We went for a drive and as we were headed up Bunker Hill Road, one of my usual cycling routes, the road was blocked and we suddenly had to stop. We later learned that there was a mudslide, and some trees had been knocked over by the storm. I sure am glad I wasn’t out riding there at the time!

Later, the rain stopped and the sun came out, and we were on the lookout for rainbows. As we drove up a big hill, sure enough, we spotted part of a beautiful rainbow.

We continued our drive, and I took her on the route I rode the previous weekend. That’s something we’ve taken to doing. A lot of times if we feel like going for a drive, I’ll take Sarah and show her a route I’ve ridden. It’s great to be able to share the places I find with her, even though she isn’t into cycling. And I always see things a bit differently, too.

We saw a lot of beautiful scenery that day, but the rainbow was the highlight of our trip.

Tracks by the Susquehanna River

Looking the other way

Tunkhannock

Another part of Tunkhannock

Weird house

The house across the street

Darkness falls

Door

Annotated route overview

I got a later start than I planned. This is typical for me. Getting up, having breakfast, and breaking down the tent and everything took a lot longer than I expected. The main downside to this was that it was already heating up by the time I hit the road.

Riding

Despite the heat, I was in good spirits. It felt good to be back on the bike, and not being in a hurry makes the heat more tolerable.

Riding through Jackson-Washington State Forest

A pond on the way out

Jackson County is a very interesting place to ride. Most the land is flat, but huge hills (“knobs”) surround you. Sometimes there will be cornfields on both sides of you, and it just feels like you’re riding down the middle of a cornfield. Sometimes there are soybeans planted instead, which give you better views of the hills.

Soy fields and hills

A church

The route I planned was mostly on back roads. I rode a bit on State Road 39, and it was quiet, but you never know with the state highways. Some are nearly vacant and have relatively low speed limits. Some are very busy and have fast traffic. There’s generally no way of knowing which kind of road any given state highway will be until you get there. I stuck with my planned ride on back roads.

It wasn’t long before I hit gravel. Quite suddenly, the pavement ended and I was riding on gravel. It was fairly tightly-packed gravel, and I had a tailwind. I rode around 20 mph on gravel for some time — I was flying, and it felt great.

Where the pavement ends

My bicycle by some corn.

Cornfields and hills

I got a little confused about the route. I thought I went the right way, but soon started seeing things again that I had seen earlier in the ride. I was going in circles. Fortunately, I had brought my Gazetteer and a compass with me. I highly recommend carrying both, if you can. I was able to figure out, fairly easily, where I messed up and where I needed to go. I otherwise would’ve had to make a series of guesses to get myself out of this mess. And I went a good 30 minutes without seeing any cars, so asking for directions wouldn’t have worked too well.

Unfortunately, I had gone several miles out of the way. It took me a while to get back on track. Fortunately, I was really enjoying the scenery and it didn’t bother me too much. I knew that given this mistake, I’d be late to meet Sarah, but there wasn’t much I could do about it at this stage.

Dilapidated barn

I got back on track and had some more gravel riding to do. It wasn’t as smooth this time around, but it was still fun. This road was a bit curvier, and the turns kept me on my toes. It would have been easy to have a wheel wash out, on a bicycle less suited to gravel.

Hay bales

More gravel

I spent quite a while on Waskum Bridge Road. I was hoping this meant I’d be hitting a bridge soon. I went over one small one but I couldn’t imagine they’d name the road after such a small bridge. Sure enough, I soon reached a bigger bridge, with one stream to the west, which branched into two on the east side of the bridge. I looked around for turtles or other wildlife but didn’t see any. I did, however, see a dirt road running alongside the stream. This was awesome, because I’ve been wanting to try riding my new bike on a dirt road, but have had a hard time finding any.

The stream splits

I didn’t ride on the dirt road for very long, but the bike handled quite well while I did. I simply didn’t want to waste too much time, since I was already behind schedule. The tires had good traction, even in the loose dirt. It had been a long time since the last rain and things were quite dusty.

Dirt road

My tire treads in the dust

After a while I ended up back on paved roads, and spent some time on Pumpkin Center Road, a fun, curvy country road. I was hoping I’d get to see a bunch of pumpkins or something, but no such luck. I did see yet another interesting hilltop cemetery.

Pumpkin Center Road

Gater Cemetery

It was around this time that the rolling hills started. No single hill was all that big, but I rode over many hills, one right after the other. It was really getting hot at this point, so I didn’t tackle the hills with as much fervor as I normally would. I was content to spin over gradually. The Trucker’s lower gearing really came into play here and while I was moving slowly, I was able to take on the hills without exhausting myself too much.

Rolling hills on Pumpkin Center Road

I ended up on State Road 39 for a little while, and there was pretty much no traffic. I could have ridden that road most of the way down and it would’ve been more direct and an easier route to follow. However, I really enjoyed the back roads. I soon ended up on Bloomington Trail Road, which had more rolling hills, some of them much bigger. I got turned around a couple of times but soon found my way. The Gazetteer came in handy once again. I also got to ride through the Leota covered bridge, which was pretty cool.

Several times I had tried to talk to Sarah by phone to let her know I was running late, but doing fine. Eventually I managed to communicate that to her, despite the fact that our phones both had poor reception and most of the time, we were only able to exchange greetings before our signals were dropped.

Bloomington Trail Road, with big hills in the distance

A knob

The hills continued getting bigger. Still nothing too hard, but again, cumulatively I was feeling it. But I was almost there. Sarah had told me she and Rob were waiting by a church. When I was in the right area and saw a church, I figured I must have found them.

Arriving at the church

When I pulled into the parking lot, they were waiting for me.

What a greeting!

The ride ended up being longer than I expected by about 10 miles — about 35 miles total. My bicycle was a mess from all the dirt and gravel roads. And so was I. I had a great ride, but I was glad to be done. The heat was getting to me.

Dirty bike

Me

We hung out in the parking lot a little bit. A guy went by repeatedly on a tractor, hauling hay bales one at a time. Sarah said he’d been at it for quite some time. He waved every time he went by.

Hauling hay bales

Brooks saddle, Keven’s Bag, and my Indiana Gazetteer

We put my bike on the bike rack and drove into town to get some lunch. We found a local restaurant where my beef Manhattan looked suspiciously like Sarah’s turkey, except for the color of the gravy. It was one of those small diner-type places where everything is bland and inoffensive. It’s always nice to know where the local mediocre generic American food restaurant is. On our way out we saw the following sign.

FREE FLOYD!

We had planned to hike in Clark State Forest, but it was really hot and we were exhausted. We opted just to drive through. We’ll return there someday soon, I’m sure. The drive through the forest took us to the top of one of the knobs, and it was a steep, twisty climb. I simply must attempt it by bicycle sometime. The car was struggling with it a bit at times. The view from the top is absolutely breathtaking. It’s hard to believe this is the midwest with views like this. The elevation at this point was over 1,000 feet.

View from the top

Another view

It was a beautiful trip. I wished it hadn’t been soon hot as I would’ve loved to explore the area some more. But we were exhausted already, and drove home. We took the scenic route and I showed Sarah some of the things I saw on my way to Jackson-Washington State Forest.

All in all, I’d say the trip was a success. We need to streamline things in the future, but this worked fairly well. I can’t wait to go camping together again. And the touring bug has bit hard, and I’m itching to do an unsupported trip sometime soon.

Now, there’s a saying that Chicago has two seasons: winter and construction. And there’s a lot of truth to it. Last time we were there, it was winter and the high temperature was hovering around 0 degrees. This time, the drive up there, which is usually about 4 1/2 hours, took over six hours. We hit major construction and traffic on the way there. In fact, every leg of our trip was plagued with traffic jams. The drive back from Green Bay, which was supposed to be about 7 1/2 hours, took more like 10 1/2 hours. Yikes!

I’ve lived in Chicago before, and I have a lot of fond memories there — but this trip served as a reminder of just how much I prefer living in a smaller town. A place where parking isn’t an issue and the roads aren’t packed with vehicles all the time. A town that sleeps. And, a place where getting out of the city doesn’t involve driving for an hour or more. I have re-adapted to a much slower-packed lifestyle, and I love it. During some more frustrating moments, I found myself thinking of the Fred Neil song “Badi-Da:”

I get so tired
Hanging round this town
Oh this old city life
Sure brings a fella down

ba da da da da da
ba da da da da da da
ba da da da da da
ba da da

I sure get tired
Trying to sleep at night
Oh these old city lights
They keep on burning bright

ba da da da da da
ba da da da da da da
ba da da da da da
ba da da

I get so tired
Hanging round this town
Oh this old city life
Sure brings a fella down

ba da da da da da
ba da da da da da da
ba da da da da da
ba da da

On a positive note, Chicago was absolutely crawling with bicycles. I don’t remember seeing nearly as many bicycles when I lived there a few years ago. Was I not paying attention, or has bicycling exploded in popularity in Chicago in the past few years? Even late at night, we saw tons of cyclists.

It seemed like, based on what I saw, Chicago is probably a good place to ride, if you can somehow stay safe amongst all the insane drivers (and there are a lot of them).

I wish I had something to say about Green Bay, but we saw very little of it since we spent almost all of our time on wedding-related activities. It seemed like a nice city, much smaller than Chicago but big enough that it seems to have a lot going on.

The wedding, of course, was fantastic. This couple was the first of my close friends from college to get married, and I couldn’t be happier for them. Sarah and I will be next, in just over a month!

Saturday was a lot of fun, after getting some lunch, we set out with no real destination in mind. We drove east until we hit Columbus, IN, then headed south. In the middle of nowhere, we came across Granny B’s CDs and DVDs, a smallish shop that was just packed with CDs, DVDs, books, and VHS tapes. We were puzzled to find this shop in such a remote area, and bought a few things very cheaply. It was an intriguing find.

Shortly thereafter, Sarah saw a sign for the Chateau de Pique winery. We followed a couple of signs and found ourselves at this small winery that is new as of last year, and as the woman we talked to stated, is “poised to become the #3 winery in Indiana.” We tasted several wines, including their Sauvignon Blanc (good, and very refreshing), Chardonnay (more intense than the Sauvignon Blanc), the Chandelle Cherry wine (tart, and better than I expected), and their Cabernet Merlot (a little mild for my tastes). All were pretty solid, but we preferred the slightly stronger Chardonnay to the Sauvignon Blanc. We bought a bottle of the Chardonnay to take home with us and took a few photos of the surrounding land.

Tent

Rows of grape vines

Grapes

Tendrils

Barn and field

Sarah, with her new camera

Open

We didn’t stick around too long, and drove on to Seymour, then to Muscatatuck NWR. There are a number of marshy areas here, and we saw tons of wildlife, mainly in the form of dragonflies and birds. I even tried to get a few dragonfly shots … it’s more difficult than you’d think. They can be really elusive.

Dragonfly

Wildflowers

Marsh

Pond/marsh

Lilly pads

Creek

Geese

Great egret in the distance — there were several of these and a couple of Great Blue Herons

Ripples

We also hiked the Turkey Trail, a one-mile trail, although we took a wrong turn and hiked half of the bird trail, too. It was a lovely day for a hike.

We also saw a bunch of black and white dragonflies, like this guy

Sarah on the Turkey Trail

Brown dragonfly

We also kept seeing some green dragonflies but I couldn’t get them to sit still long enough to take a photo. Alas.

Wetland

After we finished hiking, we drove pretty much directly home. It was getting to be pretty late in the day. This was different from our normal outings, but we certainly enjoyed it. Muscatatuck is a cool place, but it’s more geared toward observation than hiking, overall. We had fun, but stayed a little too close to the car most of the time.

I’m hoping to do some riding this weekend, if I can breathe well enough to do so. It’s been over two weeks now since I’ve gone for a ride, a couple of commutes notwithstanding.

We decided to grab some food in Franklin before heading to the cabin, not having much of an idea how far it was, or how long it would take to find it. I was already nervous about finding it in the dark, and trying to get my 1996 Ford Taurus up the gravel road the owner said goes up the side of the mountain to the cabin. We almost got to a barbeque restaurant before it closed, but it was a little too late. We ended up eating McDonald’s, which was fine with me. We were hungry, and just glad to find some food.

By the time we got back on the road, it was completely dark. We found our way out of town to Highway 28, which is similar to 64 in its windiness and even joins with 64 for a while. It was a fun road to drive on, but in the dark, it was very challenging and a bit nerve-wracking. I got a lot better at driving on roads like this one over the course of the trip, but it was scary at first. We couldn’t really see the mountains, or much of anything, but we found ourselves pretty far out of town, in an area that felt very remote. This was what we wanted, but it was hard to find at night. We put in a Mercury Rev album, perfect for a warm summer night drive through unfamiliar country.

The directions got more obtuse, saying to veer right after Citgo station on the left. I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but as we passed the landmarks on the map, and then something that looked like what the owner described, only with a BP station, we figured that must have been the turn we needed. It turned out to be the right road; apparently, the Citgo was turned into a BP station. I cracked a joke about the directions saying to “veer right where the old Citgo used to be,” referencing an 80s comedy (bonus points if you can guess the movie).

We followed this road which I believe was Cowee Creek Road (there were also Cowee Valley Road, Cowee Vista Road, Cowee Lane, and other variants) and came to the Cherokee Ruby Mine. We turned left on the gravel road there as instructed, drove over a creek, and the road became very steep, went through several 180-degree switchbacks, and eventually came to the driveway to the cabin. After making that probably 150-degree turn, we drove up the driveway and saw the cabin!

The Taurus had performed admirably in conditions it wasn’t designed to handle. I was impressed. The cabin stood before us, illuminated only by the headlights of the car, but it looked impressive to my eyes. It was a real, honest-to-goodness log cabin. I sort of expected a quaint, small house that was only actually a cabin in name, but this was the real deal, as far as we could tell. We found the key under the mat, as promised.

We got inside and were even more impressed. The cabin had one large room that functioned as living room/dining room/kitchen, a loft, a bathroom, and one bedroom. The bedroom and large room had window AC units, so we turned those on. It had been a long, hot day in an un-airconditioned car. We had to turn on the circuit breaker to the water heater.

We drank some beer and attempted to write in our journals before bed. It was really difficult to do, though, and we soon gave up and went to bed. We were anxious to see what the cabin actually looked like, the promised mountain view out the gazebo in back, and what the area looked like, but those things would have to wait until morning. There wasn’t enough light to see any of it.

Sunday afternoon, Sarah and I headed out to go to the cabin we rented in Franklin, NC. We were on interstates for about half of the way, but we got tired of that and really wanted to see the area more, so we ditched the interstate for U.S. Highway 64. This turned out to be an excellent choice, because it was the coolest road I had ever driven on, winding through mountains with a lot of switchbacks and sharp turns, ups and downs, and a whole lot of beautiful scenery along the way. In fact, it’s part of a scenic byway of some sort (I’ll have to look up exactly what) and followed a river for a long while, also going near many waterfalls. This route took a lot longer than the interstate would have, but it was so much better that it was well worth it.

Shortly after passing through Highlands, NC, which seemed to have a huge golf resort, we happened to a sign for the Whiteside Mountain trail, which we had on our list of possible hikes in the Franklin area. We decided to stop and hike it right then. This would probably mean trying to find the cabin in the dark, which concerned me, but I wanted a break from driving, and this was probably the only way we could fit in a hike on Sunday.

Whiteside Mountain wasn’t the longest hike, or the most difficult hike, but it turned out to be our favorite hike of the whole trip. It’s about a 2-mile loop, and the description we read said that it was a little better to go up the steeper way and come back down on the more gradual part of the trail. So that’s what we decided to do. It was fairly steep, with rocky sections and steps through part of it, but it wasn’t too bad.

Sarah on the Whiteside Mountain trail

After climbing for a while, we found ourselves at an overlook with a rock surface onto which I climbed a bit.

Rock wall on Whiteside Mountain. I climbed out for a better view.

The view from the wall

As we were admiring and photographing the view and I was on the rock wall, Sarah dropped her camera bag. It rolled a bit down the mountain. I climbed back down from the wall and found a good path to her camera case, and retrieved it. We continued hiking, and saw a small trail going off to the right. We followed it and found another overlook, with a place you could go out onto the rocky face of the mountain. We worked our way out there and took a break, drinking some water and sharing a granola bar.

Sarah at the second overlook

Sarah, by the edge

View from the second overlook

A rock “face”

We went back to the main trail, hiked some more, and saw another side trail. There were probably 5-7 of these overlooks, and each one had a significantly different view. Here are some more photos from the other overlooks.

The coolest thing about these overlooks was that on most of them, you could go right out to the edge of the mountain, with no railings or anything like that. You had to be careful, but these were some of the most spectacular views of our entire trip. Not only that, the feeling of being on top of the world, and being right on the edge, is incredible.

The hike down the side of the mountain was pretty easy, part of it taking an old road. Supposedly, there used to be a post office at the top where you could mail postcards to people. That sounds convenient, but I was glad it wasn’t like that. We only� saw a few other people during this hike. It was our mountain.

The Blue Ridge Parkway is not an efficient way to get anywhere, with a parkway-wide speed limit of 45 mph, and many sections where it’s not safe to go that fast because it’s a winding mountain road. But our friends in Charlotte had to work that day anyway, so we figured we’d take our time getting there. The section we were on had numerous tunnels, which were pretty cool. We saw a few cyclists, and I have to admit I was tempted to get the bike off the back of the car and start riding.

It was a very hot day, but we didn’t care. I was still in awe that I was in the presence of so much beauty. Then again, that’s a feeling I get every day with Sarah. The mountains were nice, too.

The Blue Ridge Parkway has overlooks very frequently, and we had to resist the temptation to stop at each and every one. Driving on it is almost like being immersed in a gigantic slideshow, passing overlooks on both sides. Looking back at our photos, they all seem to run together now, but when you’re there, the feeling is intoxicating, and each overlook takes on its own personality.

At one overlook, I stood on the roof of the car (much to Sarah’s dismay) to get a better angle. You can see a photo of me on the car on Sarah’s blog.

I experimented with some infrared photography at some of the overlooks. Here are a few examples.

After a while, we stopped taking photos and mostly drove through. We played some Telefon Tel Aviv in the car, which is one of our favorite groups. They also happen to make incredibly gorgeous music, which was a perfect backdrop for the scenery.

We hadn’t had enough, but we had spent so much time gaping and taking photographs that if we needed to get moving. We ended up driving about 90 miles on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and even that drive itself takes a long time.

We checked out of the Days Inn and noticed that there is a mountain view in front of the building. It was a decent place to stay, at a reasonable price ($60), at a good location. We’ll probably stay there again on future trips to the Smokies.

The Days Inn’s mountain view, complete with Wendy’s and Subway signs. Still, not bad …

We weren’t terribly far from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The directions I initially got had us driving along the edge of the park instead of through it, but I thought we might like to get a glimpse of the park before continuing on to Charlotte. Plus, we wanted to drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway, which starts (or, more accurately, ends) in Cherokee, NC. You have to go through the park to get to Cherokee, so it made sense to do it this way.

To do this, we had to drive through Gatlinburg, Tennessee, which is where a lot of people like to go for their Smokies vacations. It didn’t look at all appealing to me, with endless strip malls, hotels, and a vast array of tourist attractions, most of which had nothing to do with the mountains at all. I understand that what a lot of people want isn’t the same as what we wanted (to be close to nature and away from crap like that), but it still seemed weird to me that people go so close to so much beauty and spend their time in resorts or playing miniature golf and go-carting.

We stopped at the visitor’s center, primarily because Sarah was getting a little carsick. It was getting hot, and the air conditioning in our car doesn’t work, so the heat combined with the mountain roads was making her feel a bit sick. She felt better after a few minutes, and we continued on our way. I didn’t mind picking up a few maps and pamphlets anyway.

The drive through the Park on 441 was just awesome. I was tempted to pull off at each overlook and gape at how awesome the mountains were, but I knew if we did this, we would never reach Charlotte. Besides, we’d be back later in our trip. We decided not to stop at all during this trip through the park. It was also a very fun drive, as it’s a windy mountain road. I was a little concerned about how well the car would handle it, but we had no problems.

We listened to the Woven Hand album “Mosaic” while driving through the park. I thought the mood and atmosphere of it fit the scenery perfectly.

After driving through the park, we stopped in Cherokee, NC for lunch. We ended up eating at the “Riverside Cafe II.” Sarah had the flounder basket (which was not served in a basket), and I had an Indian Taco, which was described to me as a funnel cake (not sweet though) topped with chili, lettuce, tomato, and cheese. It wasn’t bad, but I have to wonder if it was approximating a specific Cherokee dish, and if so, what that dish really would’ve tasted like, because I’m sure this wasn’t it.

 
Riverside Cafe II / Indian Tacos

We also got some coffee at a local coffee shop (my photo didn’t turn out) and headed out toward the Blue Ridge Parkway.