TR: My wife's cousin's wedding
So the Cloudcultette wants to go to her cousin's wedding and take Lil' Cloudcult with her. I should go, but it's in Atlanta, and it's her family, so the stoke is low. However, she proposes, what if I drive there, spend 60 hours in Atlanta at wedding, et al., and then mosey my way back home doing whatever I wanted. Well, gas is still $2 a gallon and there's a lot of Grade B country out there to see.
Day 1:
Up at 3, out the door at 4. Gas in Butte where it's 37 degrees, then Billings and through Lame Deer, a slice of Wyoming, and all of South Dakota. Sunset in Sioux Falls and cross into Iowa; near midnight pull into a rest area somewhere near Sioux City and sleep in the back of the truck.
Day 2:
Up a 3.30, brew a coffee, and on the road. Brekkie in traffic in Kansas City, get the oil changed in Columbia, sit in an impressive traffic jam in St. Louis, and cross the river.
https://c4.staticflickr.com/9/8619/2...64cf202f_k.jpg20160623_135724-01 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr
Miss my exit in Illinois and get to see Indiana. Cross into Kentucky to find the highways have names, not numbers. Stop at a gas station to ask for directions and am told I'm on the right road but to "not get off on any exits". Camp north of Nashville, have a slug of whiskey, and take a shower to cool off but even so after just a few minutes of setting up my tent sweat is rolling off my nose like I'm back in Saigon. As I'm brushing my teeth on the tailgate nice woman with a magnificent overbite comes to tell my my camp will flood if it rains hard for 3 hours.
Day 3:
Woken at 1 a.m. to continuous thunder. Campsite floods after just 90 minutes of air-filling rain. Sit in a pretty huge traffic jam in Nashville, which gives way to persistent traffic in Chattanooga, which bleeds into traffic in Atlanta which can really only be called extraordinary. The thing about leaving Montana and driving east is that every state you get to is shittier than the one before it, and I had a lot of time to ponder this while in traffic on 285. Reach the Cloudcultette, Lil Cloudcult, and Cloudcultette family by 2.
Day 4:
Traffic/wedding/casually racist in-laws/etc.
Day 5:
Post wedding lunch/traffic/Cuban food for dinner
Day 6:
Some work in the morning, sat goodbye to the Cloudcultette and Lil Cloudcult then the most magnificent traffic jam yet leaving Atlanta. Birmingham, Tupelo, Memphis (my god what a dump), and Little Rock by midnight. Sleep in a roadside rest area near Hot Springs.
Day 7:
Bike 16 miles of the Lake Ouachita Vista Trail, an IMBA epic. Pull a tick off and steal a shower from a nearby campground then bike 14 miles of the Womble, another IMBA epic. Both were nice and smooth but basically flat and not really that interesting.
Ouachita:
https://c8.staticflickr.com/8/7297/2...cee2f9f9_k.jpg20160629_065358-01 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr
Womble:
https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7587/2...6945a265_z.jpg20160628_085104-01 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr
Drive through Fort Smith (could qualify as Memphis' sister city), then Muskogee and Tulsa and into Kansas. Sleep at Fall River Lake State Park.
https://c5.staticflickr.com/8/7764/2...33bf87e7_h.jpgIMG_20160629_110536-01 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr
Day 8:
Bike both loops of the Badger Creek Trail in Fall River State Park, neither of which were interesting though both of which were not as flat as you'd think Kansas to be.
https://c3.staticflickr.com/9/8707/2...6b1c391d_k.jpg20160629_075851-01 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr
Visit Tallgrass Prairie National Park. It preserves the tallgrass prairie but they mow parts of it. Go figure.
Ready to be out of the south/midwest but also kind of sad that I've left it so quickly. Scanning MTB Project and see there is another IMBA epic just off I-70, so bike half of the Switchgrass Trail, which was 100 yards of unbelievable singletrack, followed by 50 yards of sand and 50 yards of rock ledges, repeated for 12 miles.
https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7503/2...2a9a184f_z.jpg20160629_164344-01 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr
https://c8.staticflickr.com/8/7301/2...0170abd0_k.jpg20160629_160953-02 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr
Wait out a severe thunderstorm in a car wash on the Colorado border, and sleep at a freeway exit along I-70 (the rest area was closed).
Day 9:
Up at 4:30, brew a coffee, and pass through Denver by 6:15. Ski a run on St. Mary's Glacier, which was OK, but by 9 the mountain was getting crowded.
https://c2.staticflickr.com/9/8799/2...b65e47a1_k.jpg20160630_092428-01 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr
Ski a run on Loveland Pass in driving rain, which was not bad. To Keystone, and bike the 15-mile Keystone Gulch trail which connects to the Colorado Trail and was one of the nicest rides I've ever had anywhere.
https://c5.staticflickr.com/8/7504/2...0bad56ba_k.jpg20160630_172018-01 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr
https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7646/2...d3c3eed1_k.jpg20160630_172531-01 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr
https://c7.staticflickr.com/8/7154/2...c87d9492_k.jpg20160630_182622-01 by redpinecanyon, on Flickr
Camp near Montezuma.
