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Tuesday, June 23

Opportunity knocks...

and I look out the peephole, peep it right in the eye, pace around the room, wonder if mebbe another opportunity might come knocking later, wonder why I never fixed the doorbell (that's for real), and after much consternation, I welcome it into my life.

Nick had Friday off, and I had Friday off, so why not pack up and head west... again?  No Bill Nye style van life, but good ole camping in tiny science fabric houses.

First stop, DuPont.

There were some leftover appreciation biscuits at work the other day, so I made sure to secure enough for a long weekend's worth of trail food.  I felt bad about leaving mountain pizza off the menu, but when life gives you sausage biscuits, make sausage biscuit-ade.

We tried to not get too aggressive with our day one plans.  Chances of thunder boomers and wanting to get into Knoxville at a reasonable hour and whatnot.

A loop out to Ridgeline and such and then over here..

To watch the dark clouds rolling our way... complete with lightning bolts and impending doom.  We only had to hunker down once and wait for the rain to stop before heading back to the car... and after we got all packed up, the bottom dropped out.

On to Knoxville...

Show up at the Brown Bike Farms... which is way more "farms" than "bike."  All I can say is that if you're looking to pitch a tent and nothing more, this is your place (okay, the lightning bugs were cool).  If you wanna poop somewhere other than a hole you created with a stick, or bathe in something other than a somewhat murky creek, or have a sign that tells you that you're even in the right place.... mebbe somewhere else.

Nick and I watched people pull in, drive around aimlessly looking at available "sites," shrug their shoulders... and go, "this must be it?"

Same as us.

Anyways...

Up with coffee and looking for a place to make a deposit and then over to ride the Urban Wilderness.

Devil's Race Track and also Satan's Biscuit.

Same drop as when I rode with Bill Nye and same same blurry photo.  The outfit might be different.

We headed over to some of the trails I didn't get to ride with Bill Nye last week.

Nick wasn't a big of a fan of these.

Down to the AC/DC part of the world... which Nick insisted I wanted to ride just because AC/DC.

Walls are for riding, not for keeping people out of your country.

Droopy dropping on Lost Chromosome.

Nick banging it through the bamboo to get back to his happy place where the trails flow like shaved ice at Mead's Quarry.

More than thirty miles and most but not all of everything because leaving meat on the bone ain't always a bad idea.

Into downtown to get some Falafel to be eaten in the shadow of the John J Duncan Federal Building.  Back to the "camp" where were relieved to see that our tents were still there... not like they were gonna get stolen... it's just... leaving a tent in an empty field in the middle of nowhere?

I guess the black market value of a used tent isn't what I think it is.  Sit and drink beer and watch more people drive in and look around and shrug shoulders... and nobody else in the Bike Farm has a bike... again.

Up and out and headed to Pisgah.

Spencer, Fletcher and Trace on the plan-o-gram today.

I mighta started the day with a "what, another bike ride up a mountain?" kinda attitude, but after we got going down Spencer, I was much happier.

Also happier after a biscuit.

Looped everything around in a way that got us twenty miles... and taught me that there's a better way to get around that part of the woods to maximize the smiles per mile.

What to do this upcoming weekend?

I heard Knoxville is nice...

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