One Week Later: After Action Report

I took the last week off from any riding, and went for my first ride since the tour yesterday.  I went on one of my training routes, one of the hillier ones, on my racing bike.  After 9 days lugging all my gear up the mountains, I felt like Speed Racer.  I think I need to rename my daughter Spritle and my Wife Trixie, now.  The cat can be Chim Chim.

(right to left) My daughter and the cat.

Just tying up a few loose ends about the tour.  My wife met me in Front Royal a couple of hours after I checked in to the hotel.  In that time I had already eaten a large chocolate malted, a banana split, 4 peanut butter cups and 2 cupcakes.  Cindy brought champagne to celebrate my ride. We went out for an early dinner at TGI Fridays where I had too much to eat.  It was wonderful.

The next day, Tuesday, we drove down to NC to pick up my daughter (Spritle) from my folks place.  They greeted me with more champagne, and Cathy had made me a carrot cake as well.

If you look closely, you will see a letter 'e" in the in white sprinkles.  Yes my daughter can spell.  She was very proud of her creativity.  The candle on the left is blue, for Blue Ridge Parkway, and the one on the left is white for the SKYline Drive.  The bike is the same colors as mine.

  While in Ashville, my folks had been to the Folk Art Center on the parkway and got a poster for me.  They had it framed and presented it to me when I picked up my daughter:

They said they got the last copy of this from the Folk Art Center.

Is that cool, or what?

After Action Report:

What went well:

- Panniers up front was an excellent idea.  I'll do that one again.

- Ketogenic diet I was NEVER hungry even when I couldn't find food in the middle of the day

-  I really like the Eureka Spitfire one man tent, but not the poles that come with it.

- I didn't need to take all of the extra phone batteries.  Next tour, I'll just take one.

- Pre-ride training. Spent a lot of time on the fixed gear riding hills.  I think that helped.

What didn't go well:

- Super high tech, lightweight front hub.  Just wasn't made to carry the load.

-lightweight air mattress.  maybe it was too old??

-"Bicycling the Blue Ridge" by Elizabeth/Charlie Skinner.  The copyright is only 3 years old and it is WAAAY out of date.

Songs that go through your head on a bike tour through the mountains:
-"Spinning Wheel" by Blood Sweat and Tears (What goes up must come down)
-"Climb Every Mountain" from The Sound of Music
-"Those Magnigficent Men in their flying Machines" (They go uppity up up, they go down-ditty down down)
-"Ride Like the Wind" by Christopher Cross (Only down hill)
-"Copa Cabana" by Barry Manilow...okay, I just threw that one in to get an earworm on my wife.

Vocabulary terms from the BRP:

The Following is a list of words that  I liked while riding the Parkway.  They generally meant that I was at the top of something and I was about to go downhill.  I very much enjoyed seeing these.

-Overlook

-Ridge

-Meadow (who would have thought??)

-Vista

-Radar/Radio

-watershed (you crossed into one at the top)

-campground, picnic area, wayside (they always put these on top)

The following is a list of evil words that I did not enjoy at all.  They make me sad, and will continue to do so until my scars heal, or until I do a tour of Kansas

-gap (the most evil word of all)

-river, creek, stream, lake...anything watery.... except watershed

-hollow

-holler

-route (any road crossing meant you were at the bottom)

-Trading Post..okay, not really a bottom thing, it's just that they never had any food

-"Bicycling the Blue Ridge" by Eliz.....we covered this, didn't we?

And now, a word about my Butt

The number one limiting factor in this ride, deciding when I had to take a break was NOT my legs.  They were generally strong throughout the day.  it was how long I sat in my saddle.  I have no idea how you can really prepare your tookus for a ride like this.  I have, arguably, the worlds most comfortable saddle, a broken in Brooks B17

Whoops, wrong image

Okay, there it is

I know what you're thinking, looking at this hunk of un-sprung, un-padded leather.  "Well, that explains it.  He probably walks like Roy Rogers after an hour on that."  There are plenty of people who don't like these saddles.  I'll argue that most of them just didn't take the time to get it set up at the right angle and break it in properly.  Spend a few hundred miles on one of these (not in one sitting) and it will soften and conform to your bones.  You literally make dents in the leather where your sit bones are.

Now here's the catch (I  think) for me.  In the past 4 months, I lost close to 40 pounds.  I had previously broken in my saddle with my nice fleshy butt.  I now have a skinny(er) posterior.  Those sit bones poke out more than on any other tour I've been on.  Add to that the fact that you can't stand up and mash the pedals going up the hills when you are loaded.  If you throw the bike from side to side, you'll be chasing your sleeping bag down a mountain.  When I got to, say, Apple Orchard Mountain, I had no choice but to hunker down and start spinning.  About 3 miles into it, things start getting warm.  Then hot.  Then certain neighboring regions start getting numb.  Unfortunately, it's not my sit bones getting numb.  They are singing the "Anvil Chorus" in rhythm with my pedal strokes by then.

So you get off the saddle and sit on a nice, comfy, flat stone wall, because it's all you can find halfway up a mountain.  You are throbbing so much that a stone wall feels good.  Give it 10 minutes to start feeling better (have some pepperoni and macadamias) and summon up the courage to sit on the saddle again.  5 minutes later, you're looking for a stone wall again.

To attempt to delay the inevitable tookus trauma, you stand as you go down the hills.  This feels wonderful.  Your thighs might not approve, after the work they just did getting you up there, but you made a choice.  Tough noogies for your thighs.  The ascent up the mountain took 45 minutes.  You get 3 minutes going down at 35MPH.  Then you reach a gap...or a river, or a holler.  and the cycle repeats over and over again for 6-8 hours a day.  For 9 days.  Now you know why I took all of those stupid pictures of caterpillars, or log cabins, or a @$^#&! fence.  I just wanted to get off my BUTT for a couple of minutes.

Day 9: Stick me with a fork..

My Momma always said when you can see the underside of the leaves, it's gonna rain.  It did.  sometime overnight it started and it was still going when I woke up.  I wanted to leave by 7, and considered waiting to see if the rain would let up.  I decided, instead, to put on my Elmer Fudd orange rain jacket and dig in.  I was done today, in every sense.  Physically, mentally, emotionally, I was done and wanted to go home.  Or at least finish riding and see my wife and daughter again.

I rode in the rain most of the morning.  This cut into my average MPH, because I couldnt' scream down the mountains.  Visibility was just aweful and traction would be questionable as well.  I didn't care.  Get me home, no mater how slow.  Heck, if someone in a truck took pity on the wet cyclist and offered me a ride to Front Royal, I would have thrown the bike in the back even if he were wearing a hockey mask.

One good thing about the early start was the wildlife sightings.  On the Blue Ridge Parkway, the animals are a little more skittish, being so close to people all of the time.  Here on the Skyline Drive, they are protected, unhunted and fearless.  I saw a rafter (bunch) of turkeys walking along a stone wall early on.  They jumped off the minute I stopped to take a picture.  I got a couple of great shots of deer right next to the road at Big Meadows.  One of them was 5 feet away from me and didn't even look up when I took her picture. (where's my compound bow??)  the kicker was around milepost 8, at the end of the day.  BEAR #2.  I was blazing down a mountain (rain had stopped) and there he was, getting ready to cross the road.  I said a few ungentlemanly words and hoped he didn't try to cross.  At that speed, with a loaded bike there was NO WAY I could have dodged him.  I think he heard me and took offense, because he skedattled the other way at the last moment.

I knew I had 3 big hills for the day.  Experience told me I should rest often (see day 4), but I just wanted to be done.  My only stop for the day was at Elkwallow Wayside for lunch.  I even splurged and got onion rings with my burger  :)  I knew I just had to make it to milepost 6, after that it was one last downhill to the entrance.  Those last 6 miles were an ear-to-ear grin as I knew I had made it.  My butt hurt, my knees were sore again, but I was DONE!  I made it.  500 miles.  Woo Hoo!  The only complaint was that I couldn't find anyone to take my picture at the entrance in Front Royal.  Once again, we get a shot of my bike, like  it did the ride without me  :)

Last ThrillCam of the trip.  About 7:30 in the morning, riding in the rain and fog.

There's no zoom on this one, I was right next to Bambi.

Okay, I had to zoom on this one.  There were about a dozen deer just grazing away, right next to the road.  I snapped this one because of the coat rack on his head.

Finally stopped raining around 11ish.  Down below, maybe a different story.

Skyline Lodge Entrance.  It's only about 9:00 in the morning.  No reason to stop.

The bike finished the ride without me, that's why I'm not in the picture.  I was still about 15 miles up the Drive looking for a lift.

503 miles, though you can add about 7 more miles to that for the booze run in  Roanoke and the gremlins on day 8.

58 miles on the last day and a respectable average considering the 3 big hills for the day.

I know it's a weird last shot.  I wore sandals the whole way, you can see my suntan from the last 9 days.

Day 8: This is more like it

Jim picked me up from my hotel a little before 8 am and got me to the Parkway in about 5 minutes.  He drives like he rides.  Full throttle.  I found out the rest of the story with him in that short ride.  The day before, he put on a fresh jersey before his wife took his picture in front of the BRP sign and said, "Gotta put on the sponsor jersey."  Jim is a pro rider for the Seven Cycles MTB Team.  When he's not racing he's a wrench at High Gear Cyclery in New Jersey where the website refers to him as "Uber Wrench."  If I'm gonna get smoked on my ride, I like knowing he gets paid to be fast.  I'm slow for free :)

The Flex-all did the trick for my knees.  The Holy Communion probably helped too, despite the Catholic aerobics of stand/sit/kneel for an hour the night before.  I started off the morning with incredibly fresh legs.  it felt like day one all over again.  Skyline drive is a much nicer ride, in many ways.  The scenery is excellent, there are lots of overlooks that actually look over something, the pavement is an improvement.  I was feeling really good and then the gremlins attacked my computer.  The best I can figure, I think I knocked the wireless sensor by the wheel when I loaded/unloaded my bike from Jim's car.  I was going up a hill and the computer showed reception, but it also said i was going 0MPH.  I know I'm slow, but I can go faster than that.  What really pissed me off, was screaming down a hill at 0MPH.  it's gonna take me forever to make camp at that pace!  Tack on another 2-3 miles that I lost during the ride for that.

Another nice thing about Skyline Drive is that things are OPEN.  If you see a wayside/restaurant on a map, it's actually there.  After 25 miles it was lunch time and I actually got to eat a real lunch at the Loft Mountain Wayside.  Better still, the cook there understood my desire for low-carb and knew what I wanted just from how I ordered it.  "Nothing white, right?" he said.  In addition to the bun-less burger, I got a couple of hot dogs to cook for breakfast the next morning.  I'm sick of powdered eggs and summer sausage.

Since the spring, I've been going on training rides of ~30 miles on Skyline Drive to prepare for this ride.  I started in Front Royal, and each time I came out here, I'd start a little further down the Drive.  Today I finally got to familiar territory.  Mile 65 is the Route 33 entrance to Skyline Drive and the furthest I rode on my training rides.  In fact, if you saw the first ThrillCam video I posted on this Blog, that's where it ends, about 3 weeks before I had left for Ashville.  From here on, I'm covering ground I've ridden on before.  If something happens that prevents me from finishing, I can still say I've ridden the whole thing...just not in one shot.

While I was in Roanoke, I made an executive decision.  I'm tired of sleeping in my tent.  Especially on the dying air mattress.  I went to the Shennandoah Park website and looked at accommodations along the way.  My options were the lodge at Big Meadows, milepost 51, or a cabin at Lewis Mountain, milepost 57 and my original destination for the the night.  The cabin was about $5 more.  SOLD.  when I got there, the man at the store/office said he had good news and bad news.  The bad news was, there was a hornet's nest at the one person cabin I had booked.   The good news was, he had moved me to the only other available cabin; a handicapped accessible 2 room cabin with the largest bathroom of all the cabins.  God likes me again.  I had a room for me and a separate room for my bike  :)

Everything you need to know about my last 105 miles.

Somewhere down there is my hotel last night.

Wallpaper shot

History lesson of the day....actually, just an excuse to take a break while climbing up from Waynesboro.

The aforementioned Brown's gap

My Mamma always used to say, "if you can see the underside of the leaves, it's gonna rain."

If you watched the first ThrillCam on my last training ride, this was the closing shot of that ride down the hill.  A Crossing of the Appalachian Trail.

Punch Bu....you know the rest.

Yeah...now that's a cabin.

My Room....

My Bike's room

Easy day, only 46 miles.  I could have done that on one leg.

445 miles total.

Day 7: Last day on the BRP

One thing that is especially nice every day is to put on a clean jersey and shorts.  I end every day by washing up, then cleaning my ONE and only jersey and ONE and only pair of cycling shorts, then hanging them to dry overnight.  Remember that storm last night?  Guess where my clothes were?  I slipped into my wet didies at 6 and slopped out of the mudfest.  The rain had basically stopped by then and I had no reason to sitck around.  I wanted to get to a hotel tonight.

Otter Creek campground is mile 65 on the Parkway.  Matthew and Vanessa had warned me about today.  It's the desert.  Only one place to stop for water and nothing else until I get to milepost 0 at Rockfish Gap and the city of Waynesboro.  I saw basically nothing of interest and no one until I got the the one water stop at Whetstone Ridge Picnic Area at milepost 29.  

Then I bumped into Jim Vreeland.  I was sitting at a picnic table finishing off my "lunch" when an animal with thighs that would make Arnold jealous rolled in on a racing bike.  I figured he was out for a day ride and asked him where he had started.  he told me Peaks of Otter (where I had lunch the day before) milepost 80.  "Good ride" I said, "turning around here?"  Nope.  he was headed for Rockfish Gap.  Turns out Jim was riding the entire BRP.  He had started in Cherokee, NC at the other end on Monday, the day after I had left from Ashville, and was about to pass me, after giving me a 90 mile head start.  On that first day, he climbed Mt. Pisgah, the highest point on the Parkway, then passed Ashville and climbed Mt. Mitchell, north of Ashville, the highest mountain east of the Mississippi!  It put things in a new perspective for me.  If he could do 80 miles a day average, I could do 60.

Jim was the kind of guy I like meeting on tour.  Great guy, you could tell he just wanted to have a great time.  He and I played cat and mouse for the last 30 miles....well, he played it.  There's no way I could keep up with him.  I think he let me catch up a few times just to boost my ego.  when we got to Milepost 0 (well, he had been there a while waiting for his wife) he took a photo of me in front of the signpost to mark the end of that part of my ride and graciously offered to drive me back up from town the next morning, as he was staying in Waynesboro tonight also.

I was going to need that ride the next morning.  My hotel was 6 miles DOWN from the Parkway.  I hit the showers, then the CVS across the street.  I needed food and Flex-all for my aching knees.  I had checked Google in advance and chose this hotel because it was walking distance from St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, and this was my only chance to go to mass.  Now, understand this;  I packed light for this trip.  Really light.  One of everything I needed and nothing I didn't need.  I had one pair of cycling sandals, which I was wearing.  I had one clean polo shirt which I was wearing.  I had one pair of clean shorts.  I had no belt, my shorts were kept up with about 11 inches of nylon twine.  This isn't exactly the way I normally dress for church.  I had planned on skulking in and hiding in the back row, hopefully unnoticed.  I got to church about 25 minutes early...and the place was mostly full already.  By 4:45 the place was packed and mass didn't start for 15 minutes.  By 5, it was standing room only and I was shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of properly dressed catholics.  so much for hiding.  They probably thought I was a homeless person.

After about an hour riding, I had climbed 1700 feet.  BTW, the locals pronounce it Byoona Vista.  No place to get off here to eat.  It would add about 10 miles to the trip to do so.

YAAAY!  My first turtle rescue of the trip.  This is a badge of honor to cycle tourists, to save a turtle crossing the road from turning into a pizza.

Look at his eyes.  you've seen that look before.  Remember the hyenas in "The Lion King?"  Half crazed predators.  That's Jim.  It takes a madman to crank out the kind of ride he's doing.  Oh sure, he has a wife and kids, but don't kid yourself.

While toying with me, Jim took this shot of my backside (one of the few times he was behind me).

I'm abut 5 miles from Rockfish Gap and I'm still 3000 feet up.  it's either going to be another screaming descent to milepost 0, or I'm gonna have a heck of a ride down to town.

390 miles down, 105 to go.

From Jim's Facebook page:  "DONE!! Just about 500 miles and a tad over 50,000 feet of climbing in 6 days. Epic trip, highly recommend it."
Look at his front chainrings.  Looks like a medium deep dish from Godfather's.

My lovely hotel room.  Nothing but the finest brickwork.  Chime in and don't forget to phrase your response in the form of a question.

64 miles today.

399 miles total, so far.

Day 6: Up...and I don't mean the movie

On my first day, in Ashville, I was looking for an IHOP for breakfast.  I settled for a Waffle House because it was so close to my folks' hotel and spitting distance from the Parkway.  Today, however, I got my wish.  a scant 5 minute walk from the hotel was an IHOP, open 24 hours.  Breakfast this morning was at 6:30, as I wanted to be on the road before 8:00 again.  I had looked at the elevation profile for the day and knew I had a lot of climbing to do today, so I planned on a big breakfast.  I had no idea what I was in for.  I ordered a "Colorado Omelette" with a side of sausage links.  HOLY SMOKES!  The omelette was a big as my arm!  I needed the calories, but it was tough going.  I waddled out of the restaurant.

Today I had some mountains ahead of me.  I started out at the Roanoke River...you know river BASIN, to tell you how low I started.  I had to climb Apple Orchard Mountain which truly SUCKED EGGS! and in between those two climbs, 2 more big hills.  Despite my big breakfast, I was going to need a serious refuel mid-day.  I thought I had struck out again when I reached Peaks of Otter.  The first thing I came upon was the picnic area and gift shop.  I couldn't even score pork rinds there.  I sat down and had some of my road chow when the woman running the shop came out to talk.  There's a a WHAT 1/4 of a mile up the road?  A real RESTAURANT!  Peaks of Otter has a lodge (Which I knew) and an excellent restaurant.  For under $10 I had a meal to get me over the mountain!!!

Did I mention that Apple Orchard mountain sucked?  Really, it did.  That sucker was just plain IN MY WAY.  6+ miles of just pokie, poke,poke.  Oh sure, sounds real nice;  Apple Orchard.  Probably going to have a pleasant view of fruit trees all the way up, maybe a snack bar serving pies, apple butter and the like at the top.  NO!  Just mile after mile of hills.  the only saving grace was the fact that I was climbing the mountain the 'easy way."  The other side was less steep, but was 13 miles long.

On the way down, I passed my second pair of tourists.  Mike and Jim had started 2 days earlier at mile 0 of the Parkway and were on their way to Peaks of Otter for the night.  They had climbed 7 miles up Apple Orchard mountain and still had 6 more miles to go.  They looked glad for a break to talk.  Again, it was great to talk shop with them and swap stories.  They were also surprised at how few people they had seen and how vacant the campgrounds were.

I reached my lowest point today....twice.  First was the base of Apple Orchard mountain.  The James River was the lowest elevation on the parkway, at 650 feet.  Three lousy digits..6..5..0.  That only means one thing, I gotta climb back up out of there again tomorrow.  My campsite was just past the James River at Otter Creek campsite and Restaurant.  Charlie and Elizabeth were wrong again.  The restaurant closed 2 years ago....(sigh).  When I checked in, I asked for a weather forecast and was told there was a slight chance of rain.  She also said that such a forcast usually meant a sprinkle and it was only when they said rain that you took cover.  I set up my tent without the rainfly.  Then I heard the thunder in the distance.  I put on the rainfly, hoping the humidity would go away...which it didn't.

Around 11:00 at night...KABOOOM!!!!  Thunder, rain, winds, locust, frogs, the creek turned to blood.  My second low point of the day.  Somehow I had displeased God and he was letting me know.  The rain was so hard, it bounced off the ground under my rainfly.  I lay quivering in my tent wishing the ride was over and I could be in my nice warm DRY bed next to my wife.  I think I got 4 hours of sleep that night.

The Roanoke River.  It's uphill from here.

A couple of thousand feet higher, I passed this cliff face, next to the road.  That's sedimentary rock.  I'm looking at the seabed from millions of years ago, turned on it's side.

Just north of Roanoke, I passed the Applachian Trail for the first time.  It'll be criss-crossing the Parkway and Skyline Drive for the rest of this trip.  I don't expect to see any thru-hikers this late.  Most of them start in Georgia in March.  If you haven't passed here by now, in August, you won't make it to Maine before the snow.

Punch-Buggy Red.  The lady running the gift shop at Peaks of Otter drives this and is a transplant from the DC area.  She retired here because it's beautiful and cheaper to live here.

Peaks of Otter restaurant, right next to the Parkway.  Excellent vittles.

The lodge.  Would have been a great place to stay the night, but would have made the next day an 80 mile ride.  

Near the top of Apple Orchard Mountain.  I think it's an alien spacecraft.

Well if you're going to call it that, the least you could do is plant a few @$%&*! apple trees!

Mike (left) and Tim (right).  Sort of like Penn and Teller without the magic.  Mike did all of the talking while Tim did a lot of nodding.  Check out all of the gear.  Makes me look like a wuss.

Just a pinch under 63 miles for the day, and a pinch under 10MPH average.

335 miles down.

I took my hub apart to look for the percussion section that has been along for the ride.  It's not supposed to come apart this easily without a mallet.  The sealed cartridge bearings on one side got catty-wumpus on me somehow and wore a groove in the hub shell.  I cleaned out some aluminum shavings and hoped for the best.  It probably will make it the rest of the way, just with a little noise.

It looks so peacful...for now.

Day 5: Going strong...good food helps

Relatively speaking, I got a late start today, at 7:45.  My first stop of the day was breakfast at Mabry Mill which I _KNEW_ was actually there because I had called the night before to see what time they opened.  Mabry Mill is an old grist mill and the most photographed site on the parkway.  I have heard that other states use images of the mill on their postcards because it is so photogenic.  There is a restaurant there, more to the point.  The french couple from the previous day raved about the food, including the crepes.  Let's face it, if a guy from France likes the crepes, the food has to be good...right.  YES.  It was only a 2 mile ride from Meadows of Dan and I got there at opening as their first customer.  Nice place, sign by the door requiring shirt and shoes.  They didn't blink at the sight of me in cycling clothes, it's a common stop for the tourists.  The food was excellent, the serivce was great and the tab was cheap.  If you're in the 'hood eat there.

I fully loaded up my belly, not expecting a place to stop for lunch again and was out of there by 8:45.  I planned on learning from yesterdays' bonk and take frequent breaks today, whether I needed them or not.  God was listening to my requests today.  When I needed a break, I found a shady spot.  When I needed water, I found a picnic area.  When I needed food...well, 2 out of three isn't bad.  Another day of macadamia nuts and pepperoni.  I gotta find some cheese in town tonight.  God also provided a rhythm section today.  About mid day I started hearing a clicking noise from the front wheel.  I stopped,  took the wheel off checked it...seemed fine.  Smooth bearings, no play.  Beats me???

Passed 3 neat places today, as well.  First was the Chateau Morrisette Winery.  My wife and I are very fond of their wines, having found them at the Virginia Wine Festival a few years back.  Their labels include a picture of a labradore retriever and when we adopted our yellow lab, Quita, 9 years ago, we gave her original owner a bottle of their wine as a thank you gesture.  I didn't stop there because it was a good 5 miles off the beaten path and it was only about 9 in the morning.  What would I do at that hour?  Buy a case of wine to take with me?

Next was a hillside with a huge treble clef sign made out of shrubbery.  My first guess was some sort of band camp.  I did a google search later on and found out it was the site of a music festival held every year.  I missed out on FloydFest by about a week this year.

Lastly, was a beautiful cathedral right on the parkway.  Around noon I could hear the bells tolling (which I first mistook for yet another noise from my bike).  That turned out to be the Syon Abbey in Copper Hill, VA.  A reminder to me that I needed to go to church Saturday night, lest Father Dan refuse me communion in the future.

I had a couple of "hills" to climb that day.  Inspired, I started singing "Climb Every Mountain" from the sound of music...at least the words I could remember.  I decided that what I needed tonight was a good steak house with a good bar.  God listened.  After my last hill, I had a blistering decent into Roanoke for about 6 SCREAMING miles.  It was a blast.  I arrived at my hotel feeling like the king of the mountain (ignoring the fact that I would have to poke my way back up the the Parkway the next morning).  And wouldn't you know it;  right next to the hotel was a steakhouse  :)

One last bit of business before my steak dinner (and a manhattan). I did a google search for an ABC store and a department store.  Found both about 2 miles away.  After a shower, I stripped the bike of the bags and ran out for some more miniatures to ease the pain in the evenings from the ABC store and detergent, cheese sticks and fuel from K-Mart.  Tack on another 4 miles for the day.

This is the view of Mabry Mill that you see on every BRP website in the known blogosphere.  In addition to the mill, there is a blacksmith shop that is still in use as part of the park system.

This is the site you don't see, the restaurant.  Odd, because it's what everyone talks about.  No one says 'Oh, you MUST see the blacksmith shop!"

The grounds for FloydFest.  No, not Pink Floyd.  More like country/bluegrass/folk music.

Apparently, some of the old log cabins were put to use again when the CCC built the BRP back in the 30's.  

This one looks more like a stable than a cabin, now.

The Syon Abbey.  Syon is an old spelling of Zion, referring to Jerusalem..or is it the last refuge of man from the machines in "The Matrix?"

Wallpaper shot of the day.  First time I've had a vista in 2 days.

Darn!  The only non-smoking room on the ground floor they could get me was with a king size bed :)  Did I mention that God was providing for me today?

39 MPH average, 272 miles traveled so far.

59 miles on the odometer today, but you can add 4 more for the booze run.