very well, because after being cold, once I finally get warm, I just fall asleep-right in the middle of typing. I woke up at 2am this morning, with the tablet still in my lap. As I was putting it away to officially go to sleep, I heard things hitting the walls of the tent. It was snowing like crazy again. We're in for a wild ride for the rest of the trip-after all, we're not even out of GA yet!!! Our miles totaled 58.75 today.
It was nice to wake up and be able to eat our cereal and milk right away without having to worry about looking for a warm place to eat. We had a table in the library of the fellowship hall that made it even more enjoyable. It didn't take us too long to get packed and say our goodbyes to Barry. We were on the road just a little after 8 and were hoping to at least get over 60 miles today. The hills became more frequent and longer, which was expected as we remembered NW Georgia was hilly from the last tour. The good news was that the sun came out today! When we started off this morning, Atlanta was less than 75 miles away and was only about 22 miles away by the end of day. Not that that was of any importance to us as we planned on avoiding that area because of the high amount of traffic. We also had quite a few suggestions from people that we've met to steer clear of that area just for that reason. At some point before we made it to the town of Griffin, where we would stop for lunch, my bottle of sunscreen fell off my bike; lost somewhere on the side of the road. A little bit of a pain, but not that big of a problem since it was getting close to being empty and it will most likely be cold enough for the rest of the trip to be living in our pants and jackets and not need much sunscreen. We planned on having lunch at Pizza Hut, but when we got there, we found out it wasn't worth it- they had no salad bar!! Although it was only 5 bucks for the buffet, without a salad bar, there was just no point. I hope that it was just this Pizza Hut and that Pizza Hut's everywhere aren't changing the way they do things. So, since we still wanted to have a buffet so that we wouldn't have to have dinner later, we headed over to the Chinese Buffet instead. It really did hit the spot! For the price of a buffet, it almost makes more sense to do that when it's cold than to go someplace like Subway, especially for the fact that the buffet serves as 2 meals. The hills continued as we meandered our way over to Fayetteville. The sun warmed us up quite a bit, but as it got later that didn't last long. Upon getting into Fayetteville, we had a question on which road we should take and just happened to see a lady out on a walk. I asked her for directions and had a nice little conversation with her. A very sweet lady. She had asked where we were staying tonight, and said that she would have invited us over if she wasn't jumping on a plane to go to NY for her grandson's 1st bday. Such kind people in this world! Once we knew where we were going, we headed through town and took a little break at Dunkin Donuts. We saw that there were quite a few churches listed along the road that we were going to be on, so we decided to keep riding. We ended up continuing on farther than we thought, an extra 13 miles or so. It worked out well because we made it to Fairburn, which was a strange little town. Quite a few of the businesses had bars on all the windows which was a little unsettling. After riding around town, we looked for church for a while, but couldn't find any with cars. Somehow we found one out of town just a little ways that had a fenced in area in back to camp in. We called my Grandma to have her check the weather to see if it was going to rain or snow, but the chances of precipitation was minimal so we figured we'd be ok. So, we figured we would be ok without an overhang. By the time that we got the tent set up, it had gotten really cold. Since we didn't have to make any dinner after going to the buffet for lunch, we just got right in our sleeping bags. Tonight we decided to try zipping them together, which actually helped today. Sometimes we end up being too cold because of the big opening between us, but tonight it seemed to work ok. It was cold enough that in order to type my blog, I had to be completely inside my sleeping bag. Hopefully it will get a little warmer tomorrow, but if not we have been expecting the ride back to NY to be a cold one. We ended up with 65.73 miles today!
Both of us slept so well last night and woke up to a yummy treat. Elizabeth, Victoria and Adam were busy in the kitchen making eggs and pancakes. What a great way to start off our day. Unfortunately, Ken left for work bright and early, so we didn't get a chance to see him again, but we did get to see everyone else. After breakfast and getting all packed, we were ready to go. Since Adam would be heading through town this morning on his way to his college class, we left our bikes right in the back of the truck last night so we would be ready to head back in the morning. Adam was going to drop us off right back at the church, but from the intersection we had gotten to when we reached hwy 41 it was still 2 miles away in the wrong direction. To add to that, Adam would be heading in the opposite direction to go to school. It just didn't make sense to go all the way back to the church. At this point in the trip, it doesn't matter to ride right from where we ended yesterday just for the sake of two miles. We found a parking lot to pull off in and get the bikes unloaded. It really was just so great to have met the Day family, I'm so glad that it worked out that way. Today was another cloudy, windy day-that wind sure made it feel even colder. It was a pretty easy ride to the city of Macon since the roads were relatively flat. When we got closer to town, the road we were following jumped onto a busier 3 lane road with no shoulder. To avoid riding with the faster moving traffic, we took the business route through the city. It sure did get hilly! Almost right away it went from being pretty flat to pretty steep long hills. It was pretty nice taking the business route though because if we hadn't, we wouldn't have seen any of the little city. Macon was a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be! Shortly after getting back onto our main road that we would follow out of town, we found a bike shop. We stopped in and picked up a new tube, patches, and new break pads. Shortly after stopping at the bike shop, we found somewhere to eat lunch. About 5 miles down the road was a Kroger Grocery Store. There were chairs and even a display model of a hammock outside the store to sit in. We ate the rest of the pasta lunch from yesterday and had a few snacks of Clementine's, Triscuts, and a can of peaches each since there wasn't much pasta left. Once we left the city there were a few rolling hills before it flattened out again. We passed through a few little tiny towns that had the railroad running right through it. The strong headwind just killed us again. We had hopes to make it another 15 miles down the road to the next town, but it was already about 5 when we arrived in Forsyth. Our first stop was McDonald's. Once we got onto the internet, we got a message from Lynda, who we stayed with in Jasper. She told us our SPOT wasn't working. I checked it and sure enough it wasn't. We figured out pretty quickly that it was because our SPOT subscription ran out. Joey had gotten an email about this back in December and when the subscription didn't run out at the end of December or January we kind of forgot about it. The only reason it didn't re-subscribe automatically is because of the bank changeover we experienced in the beginning of the trip. Either way, even though we only have a month left, we decided to re-subscribe. Joey was able to get that all fixed without too much trouble, although we were worried that we would have to re- do the link and everything on the website. We made a stop at Walmart, to get some stuff for dinner and some cereal for breakfast in the morning and then headed out to find somewhere to set up our tent. The first church that we found cars at we stopped and asked. They didn't have a problem with the idea of us setting up, but they were worried about our safety because the church was "not in a very safe area," which was evidenced by the cop cars down the street. So, we headed to a different area of town and found another church that had some cars at it. All of the doors were unlocked, but we couldn't find any one there. Just as we were about to leave, we saw 3 people walking down the sidewalk that were all dressed up. They looked like they could be heading towards the church, so we waited for a minute. Sure enough, we were right. We talked to them and they said it would be fine but they would rather put us up in the fellowship house, where we would be warm and get a shower. The intern Pastor, Barry, from Atlanta was there tonight because they were setting up for a funeral tomorrow, so we would have some company! It really was amazing. We got to cook our dinner on the stove, wash our dishes in a sink with nice hot water and enjoy a nice hot shower. We spent quite a while talking with Pastor Barry since he was pretty interested in our trip. It was a very pleasent evening. And to top it off, I got a call from my BFF Kelly and found out that her and Will had just gotten engaged!!!! It surely made my day as if it hadn't been made already. We rolled our sleeping bags out and slept in library of the Fellowship House and were again, so thankful to be inside where it was warm! Our miles totaled 56.44 today.
It was a cloudy, relatively chilly morning today. The wind was still blowing a bit and still from the same WNW direction. That of course made it feel even chillier. Once we were all packed up, we headed back to the Harvey's grocery store that we stopped at last night. Our usual favorite breakfast, cereal and milk, is always the main choice, despite the cold. It fills us up, cleanup is easy and we just plain old love cereal. We ate outside the store between the big flats of top soil/ mulch in hopes that that would block the wind a little bit. By the time we were having our last bowl of cereal, I headed in and sat in the "breezeway" of the store just to be where it was a little warmer. Joey soon followed and we were both glad that we did that. Unlike TX and a bunch of other places we've been, we haven't noticed any tables inside the store near the deli or elsewhere, lately. It was always so helpful, whether it was cold or not. With breakfast all done, I washed the bowls and spoons in the sink in the nice warm water in the grocery store. I get a kick out of seeing how people take second looks as I'm carrying a couple bowls, a scrubber and a little half used bottle of soap through the store. But, I don't mind one bit, because I will tell ya what- it is just SOO much easier and more enjoyable to wash things in a sink with warm water than outside with a water bottle, especially if it's cold out. It will be strange getting home and doing dishes in a sink every time and in the same sink, too, for that matter. It gives light to the idea that when we get home, there should never be procrastination when it comes to washing dirty dishes because it will be just SO easy to wash them. Before heading too far out of town, we made a quick stop at a gas station because we decided it was cold enough to put our cycling pants on. We knew this day would soon be arriving, and here it was! Somehow, the clothes in the bottom of my waterproof bag were a bit damp from when it downpoured the other day. So, I spent a bit of time drying out my pants under the hand dryer in the bathroom as to not totally freeze when I put them on. Although it was windy, like yesterday, there were a few times where the wind actually helped us a bit. We rode through a couple small towns before stopping in Cordele for lunch. After asking around, we found out there was a grocery store a little bit in the wrong direction, but it ended up not being that far away. Somehow, we ended up seeing a Walmart before the grocery store, so we went there instead. We bought some pasta, a couple little cans of tomato sauce and a can of diced tomatoes, and a small bag of cheese (and a Hershey's chocolate bar for each of us) and then headed off to find a place out of the wind to cook. Back more towards the center of town was a big Methodist church with a long overhang/archway place where we could get out of the wind. As we were cooking our lunch a maintenance guy came out of the activities building, where a few other people were working, and said that we were more than welcome to sit inside to eat to get out of the cold. So, once our food was all done cooking, we gladly took him up on that offer. I even had another bathroom sink to wash the dishes in, it was perfect. Later on towards the afternoon, the clouds dissipated and we had blue skies. Somewhere around 18 miles after lunch, Joey somehow got a flat tire. We found a little pull off/ driveway that looked like it was hardly ever used and utilized that to get off the road a little while he changed it. Joey hard at work, while Emmy has already done all her little jobs of getting the pump ready, finding a new tube, etc, what better thing to do than enjoy some of my chocolate bar!!! By the time Joey was done changing the flat, we weren't sure if we would make it to the town we had planned on going to before it got dark. We remained optimistic and just pedaled our hearts out to try to get there on time. About quarter to 7 we rolled into town. The road we were on didn't have that much traffic and there were street lights, so the upcoming darkness didn't seem to be a problem. We made a quick stop at Subway to fill up on water and asked them how to get to the main part of town. It was kind of a weird set up because we were right next to the I-75, so the part that we were in was just the restaurants and gas stations for that. They pointed us in the right direction, which was helpful because its never very easy to find your way around a new area in the dark. Since we were looking for a place to set up the tent for the night we began riding around to scout out a spot. Somehow we managed to find a church that had a couple cars at it. Not only that, but we found it at the absolute perfect time. Just as we were pulling up, there was a man walking out towards his car. Upon asking him if we could set our tent up somewhere near the church, we got a very quick answer of Sure. He didn't see any reason it would be a problem. The next question he asked was if we had eaten any dinner yet. Since we hadn't we told him so and were in for a real treat! The church has a little fellowship dinner on Wednesday nights, just like my church at home does. They were just leaving from that and there was some chicken, macaroni and cheese, green beans, and chocolate cake left! We couldn't believe it! Had we been just 30 seconds later, we would have missed our opportunity to meet Ken, and then an amazing dinner too! It really did make our day. Ken joined us while we ate and the rest of his family who were waiting in the car when we got there came and joined us too. We had a blast talking with them and telling them some stories. It's kind of a cool thing this bike travel, because since so few people do it, anyone we meet has a lot of questions about it. I rather enjoy sharing stories and answering questions because it gives me a way to remind myself of what we are doing and of some of the places we've been, people we've met and things we've experienced. After we were both stuffed to the brim, we double checked on where it would be ok to set up. Ken told us a few different places where we would be out of the way and under an overhang just in case it rained. Then, he offered a plan B- to sleep in the outbuilding that had electricity, but no running water. That was even better, then we didn't have to set up our tent at all, just roll out our sleeping bags!! So, that was what we were going to do, or so we thought Right after he proposed that idea, his son Adam came over and told us that Kellie (his mom) offered for us to just come to their house for the night. So there you have it, on to Plan C. We couldn't believe it. The night just kept getting better and better. We truly are blessed. The Day family lived about 12 miles outside of town, so in order to do Plan C we had to make sure our bikes fit in the back of their truck. Sure enough they did! Joey and I rode with Ken and, Victoria, one of his 5 daughters (the oldest, Ashley, is away at college and the other three daughters-Amelia, Elizabeth and Evelyn were riding with Adam and Kellie ). It was a good thing our bikes fit because after a long day of cycling, I don't think we had another 12 miles in us, nor would we be able to easily figure out where to go in the dark. Before we knew it, we were pulling into the driveway of their beautiful, over 160 year old farm house. We were greeted by their dogs and I was of course thrilled to get a little "puppy time." Joe and I got what we needed off our bikes and left them right in the back of the truck since Adam would be going through town tomorrow morning on his way to class. For the rest of the evening, we relaxed with the family and even had a chance to take a nice hot shower! How fortunate we've been to have gotten to enjoy so many showers since we left Orlando! Nothing better than a nice hot shower after a day in the saddle. An incredible night indeed. We feel so fortunate that we had a chance to meet and get to know the Day Family; they really are just such a wonderful family. When it came to be bedtime, we were both so happy to be in a bed. We knew we'd get a wonderful night's sleep Since it was a pretty nice day weather wise with mostly sunny skies, we managed to get in 83.72 miles today. Another productive day. Hopefully that cold weather will stay away so we can get a few more big mile days.
After a great nights sleep, we woke up to the sound of rain outside. With not too much enthusiasm for another rainy day, we decided to just lay there in the comfy bed for a little while longer in hopes that it would pass. We ended up not getting up until around 8, but were very happy to notice that the rain had dissipated quite a bit. Joey and I had some of our cereal and milk that we had bought last night at the store for breakfast. By the time we were ready to leave, Tasha had arrived to spend the day with Linda, so we got to see her one more time too! After saying our goodbyes we headed out towards Georgia. We only had about 14 miles to go before getting to the line, so we were pretty excited. It was a very cloudy start to the day, but we didn't have any raindrops fall on us, so we were grateful for that! As we were coming around a bend, we saw a big sign that we knew was the FL welcome sign even from the back. When we fully got around the corner, we were a bit disappointed though. No GA welcome sign! As we were passing over the state line where the pavement distinctively changed, there was still no sign in sight. We remained hopeful, but in the end, never found one. Although it was a bit of a let down, it wasn't the end of the world in the least bit since we can always get a picture on the way out of the state, and after all, we've already ridden through GA on our other trip! The little bit of shoulder we had in FL completely disappeared when we crossed over into GA. That, however, wasn't much of a problem because the road we were on had hardly any traffic at all on it. One of the first things we noticed in GA was that the trees had either no leaves on them or had ones that had turned red or orange. We didn't see any palm trees at all, so we were wondering if they were done for good, too. For the majority of the day, we had a side wind that slowed us down at times, but also gave us a little boost at others. After about 24 miles, we took a break at the McDonald's in Valdosta to use the internet. Joe was a bit impatient today since he wanted to get a ton of miles done, so we didn't take too long of a break. I was feeling REALLY hungry for some reason, almost to the point where I was feeling shaky, like I get when I haven't eaten in a while. I had some Triscuits and some of my chocolate bar to tide me over. It was still a little early to have lunch. We had planned on finding a grocery store or a place to get some food before heading out of town (since this was a much bigger town than the ones we would be going through in the near future. Somehow we managed to miss seeing a grocery store, and had forgotten to look it up at McDonald's because Joey wanted to get on the road. Whatever the case, we headed out of town without stopping to get something for lunch (even though we always have an emergency meal of rice and beans, we didn't really want to have that unless we really needed it). Joey was in a big hurry today and was a little grumpy at me for taking too long with my e-mail, so it was an interesting day. As we were leaving Valdosta, the road we were on turned onto the I-75 for a while, so we had to find an alternative route for those miles. Luckily it wasn't too hard to do so. The rest of the day, we just cruised right along, and didn't even end up stopping for lunch. Joey, being in a grumpy, impatient mood today, rode ahead quite a ways so he could go his own pace for a while and not have to wait for me. This ended up working out ok because he didn't have to wait and I didn't have to rush. The only bad thing would have been if I had gotten a flat tire, but I had my cell to call him had that happened. The clouds eventually went away and we had blue sunny skies for the rest of the day. The wind was sill blowing and we were starting to feel just a tiny bit cold. In the end, Joey waited for me in the 2nd town from Valdosta and then again in the town that we ended in for the night, Tifton. By then Joey was feeling really hungry, but for some reason, I wasn't that hungry anymore. After asking around, we were able to find a grocery store to pick up a "Voila" meal for dinner and then go seek out a place to set up the tent for the night. By the time we left the store, the sun had gone down quite a bit and the temperature had dropped significantly. We were definitely feeling pretty cold then, and we're not even that far north yet! After a bit of searching, we found a beautiful church that was kind of out of the way from the main area that we might be bothering anyone. The church was massive- it had 4 buildings: the church, chapel, fellowship hall/nursery, and offices. The chapel had a glass door so that you could see inside and boy was that beautiful! We didn't see anyone around, so we weren't sure if we would be able to talk to anyone about setting up the tent or not. After we knew where home would most likely be for the night, we headed down the street to McDonald's and ended up getting milkshakes. Joey got his usual chocolate shake and I got a Shamrock Shake, just because I love mint, and I had never had one before. After relaxing inside for a little bit, we headed back over to the church in hopes we would see someone to ask. Still no sign of anyone, but since it was dark, we had to set up somewhere. We found a nice corner where we would be out of the way and not bothering anyone. The wind made it feel way colder than it really was, which was probably somewhere in the mid-upper 40s. With a nice hot meal of "Voila" in our bellies, I washed the dishes and we went to bed. I was too tired to even want to type any blog tonight, so I just simply went to bed. We covered a bit more ground than we have in a while. Guess we're finally back to riding the kind of miles we used to ride on our other trips and at the beginning of this trip, or at least until the snowy cold weather north of us starts to slow us down. Our miles totaled 86.92 today. Not the best days from the trip, but we covered a lot of ground, so it was productive.
|
|