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Monday, June 1

Long way 'round

Big 'n Buttery texts me on Thursday.  Do I wanna do this?

Then Todd texts me on Friday.  Asks me if I wanna do something stupid with Big 'n Buttery this Saturday.

They had me at "this" and also "stupid."

Todd texts me Saturday morning.  Please bring a filter.  His isn't working.  Well, neither is mine.  I grab a few Potable Aqua tabs and toss them in my fanny pack with some cold pizza.  Should be enough for whatever "this" is (also "stupid").

We get to Wilson Creek and start following Big 'n Buttery's route.  Up some road, down some trail... Woodruff?

Come upon some familiar face parts that belong to some folks who make sure Wilson Creek is up to snuff for the bike cycling folks.

Bless and thank to Paul and dem boys.

Down to the bottom, and I didn't die.  First ride with a rigid frok on a mountain trail in so many months... so glad it was wet.  I gotta get this in the rotation more often.  I've lost a little of my touch.

Pizza break number one.

Back out on gravel and Big 'n Buttery points at the tiny houses on that mountain far away.  He says we're going there.

"Okay."

Paul, done with his trail work and on his way home, drives by me on the climb up Globe Road.

"You know you're headed to Blowing Rock?"

"Okay.  I don't know what that means... but okay."

Up and up...

Stop at a tiny babbling brook for pizza number two and a water refill...

And just like that, we as a group are outta water treatment potential.  I'm sure that's not a problem.

Stopping to look at the view and think about the future.

Past the gated road next to the visitor center at the top of the actual Blowing Rock and the signs that say "NO TRESPASSING" and "PRIVATE ROAD."

"It's okay."

Big 'm Buttery tells us to stop at some random turn.  We need to take a direct left off the road and walk down the mountain through the woods... and eventually there will be a gravel road down there somewhere.

Makes sense.

Up some road that turns into a power line cut that goes up another(?) mountain, and then Big 'n Buttery says we need to take another left... off the beaten path and through the woods and down the mountain.

Just down... and sorta sideways...

Looking for the end of a random trail that just stops in the woods somewhere and no one has really ever heard of it...

but, okay.

We eventually found the "trail," which was an old forgotten fire road covered in various vegetations and whatnot.

And while climbing up the "trail" that was supposed to be a "descent," I saw a wolf.  A "no shit, that's a wolf" wolf.  It took off when it saw me, ran across the "trail," and then up the mountain above us.  I stop and hold the others up.

"Anyone know what one should do when one encounters a wolf?"

"Stay together?"

We continue on, and when we get to the spot where I saw the wolf, you could smell it.  Not the wolf.  The wolf piss.

So, that's what wolf piss smells like.

We get to the bottom which isn't really a bottom, and we're probably forty miles in, and Todd's running outta water, and Big 'n Buttery just knows that we're on the other side of nowhere...

What ensued was a slogfest finish with much sharing of essentials and an unwarranted amount of climbing when it seemed as if all we'd been doing was climbing the entire eight hour day.

For the third time in just a little over a year, Betsy's Country Store saved my life.  I had stretched out three slices of pizza, two water bottles and a couple bonus sips for about forty five miles.  Now, I have a hot dog (with everything on it), Doritos, and a Coke in me.

While I wouldn't say it was the best ride I'd ever been on, it's the best in awhile.  Not to mention, when you're six hours into your day, outta food, clueless as to your whereabouts because your Wahoo says you're nowhere, and walking down the side of a mountain sometimes losing sight of your compatriots...

That's a good time, emmaright?

I wish I could actually "plan" such an adventure.

3 comments:

Michael Scott Long said...

👍😅

CB2 said...

If you put ketchup and relish on your hotdog, it's like having 2 vegetables

Anonymous said...

That was a much kinder recollection than it could have been. Let’s just say me telling good I have no f’ing clue but if we go left it’s sucks a whole lot for a whole lot longer, we go right it sucks slightly less was not one of my finer moments.