Day 11

Ahhhh. What a terrific day of bicycle touring. It's days like these I was hoping to have as I was pushing through 100 miles in Indiana, and that work has definitely paid off.

It took me a while to fall asleep last night for some reason, so I got yet another late start. No big deal, since I knew I wouldn't be in a hurry today. I did get my first opportunity to crap in the woods, so that was pretty exciting.

Anyway, I rolled down the forest road and back out to US 411 around 9:15. Crossed the Hiawassee River, and then turned back east again, onto TN 30, right back in the Cherokee National Forest. The road ran along the Hiawassee for 6 or 7 miles. It's a pretty wide river, but still quite fast-flowing, which makes sense because it's surrounded by some pretty big hills to feed it. In the National Forest there are lots of little stopping points on the roadway, and I stopped at several of them to get a look around. Eventually the road turned south, away from the river, and up a big ridge. Actually it was only about 400 feet of climbing, and quite easy compared to yesterday's climb. As long as the grade stays below 10%, I have enough gears on my bike so that climbing really isn't difficult at all, it just takes a long time. Then eventually it was back down again, this time following the twisting path of a small stream. Greasy Creek, I believe, although the water was totally clear. And then I hit another big river (the Ocoee), and another road that parallelled it (US 65/75), and took that east. The Ocoee isn't quite as wide as the Hiawassee, but it's even faster-flowing. In fact, there were continuous streteches of whitewater for miles. Eventually I found out that it's considered the best river for whitewater rafting in the Southeast (I saw several groups doing just that), and it was also the site of the whitewater rafting competition for the 1996 Olympics. So the Visitor's Center at the competition area was one of my many stops along the way. From the Visitor's Center, the road left the river and made a 500-foot climb to Boyd Gap, and in character with the rest of the National Forest area, they were nice enough to put in a scenic viewing-area at the top. Eventually I left the boundaries of the the Forest, and I was sad to see it go because it was some of the best riding I've had the whole trip.

I haven't listened to any music on this entire trip (beyond what I hear playing in stores and restaurants), but I almost always have a bit of a song going in my head. I've noticed that the songs are not random, they invariably come from some thought I had along the road, although it's not always obvious. As I was rolling out of the Cherokee National Forest, I got a song by Silent Scream going, and after a little while I realized it was because it has a line "No more Sioux, no more Cherokee". Earlier I would use "To the copse of trees!" from Iced Earth's "Gettysburg" (and Gettysburg lore in general) as a motivation to get to my next shady resting point. Sometimes it's a little scary how I pull these things up, especially since I'm not much of an expert on lyrics.

With that Silent Scream song still in my head, I turned south on TN 68, which turned into GA 5 at the state border. Not a very exciting border-crossing, but I got a picture anyway. I was expecting to pretty much just roll into the town of Blue Ridge, GA, but I actually had a lot more climbing to do. Boyd Gap was at 1500 ft., and I spent most of the time on GA 5 at 1500 to 1700 ft. Going up and down on a road that wasn't nearly as nice as the National Forest roads, filled with drivers who were a lot more aggressive than those on the National Forest roads. See how easy it is for me to get spoiled?

Eventually I made it to Blue Ridge, and then a bit southeast, where I entered the Chattahoochee National Forest (yay!), surrounding Blue Ridge Lake. Like yesterday, the road turned to gravel (hooray for the 700x35C tires!), and I wondered if this would be another "dispersed" camping opportunity (that's the Forest Service language for camping outside of campgrounds). But eventually, the campground I was looking for appeared, and it's beautiful. Easily worth the $8. There are 60 sites, all really large and isolated from each other, although that's really not a concern now since I think there is only one other family in the whole place (and they're tent camping, which makes them I think the fourth tent-campers that I've seen, and I've been looking!) I got in around 5:30, which was really early, and it made all the difference in the world. I took a walk down to the lake, waded a bit, and just sat there relaxing for a long time. The lake is formed by a dammed river, and it's a very weird place. The water level seemed to be about 20 feet below its maximum, exposing red rocks all around, and the whole area was dead quiet, with almost a desert-like feel to it. A guy was walking down the steps to his pier about on the other side of the branch I was on (about 200 yards away), and I could hear each step echoing across the lake. Eventually I hauled myself back to get cleaned up. I was expecting pit toilets, but they have real bathrooms, including showers! Ok, there's no electricty, and the shower comes in one temperature (cold), but it was a lot more than I was hoping for. Then I went to pitch my tent. I have a plastic sheet I put on the ground under my tent, and often I'll just put that down on it and lay on it, to see what the ground feels like. This time after I laid down, I probably didn't get up for 20 minutes; I was just flat on my back, watching the clouds and the birds fly by above me. And then I even built a campfire! All the other days it seems like I've always been so busy doing "something" related to the journey. I haven't felt rushed or too busy, but this was really the first time that I've had a chance to do "nothing". So, for the first time, this suddenly felt like more than just a journey, it became a real vacation.