Sleeping in the forest and drinking from mountain streams we're no more then slowly rolling eyeballs; observers of life who have little effect on the worlds we pass through. Other then the flat patches of grass left by our tents no one would know we've come or gone.
But like everyone knows, some day's fall outside the bell curve of life, some days we have a dramatic impact on the worlds we pass through; and this, this was about to be one of those days. So sit back, take a deep breath, grab the arms of your chair and get tense, this is not a pleasant tale, I should know, I was there.
But first, let me start with a funny story; how about I'll end with one too it will be a nice way to keep the mood light.
We didn't nick name it Gorgia, short for Gorgeous Georgia (pronounced Gore-gee-ah) for nothing. Come to figure Gorgia's got everything, we as cycle tourists, could ask for; good friends, amazing weather, spectacular back roads, many of them hard pack dirt, exceptionally curtious drivers, varied terrain, swimming spots, good food, a church every ¼ mile equipped with a functioning outside tap so that you never need worry about water and most importantly, at least to us, a seeming infinite number of free camping spots; yes Gorgia is great for cycling!
On this particular afternoon we decided we'd had enough free camping nights in a row and that we'd venture into the Sinclare National Park campground on Lake Sinclare, happy to pay a small fee so we could swim and take showers. With the Global Gallivanting moto being, 'Today is out lucky day!' this one fell in stride; the park was closed, to everyone but cycle tourists that is. The heavy metal gate was locked a good ½ mile away from the camping and lake access so that anyone in a motorized vehicle probably would have just given the place a miss. Not an entrepreneurial trio of cyclists; bicycles easily find their way under, over, around and through closed gates, there is no such thing as closed to a cyclists, yah, the reason we are on these slow, awkward, painful contraption in the first place.
With 50 or so perfectly flat spots to choose from it was hard to make up the collective mind but we, Mango, myself, and our good buddy Borgosie, ie Jim, who was joining us for his spring break from teaching, decided upon two that were hidden away from and snooping, nosy motorboatists but still only a few feet from the waters edge. Time for a delightful dip and soap up with our hippie soap; who needs a shower, this is Gorgia and we are creatures of the earth! Next up deep friend chicken fingers, salad, cornbread and 1.5 lbs of cream cheese coated carrot cake, we were stuffed, at least I was, 'purging' crossed my mind more then once.
What better way to make room for the new arrivals then to visit the wwwoopp, world wide wonderland of outside places to poop. Borgosie headed east and Mango and I west. Unable to poo within close proximity of others I dug my hole an adequate distance from Mango. CRASH! BOOM! BANG! The forest erupts into a cacophony of sound. Mango flips on her headlamp and scans the surrounding darkness. Oh-my! There are two golden beady eyes headed straight for her. "A PIG!" she screams as she jumps up to run. What can I do but laugh; there is Mango, pants around her ankles, managing 6 inches a step. Then as abruptly as the racket began it ceases, ten feet from where she stood the eyes froze in space, apparently the 'pig' had only just spotted us and was as terrified of us as we of him.
"What should I do?" whispered Mango. "Umm…throw a stick at it?" I replied. Only missing by a foot the beady eyes don't flinch, then don't even blink. Who's ever out there is playing a very convincing 'dead'. Finishing my business I sneak over for a closer inspection, it does look an awful lot like a pig but the culprit is actually an overfed Gorgia campground possum, haha.
Later on we learn that when possums get scared they do 'freeze' in their tracks and play dead. That's why their carcass are covering the southern roadways; they step onto the tar, get scared, freeze up and wait to be run over. We we're also told that old timers who supplemented their diet with possum meat would venture into the forests, make a lot of racket, scaring any nearby possums, then walk over and chuck em in a sack.
Ok, time for the bad story:
Dogs, dogs, dogs, dogs! The South's got dogs; and lots of them of the wild, snarling, cyclists chasing variety. Not that we don't have our fair share at home, we do, but nothing compared to the backwoods farmland of the South. I figured as much and so have a handy dandy canister of mace zip tied right to my top tube ready to teach any dog who's keen a lesson. Truthfully I've been kind of looking forward to the occasion, I want to see what this little can of 'moose juice' is capable of.
With attentive eyes and a pretty cruisey pace we usually manage to spot the vermin before they get very close and are able to scare them off with intense shouting. It has been working so remarkably I haven't had an opportunity for macing. We've actually gotten kind of blasé about the whole 'dog' problem, let em close in, shout really loud and they buzz off.
The town of Cherokee, North Carolina is autonomous Native American land where gambling is legal; it looks like Wierse beach on steroids. It is run down and dumpy except for the malls and the 30-story casino serving as the city's heart. Half of the signs are about reporting child abuse, domestic violence, and voting no to alcohol. All good things, yes, but on their own evidence that the people of Cherokee are fighting an uphill battle.
It just so happens that Cherokee is the jumping off point for the Blue Ridge Park Way; the reason we're here in the first place, 600 miles of twisty mountainous roads and quiet National Park solitude. Traversing through the town and up the river we discover that the first section of the BRPW is closed! Some bull about tunnel repair, f, ok I guess there is such thing as closed to cycle tourists, darn. Back down the river, through Cherokee again and onto a busy road around the closed section to the next place we can get on the Park Way, 20 miles on. Ever think of posting a bloody sign?
Rt. 19, as we've found ourselves on, isn't that bad but it isn't that great either, steady-ish traffic, no shoulder but luckily it is pretty straight so the drivers can spot us a ways off; they aren't the only ones!
200 yards to our left, across a field filled with calf high grass, we can see a man working on his lawn mower or tractor, that I cannot remember that part clearly. With him he has got two dogs. Once we are perpendicular with him I actually think to myself, 'wow, the first guy on the trip with well behaved dogs, they are not even paying attention to us, nice work guy!" Come to find out they were not chasing after us because…they hadn't seen us yet. Then they do, and it is off to the races, which can get to us first. One's a big bulldog and the other a black mut, there is not much of a contest, the bull dogs legs are twice as long.
Astonishingly the owner actually looks up to watch his dogs chase down two cyclists and doesn't even once try to call his dogs back, 'fucking redneck idiot', I mutter. They are still a long way off but the closer the bull dog gets the more we realize, 'this dog means business, he ain't in it for the chase!' His heckles are straight up, he's snarling like he's got rabies and he is coming at us as fast as he possibly can. And he's not trying to come from behind like they typically do but he's going to hit us side on, like he's going to leap straight for one of our throats.
In hindsight, fear certainly got the better of us, we should have just pulled off the road, stood behind our bikes and maced and stoned the bastard but we didn't, we speed up instead so that he couldn't actually hit us side on.
Crossing into the road the dog is only ten feet behind us, we simultaneous let out the loudest sounds we are capable. For a moment he is undeterred and then unbelievably our second scream momentarily distracts him. He dodges to his left, our right, straight in front of the car behind us, luckily the driver isn't on his phone and has actually been paying proper attention to the road and has already slowed down, having watched the whole seen unfold. The driver taps his horn, I think in an attempt to try to scare the beast off the road and away from us but instead the dog dodges left yet again, this time into oncoming traffic. The other drivers have also slowed but not enough; squealing rubber, blaring horns, 'thwack' and it is all over, glancing back I see blue tire smoke as the truck skids into the breakdown lane and nothing else but two dismembered dog legs lying abandoned in the road behind.
We are both badly shaken, I actually think that I might throw up, but don't. So what do we do next? You might not think it is the right thing to have done, a week after the incident, actually able to write about it, I don't really think that it was, but it is what we did. Not wanting to have a confrontation with the redneck dog owner who just watched the whole thing happen or the driver of the probably smashed up truck and mostly not wanting to have anything to do with the mangled dog carcass; we lifted our chins, set our eyes on the horizon and kept peddling, neither one of us even looks back.
For the next half hour I was positive the dog owner was going to pull up in his rumbling farm truck and either run us off the road or pull over and try to fight us. I figured the mace would probably help out though what were we going to do next, mace some dude and then peddle off, we only average 8 miles an hour. Ok, we'd mace him, tie him up with the string in my bag and then call the cops, shit this sucks! But he didn't and screeching rubber was the last we ever heard of that horrible incident.
Back to fun:
A few days later, after having cycled on the BRPW proper for a hundred miles or so we find ourselves at the base of the largest climb of our trip. 13 miles of unrelenting up, a park ranger slows to wish us luck, says we'll need it, um thanks, I guess. Some how it is already 4pm, we've been in the saddle for almost 7 hours and a mile into the climb we've both had it. It is not a good thing to ride until you have both had it; decision-making breaks down, especially when you are looking for illegal places to camp. Unlike the flat farm land of Gorgia, the mountains of North Carolina do not easily lend themselves to stealth camping. There is basically no where flat; in the Blue Ridge Park Way if it's not uphill it is down hill. Arg! We start scouting for a flat piece of grass but there is nothing; we need one of those hangie rock-climbing cliff platforms for sleeping.
Ah, ha! There is a stream passing under the road and beside it a hiking trail. I duck down to check it out. Descending the embankment on the other side, I glance back into the tunnel the goes under the road. It is dark but I can see where some skate boarders have built a little bar to slide on, that is weird, and then further into the tunnel I spot two people, oh my, they appear to be partaking in some very rude public behavior, one is standing, one is not standing, wouzers! Peering in for a closer look, why not, that's not it at all, they are spray painting graffiti on the cement walls, wait a minute, that is not it either, they are simply walking towards me. Holly shit, we defiantly rode to far today, I'm loosing it. I turn and walk the other way, watch them ascend the embankment, get in their car and drive off, just a couple of hikers. We need to quit earlier tomorrow.
Sauntering down the trail I find a switchback with a landing just big enough for our tent! Yes!
After a good nights rest, Mango, being a tad gun shy, has dug a hole just on the other side of the tent. CRUNCH, CRUNCH, CRUNCH! Go the dried leaves; it is only 6:30am but there is undeniably a train of hikers already coming down the trail straight for us. "Is that hikers?" Mango hisses. "Sounds like it," I reply. They couldn't be more then ten feet around the bend. The crunching leaves are so loud now it sounds like someone might be playing a practical joke on us and has actually set up a speaker just out of sight and is blaring a crackling leaf recording. Only time for one wipe, Mango whips up her pant, flicks some leaves over the hole and stands 'at attention.' Then, not on the trail, but 20 feet uphill, in the woods what do we see…an e-freaken-normois turkey strutting his way along the turkey path, and then another, and then another, in front of us there are three of the largest turkeys on earth out for their mornings constitutional.
Love Mantis and Mango
