April '09- 1,000 plus miles w/ RS 35cc....

Esteban · Apr 23, 2009

I was hoping you would see Cooley's & stop. I know a couple of the owners/workers there. Nice place & I hope they have a good crop of peaches this year. I live in Fl., now, but I will be back up that way this Summer & will stop in. I get all the strawberries I can eat down here, but peaches are not as good !

bamabikeguy · Apr 23, 2009

DAY #4

Started around 10:30-11 a.m. (e.s.t.)

What do you know?? MapQuest works again !!

http://www.mapquest.com/mq/5-6oVcIp95rC9glAcI

ROUTE:

NC- Faith, Mt. Pleasant, Monroe (missed a turn)

SC- Lancaster, Great Falls, Winnsboro, ending a few miles east of Sumter Nat'l Forest.

Total Estimated Distance: 126.94 miles (rounding up to 127). I'll add up the gas cost when I get this 4 day/3 night mapping finished.

Now that I'm able to calculate the miles over the computer, I'm kinda surprised that I was really clocking better than the 20 mph average I had predicted.

Bill has cable/internet, and we had plotted a path which would get me into the middle of Georgia, and southeast of the Atlanta metro area. This would be a day of "firsts", first rainy ride for Rucio, first time I broke out the yellow 2 piece hooded rain suit. Bill called the other night, said he followed me, via the radar, for the first 6 hours after I left, that's where the "one lane bowling alley" came from. Lightning to the left, lightning to the right, but there was a dark grey patch I was aiming at, only containing the occasional medium drizzle.

In Monroe I rolled a gutter ball, missed the main turn toward NC-200 Lancaster, and when the bottom fell out of the sky 3-4 miles later, I pulled into a Citgo, not only to wait out the worst, but consult a "local" map, see if I could avoid backtracking. This was another "no meals" day, so I chomped on a 3 Musketeer, consulted the borrowed map, and found a backway to the Lancaster Hwy/NC-200.

I had to pull off the road two more times, I'd guess my total rain delay was a half hour.

Granite Falls, SC looked interesting. I saw the falls, and if it wasn't drizzling, would have taken a picture.

Located within hour of the metropolitan areas of Columbia, South Carolina and Charlotte, North Carolina, Great Falls is nestled beside the beautiful Catawba River. The area is well known by fishing and hunting enthusiasts who delight in the abundance of natural hunting areas and the variety of wild game available.

My goal was the Sumter National Forest, about midway in the state. My final gas fillup was nearly 7 p.m., and a few more miles west I saw "Lost Acres Road", a dirt road that went up into a piney grove.

The pine needles were thick, moderately damp as opposed to absolutely wet, and the last tent peg sunk into the ground right as the sun went down. My "full moon" nightlight was gone.

Not a single vehicle was heard that night, until traffic started the next early a.m, about a half mile away on SC 34/Newberry Road. But my whippoorwill was still hot on my heels, he piped in promptly when it got dark.

bamabikeguy · Apr 24, 2009

DAY #5

Map:

http://www.mapquest.com/mq/3-qS44vOIm8rlts2MHb3RK

Total Estimated Distance: 170.18 miles

ROUTE:

SC- Newberry, Prosperity, Newberry, Ninety Six, Greenwood, Promised Land, Abbeville, Calhoun Falls

GA- Elberton, Crawford (NOT Crawfordville) ending 10 miles east of Watkinsville

Because of the rain delayed start, as well as the "south of Metro Atlanta" loop, I knew the return leg would take 3 nights camping, no matter what.

While the easterly 495 miles was pretty much non-stop, I planned to take more time on the estimated 550+ east to west tour. On Day #5 I had two targets, the Star Fort at Ninety Six, SC (which I'm going to describe on a post below), and Promised Land, SC, for the photo-opportunity, as in "I reached the Promised Land"....Abbeville was also a point of interest.

HIP TIP:

Double check that your gas cap is on tight. When I got ready to leave Lost Acre Rd, I discovered that I hadn't. I'd lost one in 2007, it took me 8 tries to find the odd-ball size, cost me $17 because I had to buy it from a John Deere dealership, off of a Kawasaki generator. The two hour, Newberry to Prosperity and back again chase to find a replacement throws my gas consumption out of whack, due to spillage.

BUT, it also gives opportunity to highlight "helpful local businesses"....churning what little money I was spending into Mom & Pop establishments.

I had cut an old sock found in front of a volunteer fire station, zip tied it over the gas tank opening. Within a few miles I passed (and quickly U-turned) into

Ricky Martin's Battery Outlet & ATV's
SC-34
Newberry, SC 29127
(803) 276-9415

Ricky tried out a few spare caps he had on hand, when none worked, he gave me a shop rag to replace the sock, told me of some good old boys in Prosperity, who had hundreds of old mowers and weed-eaters in their shop.

By the time I got to Prosperity, I forgot the name of the place. I saw a small diner on the left, the

Friendly Frawg Cafe
213 S Main St
Prosperity, SC 29127
(803) 364-4085

Ordered the scrambled w/ cheese, links, grits and the phone book. I'm frustratingly looking in the yellow pages with my magnifying glass, when finally I ask the waitress about this mythical graveyard of gas caps.

"Oh, its right across the street"....I'll be durned.

Shealy Chain Saw Co
208 S Main St
Prosperity, SC 29127-6917
(803) 364-2717

What is it about the threads on these Tanaka and Subaru tanks???? 4 tries, no luck. HEY, there's an official Robin/Subaru dealer in Newberry, about two blocks from where I turned off an hour ago.

H.L. Hedgepath & Son
2622 Harrington St
Newberry, SC 29108
(803) 276-2148

$7.04. A FAIR PRICE !!

RE-GASSED UP NOW, HEADED WEST ON 34

On the way to Ninety Six, I passed an interesting site, the Territories-Saluda River Preserve, (basically a backwoods golf and yacht club). Pretty scenery. (pic 2).

http://www.theterritories.net/index.php?loc=about

20 miles west of Newberry is Ninety Six, SC, 5 miles away from the Ninety Six National Historic Site and the Star Fort. I de-biked for about 30 minutes, took about 30 photos, and like I said, will feature it on a separate post. My map shows a Fire Tower, just a half mile away, which I wanted to climb, except the ranger office was closed.

http://www.nps.gov/nisi/planyourvisit/directions.htm

PROMISED LAND

While Bill and I were plotting a path from Ninety Six to Abbeville, I spotted a community called "Promised Land", which invoked a song in my head & had a lot of lines similar to the matter at hand.

Promised Land Lyrics
I left my home in Norfolk Virginia, California on my mind.
Straddled that Greyhound, it rode me past Raleigh, and on across Caroline.

Stopped in Charlotte and bypassed Rock Hill, and we never was a minute late.
We was ninety miles out of Atlanta by sundown, rollin' 'cross the Georgia state.

Had motor trouble it turned into a struggle, half way 'cross Alabam,
the 'hound broke down left us all stranded in downtown Birmingham.

Straight off bought me a through train ticket, right across Mississippi clean
And I was on the midnight flyer out of Birmingham
Smoking into New Orleans.

Somebody help me get out of Louisiana
Just help me get to Houston town.
People are there who care a little 'bout me
And they won't let the poor boy down....

This was where my camera started acting hinky, because I took the time to zip-tie my Pez Lucky Bunny to the "Promised Land" sign, but that photo disappeared !!! I stopped at the Promised Land grocery and asked "Where is the Welcome sign?"....not to be.

So I got the only 3 shots possible, and moved it on up to Abbeville.

YOU SEE LOTS OF FRENCH NAMES

This is what Rif was talking about up thread, that you find little conclaves that are culturely different, sometimes out in the middle of nowhere. When you see the signs point to Abbeville, Chennault, Celeste....you know you've found early French settlements. Nearly always by water (i.e. St. Louis and Ste. Genevieve, Missouri ), a lot of folks only think of New Orleans in the pre-Colonial period.

Names like Paul Revere, Stephen Decatur, Francis Marion, Alexander Hamilton are of Huguenot ancestry, and Charleston was an early center of French trade.

Many Huguenots also settled in the area around the current site of Charleston, South Carolina. In 1685, Rev. Elie Prioleau from the town of Pons in France settled in what was then called Charlestown. He became pastor of the first Huguenot church in North America in that city. The French Huguenot Church of Charleston, which remains independent, is the oldest continuously active Huguenot congregation in the United States today. L'Eglise du Saint-Esprit in NY is older, founded in 1628, but left the French Reformed movement in 1804 to become part of the Episcopal Church in America.

Abbeville County was settled by mostly Scotch Irish and French-Huguenot farmers in the mid-eighteenth century, coming over from the Ninety Six district. It is noted for it's Opera House and the gardens that were in full bloom as I passed through. I took a photo of a rarer 3 story abandoned mansion right on the county line. (pic 5)

Abbeville has the unique distinction of being both the birthplace and the deathbed of the Confederacy. On November 22, 1860, a meeting was held at Abbeville, at a site since dubbed "Secession Hill", to launch South Carolina's secession from the Union; one month later, the state of South Carolina became the first state to secede.

It was also the birthplace of noted states rights advocate John C. Calhoun.

At the end of the Civil War, with the Confederacy in shambles, Confederate President Jefferson Davis fled Richmond, Virginia and headed south, stopping for a night in Abbeville at the home of his friend Armistead Burt. It was on May 2, 1865, in the front parlor of what is now known as the Burt-Stark Mansion that Jefferson Davis officially acknowledged the dissolution of the Confederate government.

Those fur hunters and traders in that region, going northward toward Dawson and Pickens Counties, up into the mountains, were not the "hotbed of the Confederacy", more a hornet nest of independents. Those mountain folk were very likely to make muster line and direct concentrated fire upon forces on both sides of the conflict, blue or grey, unlike their Charleston cousins.

After Abbeville, I crossed back into Georgia, found a nice lake with a railroad line crossing through the middle of the water.

SHERMANS MARCH TO THE SEA

That is what you learn studying your family trees and history, when you think something is absolute, but its just not so. Just like

The Republic of Winston (Winston County, Alabama) is one of several places in the former Confederate States of America where disaffection with the Confederacy during the American Civil War ran deep. In Winston County, this disaffection was particularly deep, with long-lasting political consequences-deep enough to generate legends after the war that the county had in fact seceded from the Confederacy.

our direct Huntsville (and Fayetteville, TN.) family branches had a Union army and Sherman connection, (while the Wayne County Virginia/W. Virginia side of the family all seemed to get captured fighting for the South).

This made for lively family reunions !! And my cousin who wants to join the Sons of the Confederacy was disqualified because of his Huntsville/1st Alabama roots.....

The 1st Alabama Cavalry was raised from Alabama Unionists at Huntsville, Alabama and Memphis, Tennessee in October, 1862 after Federal troops occupied the area. It was attached to the XVI Corps in various divisions until November 1864, when it became part of the XV Corps. During this time, its duties mostly consisted of scouting, raiding, reconnaissance, flank guard, and providing screening to the infantry while on the march.

The Western Civil War campaigns are mostly small affairs, scattered everywhere, with a few medium sized conflicts. The 1st Alabama Calvary, as part of the XVI, whupped Nathan Bedford Forrest at Tupelo, and you come across the 1st Alabama charging this way and that, on signs highlighting Gen. Hood's disasterous actions after Atlanta fell.

Anyway, when you look at the map, at the end of Day #5 I'm about to cut right into the fattest part of Sherman's March, between Athens and Madison.

This was my only "double mealed" day, breakfast in Prosperity and an all you can eat Chinese place in Elberton, which would hold me over most of the next day.

I found a nice grassy patch to pitch the tent, an empty lot in a barely started subdivision, about a mile from the Oconee River.

bamabikeguy · Apr 25, 2009

AN IMAGE HEAVY HISTORICAL DIVERSION - (or BALLS FERRY, GEORGIA, How I got an "A" for an "F" paper.)

I'm going to take a one day break from the journey, to recall all the memories I was having on the morning I reached the banks of the Oconee River, an amusing incident from my college daze, based on a 20 page historical paper I wrote in my senior year (Fall Semester-1977).

My only reading material on this journey was my map, I had bought a paper near Rome, but that was basically to build the only fire on night #1. Once you've cut yourself off from the media blare and television noise, experiences become more vivid, and that early Thursday morning, I cracked myself up remembering "The Battle of Ball's Ferry".

WHERE WERE YOU IN 1977?

If you were a history major in 1975-76, you were "cruisin'", small classes and very little conflict or competition, plenty of extra time to chase the rock and roll circuses. All you had to do was bang out a few papers per semester, (lazily, they were bicentennial themes mostly).

Then came the Tidal Wave of 1977, suddenly you couldn't find a seat in the crowded classes, much less check out a book, because of the waiting lists full of these neo-geneologists. Interest in upper level history classes TRIPLED, suddenly all these "old people" (with JOBS), were taking one class per semester, AND getting all the good seats by the window.

1977 was the year of the "Roots" phenomenon. Roots received 36 Emmy Award nominations. It went on to win 9 Emmys, a Golden Globe, and a Peabody Award. It received unprecedented Nielsen ratings with the finale still standing as the 3rd-highest rated US program ever, behind the series finale of M*A*S*H and Super Bowl XLII (Giants 17 Patriots 14).

Suddenly, all across America, everybody got into the family tree searches, and this was decades before computers, it was all pencils and papers. Courthouses had to add extra rooms for document searches, the graveyards all got a face lift, hundreds of companies popped up to do the searching for you, with promises to find a hero in your tree.

It would have been a great year to be in the "Create Your Family Coat of Arms" business....but it sure was a bad year to be a history major, suddenly all these wide-eyed amateurs, foaming at the mouth, were killing the grading curve, making our small group of pre-Rooters dance for our supper.

And that included our History professors! Especially Father Aloysius Plaisance, OSB ! No more killing a quarter hour with small talk, these housewives and pastors and farmers were demanding shortcuts in how to find their ancestors. AND, they didn't grasp the concept that "you don't argue with the professor", what used to be calmly walking through the corridors of time suddenly turned into screaming matches.

ALL MY BASES ARE COVERED

I'm sitting near the banks of the Oconee River last week, remembering an incident from fall of 1977...

In another thread (Selma or Mobile) I mentioned Fr. Aloysius Plaisance. (I reposted pix 1,2,3 to remind you of the story).

You've heard of "Six Degrees to Kevin Bacon"? Fr. Al had the uncanny knack to connect you in 3 or 4 tries to some other person he knows. And he could whack down a flawed reasoning with a witty rebuke.

When he left on his 12 month Oxford sabbatical in late 1976, his classrooms were little bastions of trivial pursuit....

But "Roots" ran from January 23, 1977 – January 30, 1977, while Fr. Al was biking around Europe, Dr. Paul Zingg had taught that seminar course. This was the pre-VCR days, I'd bet he never saw the mini-series, but he quickly consumed the book (and poked holes in it too.)

I think a frazzled Fr. Al got in from the airport hours before his first class in Sept. 1977, little did he expect his "Civil War and Reconstruction" class to be standing room only, PLUS full of middle aged blow hards who still thought the Civil War was a current event !

If you click on Fr. Al's google search, you'll see why arguing about something you saw in a John Wayne movie versus a monk who stomped the hallowed battle sites for decades, published umpteen scholarly reports, was NOT going to be a winning proposition. He took a certain glee in killing the Hollywood Dukes at every opportunity.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...=result&cd=1&q=Fr.+Aloysius+Plaisance&spell=1

Dr. Zingg had moved on to Penn U., so Fr. Al was now my history thesis mentor, (50 pages of independent research), so at our first meeting, I tossed my shoebox of 3 X 5's on the desk, he nodded approvingly, then we got acquainted.

Or mainly we talked about the "family tree chippers" and how all the Post-Roots classes had devolved into "me-me-me-and my grampappy too" time wasters.

I explained that I didn't have to do that stuff, my Great Uncle Homer in Tennessee and some distant cousin in Kentucky had our namesakes fleeing Yorkshire, England, one in 1622 Massachusetts, our direct ancestor hitting Maryland in 1650's. Our California hillbilly line was locked into a 50 year estate in Uvas Canyon, mining for Quicksilver in Almaden.

Then I named dropped my cousin, James Record, "Mr. Madison County", he and I had just flew out to Texas that summer for our Uncle Owen's funeral. In fact, he borrowed our first edition of Uncle Homer's Family Tree book, even though he was on my grandmother's side of the family.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Record:_Mr._County_Commissioner

Fr. Al wrote a Travel Column for newspapers throughout the south, and James Record also founded the Madison County, Alabama, newspaper, The Madison County Record in the mid 1960's. Badda-boom, badda bing, I'm in like Flint, no 3 or 6 degrees of Separation, James and Fr. Al were long-time buddies.

I'M GETTING TO THE PUNCHLINE

We get along great, he has a French name in an Abbey full of Bavarians, and I'm a Californian unlike the mostly Germans, Catholics and Lutherans, who settled the area around St. Bernard and the Sacred Heart Monastery across the creek. We both look at things from different angles, have quirkier ideas as to historical narratives.

That's why I always look for The French Connection, for instance. I COULD CARE LESS about everything east of the Appalachians, (much less Georgia), but if I was needing a B+ or A-, I sure would start with the "New France" angle, just to pique Fr. Al's interest.

1763-French/Indian War

1775-Pre-Revolution

180px-Map_of_territorial_growth_1775.svg.png

Or I could get clever an call Sherman a dog paddler, his plan wasn't a mystery, it just followed the water, coincidentally through the lowest population areas.

Map of Sherman's Savannah Campaign

Map of the Altamaha River watershed showing the two main tributaries, the Oconee River (north) and the Ocmulgee River (south). They sure look similar!

It is supposedly the third largest contributor of fresh water to the Atlantic Ocean from North America. The Altamaha River runs through a broad area of low population of human beings, so there are very few or no significant towns or cities along it course, though there are some along its upper tributaries, such as Milledgeville on the Oconee.

Back in class, Fr. Aloysius thinks quick.

To take advantage of this genealogy fad, and perhaps find himself some new topics to publish later, he assigns the class to report on a relative who either fought in the Civil War, or, for folks who had no mid-1860's ties, report on some direct family situation in or about the same period.

BOY, WAS I PRIMED !

Fresh of of 3 days in Texas with cousin James, who had filled me in on that other Fish/Fisk/Atkinson/Owen/Tate etc. line on grandmother's side of the family. I didn't have any of James' books back then like I do now, but had my facts within kicking distance.

Who needs to read up first, when everything is so fresh one's mind?

So I pulled out all the stops for my first paper for Fr. Al, Fall of Atlanta and the Savannah Campaign, my brave Pvt. Fish was up and down that Oconee River...IBM Selectric double spaced. A piece of work. "A" material, like we outnumbered history majors were expected to produce.

About a month later James contacted me, said he had a group of German businessmen visiting Huntsville on a plant scouting mission, from the same region of Bavaria as the original St. Bernard monksl. He was wondering if I could arrange an afternoon diversionary appointment with the Abbot and a few of the German speaking brothers.

NOT A PROBLEM

The afternoon of the visit, while the Germans were getting the tour, the three of us, James, Fr. Al and myself were walking to James' car, he had brought back Uncle Homer's book. Fr. Al then reported on that paper I had just produced, about the valiant Pvt. Fish.

James went from smile to laughing...."Well, he got the Georgia part right. But that's about all. Fish was in the 1st Alabama Calvary, he fought for the Union, and so did 3 of his cousins. But Fish was in the hospital around that time ".

Turns out I had the my ancestor on the wrong side of the fight.

Not only that, I had the wrong relative running up and down that river.

I offered to get back on the IBM Selectric, change every "gray" into "blue".... but Fr. Aloysius kept my Roots scandal quiet, for the dignity of the History Department. He admitted he was more interested in the fadsters ideas, but he wanted me and my shoebox full of thesis research in his office the next day, for quality control.

He and James later traded a lot of notes through the years, in addition to the newspaper publishing Fr. Al's travel reflections.

ANYWAY, THAT WAS THE STORY RUNNING THROUGH MY HEAD AS I CROSSED THE OCONEE RIVER THE NEXT MORNING.

"The Ball's Ferry Raid "

I had never been in this part of Georgia before, but at least I had a few ghosts roaming around.

Several small actions followed. Wheeler and some infantry struck in a rearguard action at Ball's Ferry on November 24 and November 25. While Howard's wing was delayed near Ball's Bluff, the 1st Alabama Cavalry (a Federal regiment) engaged Confederate pickets. Overnight, Union engineers constructed a bridge two miles (3 km) away from the bluff across the Oconee River, and 200 soldiers crossed to flank the Confederate position.

bamabikeguy · Apr 25, 2009

yA wANt clarity or pix, can't do both....MBeditsux.

:0:

bamabikeguy · Apr 26, 2009

Edit note: Apologies for the ramblingness of the thread, but multi-purposing means some information is "checklist" instructional for YOUR entertainment, some is massively link-referenced, for non-MB amusement, to jump start my chasing down a potential "song lyric" or "historical search". With Wiki, there is no "3 degrees" or "6 degrees", I can chase a rabbit down a hole in 2 clicks.

CLIPPED MEAT OF THE MATTER

492 miles in, 599 out (127+170+219+93) 1,091 total.

And my total gas purchases were $15.08 less than 7.5 gallons.

So 219 milesis a temporary marker for "miles in one day on a R/S 35cc", and if you duplicate my stress-free route, or do it on a cruiser model bike, you could beat that performance !!

:::::::::::::::::::

SUNDAY MUSIC ON: Greensboro Disk III Cosmic Charlie, New Potato Caboose > Help On The Way > Slipknot! > Franklin's Tower Encore: Samson & Delilah

IF YOU THINK MB-TOURING GETS MY MIND CHURNING, CHECK OUT RIF'S

.....his observations can be applied to bird-watching, photography, fishing, canoeing, almost any sideline endeavor. Steinbeck mixed marine biology, politics, religion, history, and mythology. It's only natural.

uncle punk13 wrote:

I crawled into my sleeping bag; drifting off to sleep in my little tent, to a great choral symphony of frogs from out the wetland, Soothing my weary body, mind, and soul into a restful slumber.
I surely do miss that sound from my childhood- I grew up in a small town on a little farm of 15 acres, with 3 of those acres made up of wetland; the surrounding acreage was mostly wetland our main farm being on the high ground in the area. During the summer's I would sneak from my bed at night after the adults, my parents, were asleep (or so I thought), and go lay on the hillside, beneath the blanket of stars, listening to the frogs until I drifted off, I would awaken just before sunrise, return to my bed and sleep for another couple of hours. I live in a semi-rural/semi-residential area too close to the city now, and often think of those summer nights with a longing. How wonderful it was to hear that sound again.

http://www.motoredbikes.com/showthread.php?t=19730

I'm winding down the journey, invite your valued comments....I have to assume the Pacific Northwest is devoid of whippoorwills? Rif's observation 2,500 miles away can be expanded by Southern Appalachian facts, I cleared up a "nocturnal sonic mystery" I'd had since moving as a teenager in 1971.

SALAMANDERS. We are salamander-species king, these things SING, and they got rhythm. When I mention how I went though 10 little valleys on Day #2?? The dominant green critters in one holler butt up against the black ones with red dots over yonder. AN ENDANGERED SPECIES, when it gets down to it.....

In the "meek shall inherit the earth", (like ants, cockroaches, goats et.al.) consider THIS trait humans lost in the march of evolution....

Uniquely among vertebrates, they are capable of regenerating lost limbs, as well as other body parts.

"Salamander DNA Extract Tablets" would make a killer informercial, eh?

The highest concentration of these is found in the Appalachian Mountains region. Species of salamander are numerous and found in most moist or arid habitats in the northern hemisphere. They usually live in or near brooks, creeks, ponds, and other moist locations.

BACK TO THE ROAD !! MY MAPS ARE FINISHED, GEORGIA IS NOW MY CHOPPED INTO PIECES SALAMANDER STATE !!

DAY #6

I have my final two maps done, so I can total the mileage.

If you plan on doing any similar route, and you click just one , Day #6 is the one to look at. I'll brag downthread, but this is THE way to experience Atlanta, by yourself and no where near it.

http://www.mapquest.com/mq/5-cxMe

219 miles.

The 100 mile detour, looping in the non-metro counties, is well worth it. What our bikes need is "portable Wikibilities", where you can click and go. Most of my day was on 3 Georgia Highways, and from what I saw, you could meander that entire region, from Florida to Pennsylvania, using these type roads.

So 219 milesis a temporary marker for "miles in one day on a R/S 35cc", and if you duplicate my stress-free route, or do it on a cruiser model bike, you could beat that performance !!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_State_Route_36

State Route 36 is a somewhat significant route in the area, with an Average Annual Daily Traffic of over 5,000 vehicles for much of the route between Barnesville and Covington. Traffic is significantly less on the section of the route south of Thomaston. There are future plans of widing State Route 36 into 4 lanes from Jackson to Thomaston.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_State_Route_109

S.R. 109 is a main throughfare for West Point Lake campgrounds. When it changes to Chambers County Road 278 in Alabama, the road still continues to serve West Point Lake campgrounds. S.R. 109 crosses over West Point Lake as well. Back to the east, SR 109 meets up with US 29/SR 14 to go through downtown LaGrange. During this section, SR 109 serves a hospital. Also during this section, LaGrange College is placed as well as the home of the Callaways, Owners of Callaway Gardens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Route_100_(Georgia)

South of Cedartown, SR 100 turns west following U.S. Route 278 for a brief time before resuming a northwestern path. In Cave Spring, Georgia, SR 100 turns west for a brief distance co-signed with U.S. Route 411 before turning north once again. SR 100 turns west co-signed with Georgia State Route 20 for a short distance before resuming its northern course toward Summerville. SR 100 ends at the intersection of U.S. Route 27 in Summerville in Chattooga County in northwest Georgia.

DAY #7 MAP was a straight shot down US 278, which passes 3 miles from my driveway, 93 miles in all.

http://www.mapquest.com/mq/8-sGH7ds_7vNkTs4Oj

So that is the semi official total, 492 miles in, 599 out (127+170+219+93) 1,091 total.

And my total gas purchases were $15.08, less than 7.5 gallons, a little better than 130 mpg. (this includes having spare gas in both my bottles when I arrived home, under-considering the gas cap episode. If I had scientifically kept up with it, I'd imagine the return was in the 145 mpg range, even fully loaded down like a Conestoga wagon. )

ROUTE:

GA- Watkinsville, Rutledge, Mansfield, Jackson, Barnesville, Woodbury, Greenville, Corinth, Franklin, Tallapoosa....ending 10 miles south of Cedartown.

Basically towns I never heard of. If you stay on a line similar to this, often in the middle of Metro-Atlanta drivetimes, you will have the roads to yourself, and I have the pictures to prove it. Looooong stretches lightly traveled, as lonely as the backest roads can be, especially at rush hour.

And Estaban, before leaving NC, I checked that mini-museums sites days/hours of operation, it was very possible, but not in my cards last Thursday.

If you were to get on #441 at Athens & go South to Madison, Ga., stop there & tour the " Microcar Museum. "

http://microcarmuseum.com/virtualtour.html

YESTERDAY, (SATURDAY) I CLEANED UP RUCIO

Cut maybe 50 zip ties, cleaned air filter, gas filter, spark plug, changed the oil. We connected the kill switch, fixed the cracked belt cover, re-painted the engine cover......

Rucio needs new shoes.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention "after road repairs", but the $12 tire from the Wal Mart bike has a three inch worn spot, while 90% of the thread looks good. Sort of like the beginnings of a bald spot. Rucio's tire sits on a hook in the shop, never been worn.

I blame rear wheel shakiness on the Potato Hole in Waleska, GA.

Music on: New Potato Caboose Lyrics
Grateful Dead
....

When the windows all are broken and your love's become a toothless crone,
When the voices of the storm sound like a crowd,
Winter morning breaks, you're all alone.

The eyes are blind, blue visions, all a seer can own,
And touching makes the flesh to cry out loud
This ground on which the seed of love is sown,
All graceful instruments are known.

So, even though gas was a penny and a half per mile, I have to include the missing gas cap and that tire as "expenses"....THREE CENTS PER MILE is a better way of looking at it.

Music on: Greensboro Disc II Truckin'

Busted, down on Bourbon Street, Set up, like a bowlin' pin.
Knocked down, it get's to wearin' thin. They just won't let you be

You're sick of hangin' around and you'd like to travel;
Get tired of travelin' and you want to settle down.
I guess they can't revoke your soul for tryin',
Get out of the door and light out and look all around.

Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me;
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me, What a long, strange trip it's been.

PIX COME DOWNTHREAD

Georgia has 159 counties, the most of any state except Texas (with 254) I zipped through THESE on Day #6

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oconee_County,_Georgia (Watkinsville)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_County,_Georgia (Rutledge)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_County,_Georgia (Mansfield, Newborn)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butts_County,_Georgia (Jackson)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamar_County,_Georgia (Barnesville)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pike_County,_Georgia (Molena, Meansville)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meriwether_County,_Georgia (Woodbury, Greenville)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coweta_County,_Georgia (Newnan, Corinth)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heard_County,_Georgia (Bowdon)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carroll_County,_Georgia (more of Bowdon?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haralson_County,_Georgia (Bowdon again???? Tallapoosa, Cedartown)

MOST counties in any other state would have the 4 neighbors to the N-E-S-W, which make the sun's orbit an easy reference. And those Carpetbagging County Choppers never named the county after the biggest town, makes for a moving target with a cr**py map.

Because Georgia is a 159 piece jigsaw puzzle, one county might have 7-8 neighbors. THAT EXPLAINS A WHOLE LOT, why bootlegging movies are all in Georgia, heck, the county line is only 10 miles away, a 5 minute chase by the General Lee or Smoky and the Bandit.

If you saw "Dukes of Hazzard" or "In the Heat of the Night" on TV, (I didn't see either), you would get an idea of the layout during the a.m. ride, passing through Newton County.

In late 1978, the first five episodes of The Dukes of Hazzard were filmed in and around Covington, Georgia. The TV series In The Heat of the Night was filmed in Covington from 1988 to 1995.

WE'LL BLAME THE BOYS IN THE BAND FOR TODAY'S RAMBLIN'S

HIP TIP:

Be it jam-band or bluegrass music, television or books, you need something to reference your journey to, to fully get the experience, measure your perceptions.

The Panhandle of Oklahoma? Read McMurtry's Telegraph Days. Nebraska or New Mexico? Willa Cather. Radical road tripping ? Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Robbins, Lester Bangs, Richard Brautigan or Ken Kesey might be your inspirational cup of tea....don't do Jack Keroac !!

I use Steinbeck sometimes.......

(Music on: bootleg Greensboro cd III in the background, "Cosmic Charlie"...

Cosmic Charlie how do you do? Truckin' in style along the avenue.
Dum de dum de doodley do. Go on home your mama's calling you.
Kalico, Kahlia, come tell me the news.
Calamity's waiting for a way to get to her.
Rosy red and electric blue I bought you a paddle for your paper canoe.

Say you'll come back when you can Whenever your airplane happens to land.
Maybe I'll be back here too It all depends on what's with you.
Hung up waiting for a windy day kite one ice since the first of February.
Mama keeps saying that the wind might blow ,
But standing here I say I just don't know.

2 OF MY HEROES ARE NAMED CHARLEY:

Steinbeck's later work reflected his wide range of interests, including marine biology, politics, religion, history, and mythology. One of his last published works was Travels with Charley, a travelogue of a road trip he took in 1960 to rediscover America. He died in 1968 in New York of a heart attack, and his ashes are interred in Salinas.

Specifically:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travels_with_Charley

Travels with Charley: In Search of America is a travelogue by American author John Steinbeck. It documents the road trip he took with his French standard poodle Charley around the United States, in 1960. He wrote that he was moved by a desire to see his country on a personal level, since he made his living writing about it. He had many questions going into his journey, the main one being, "What are Americans like today?" However, he found that the "new America" did not live up to his expectations.

Steinbeck traveled throughout the United States in a specially-made camper which he named "Rocinante" after the horse of Don Quixote. He started his travels in Long Island, New York roughly following the outer border of the United States, from Maine to the Pacific Northwest, down into his native Salinas Valley in California, across to Texas, up through the Deep South, and then back to New York, a trip encompassing nearly 10,000 miles.

According to Thom Steinbeck, the author's older son, the real reason for the trip was that Steinbeck knew he was dying and wanted to see his country one last time. Thom says he was surprised that his stepmother (Steinbeck's wife) allowed Steinbeck to make the trip; because of his heart condition he could have died at any time.

Riding wide open, I could do 10,000 miles on Rocinante in 40 theoretical days/40 whippoorilly nights.

Here is Travel's With Charley's googlemap,

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=e...2923703941959514621.00045cb678bc607c8380c&z=4

His wikibook.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Travels_With_Charley:_In_Search_of_America

He got ****ed off at 1960 deep south, and I only saw it on bi-annual vacations growing up, moved here in 1971, and I have an update on THAT perspective.

Heck, he thought he was dying in 1960 and lived another 8 years, so we don't take everything he writes as 100% true or absolutely perceptive.....

IF you have any pieces of Steinbeck journey near you, I invite you to describe it !

HIP TIP:
My bike-shop, Werner's Trading Co. in Cullman, sells a hammock, the size of a can of beans, made of parachute material, about $60.

Using LOCAL businesses and suppliers, at home or on the road, gets you twice as much information to crunch.

http://www.wernerstradingco.com/

Because if you know Werner's, you can hear about canoe options, or local championship Mountain Bike Courses.

http://hurricanecreek.homestead.com/MTB.html

So, buy yourself one of these hammocks, just to get away from civilization and catch a breeze on a lake 30 minutes away !!!!

Life is too short, get out and see what's out there !

Final inside info for this Sunday morning: When you pitch a tent on grass, in an unfinished subdivision near a river full of singing salamanders, you are going to have a moisture situation next morning !!

Music on: Franklin's Tower Lyrics
Artist(Band):Grateful Dead

In another times forgotten space
Your eyes looked from your mother's face
Wallflower seed on the sand and stone
May the four winds blow you safely home.

Roll away the dew
Roll away the dew
Roll away the dew
Roll away the dew

I'll tell you where the four winds dwell
In Franklin's tower there hangs a bell
It can ring, turn night to day
It can ring like fire when you lose your way.

.......

God save the child that rings that bell
It may have one good ring, baby, you can't tell
One watch by night, one watch by day
If you get confused listen to the music play.

(instrumental)

Some come to laugh their past away
Some come to make it just one more day
Whichever way your pleasure tends
If you plant ice you're gonna harvest the wind.

.......

In Franklin's tower the four winds sleep
Like four lean hounds the lighthouse keep
Wildflower seed on the sand and wind
May the four winds blow you home again.
......

Roll away the dew
You'd better roll away the dew - roll away
Roll away the dew
You'd better roll away the dew - roll away.
Roll away the dew...(Fade Out)

EDIT NOTE: PIX UP LATER

My batteries died.

beast775 · Apr 28, 2009

wow

i just spent 2.5 hrs messin with your post bama.alot of info,im havin fun!sounds as though the recumbent is on its way out for extended trips?i tried one and maybe i didnt get enough time on it-20 mins but,i didnt like the way i was sittin.i ride really old bicycles that are very big,i have to climb aboard.even my motoredbike is a 20 inch frame and it still seems to small even though im only 5;10.thanks for all the time you put into this,im enjoying it!

bamabikeguy · Apr 29, 2009

beast775 said:
i just spent 2.5 hrs messin with your post bama.alot of info,im havin fun! sounds as though the recumbent is on its way out for extended trips?

Thanx Beast, fun is what its all about.

It's been a week since I got back, washed Rucio and cut off some of the attachments. After the 3-day Memorial Day Bluegrass festival I'll take off that front basket, re-fashion a front fender (it is too low to the ground, sometimes hits the pedals)....I ordered hi-dollar tires for the front and back for a permanent fix, but 100 miles is the limit from now on. When the cross-country challenge comes about, I'll be on the red cruiser !!

I uploaded about half of the pictures into an album, where you can get the flow of the trip or do a slideshow.....

http://picasaweb.google.com/bamabikeguy/April7172009NorthCarolinaAndBackWConcertInBetween

But about 2-3 more entries and we'll put this puppy to bed.

ODDITIES

Worst Name for a Park- Pic #1- in Georgia, made one think of Richard Pryor movies.....but it has a golf course !! Outside Rutledge, GA.

http://www.gastateparks.org/info/hardlabor/

Yellow Line Music Maker Pics 2-3. There was a 20-30 mile stretch of GA-36 that had a continuous line of these ruffley ridges in the middle of the road. The first vehicle that passed me after I entered this zone was a semi-trailer, scared the **** out of me !! Remember that Honda commercial where they had road bumps paved into a stretch, tuned to play the "William Tell Overture?"

Every different model, on these bumps made a different noise as the left wheels of the passing cars and trucks. A cacophony when 3-4 passed in a row....

Neatest Cemetery Pics 4-5 You pass hundreds of churches, most with small cemeteries, but when you pass one with rows of plain white crosses, you stop and take a picture, first time I've ever seen one laid out like this. It's a Primitive Baptist Church, near Hard Labor Park.

Marquis De LaFayette Slept Here Pics 6 The Gachet House in Lamar County, a really neat layout for an pre-1825 plantation house. It somehow escaped Gen. Sherman's torches.

There Must Be Some Law in South Carolina and Georgia that prevents you from tearing down the old shacks and rustic houses in the rural areas. I've never seen two days of solid contrast, new homes with just as many 1910-40 houses, sheds and barns right in amongst them. It makes for a neat visual mix.

bamabikeguy · Apr 29, 2009

You Have a Tag for that Bike? "Why yes, yes I do"....

I stopped at an intersection, and was trying to illustrate, with my two flags flappin', my wind situation on the southerly-westernious track that morning. There in the weeds, I saw a nifty souvenier.

Picture Proofs- I Owns the Road during Rush Hour

It was amazing how few cars were on those GA-HWY country two lanes at 2-3-4 p.m., with Atlanta just over the horizon. I stopped a few times and took maybe 10 snapshots in front and behind me. There were a LOT of miles of of solitude, and traffic would be even sparser on the minor roads I passed by.

Nutz

Every year you hear about frost hitting the citrus crop in Florida or the peaches in the Carolinas. But PECANS are the last things to leaf, high prices for pecans means there was a real late frost....and I was thinking back to my departure a week earlier, when it was in the twenties the first night's camping.

We'll just see what the price per pound is, come Thanksgiving '09. (Luckily we had a bumper crop in '08, shelled pecans are still crowding out the freezer shelves.)

Only One Old Courthouse

Over the years I have smacked into a lot of these City Square roundabouts, where you circle a courthouse in a one-way circuit, then take off on one of the W-N-E-S highways that branch back out. Jackson GA must have been my only county seat on Day 6.

Couldn't have planned it better, I was hitting all the secondary towns in each county all day long.

Roosevelt's Southern White House Warm Springs, GA was within range, but I was headed west. *** High School must have a helluva mean football team, I was thinking.... sort of like that Johnny Cash song:

Well, he must o' thought that is quite a joke
And it got a lot of laughs from a' lots of folk,
It seems I had to fight my whole life through.
Some gal would giggle and I'd get red
And some guy'd laugh and I'd bust his head,
I tell ya, life ain't easy for a boy named "Sue."

eastwoodo4 · Apr 30, 2009

sorry i havent been posting but your posts r so long i havent read thru them all yet.

April '09- 1,000 plus miles w/ RS 35cc....

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