I’ve been up since 4:30am and just now, two hours later, have I remembered to write a blog post. Perhaps I was hoping that today was a bonus weekend day. A month ago dawn would have been breaking at this time, now it is still completely dark.
Though it didn’t go exactly as planned, the weekend was quite fun.
Friday afternoon’s pop up deluge changed the plans of one of the participants, so instead of going to get food out as a threesome, Bonnie and I drank a few beers on her porch prior to getting takeout from Midway Pub.
The “original” plan for Saturday was to drive up to Sosobee and do a thirty-mile bike ride before hitting breweries on the return trip ITP. I didn’t like the weather forecast for White, GA so instead Bonnie and I headed southwest toward Newnan where we did a 9.5-mile hike in Chattahoochee Bend State Park. As with the bike ride plan, the hike plan was to hit two breweries on the return trip. The first stop was a small brewery in Newnan called “Abide Brewing”. I knew we’d stand out like Big City folk, but not because we were the only two in the entire packed building wearing masks. Beers purchased and an outdoor table secured, all was well until I saw the sky turning dark gray. We finished out beers quickly and I hoped we’d outlast the rain on a drive over to Line Creek Brewing in Peachtree City. The rain was determined to fuck us over. Upon entering that brewery a masked Bonnie turned to me and said “You’re not going to like this.” Indeed I didn’t like seeing another crowded brewery of non-mask wearing patrons and workers, so we turned around and left. I’m glad to see that COVID has been defeated OTP, I wish they’d share the secret worldwide. 😠I needed a safe space, so back ITP we went, where beer and dinner were consumed at Red’s Beer Garden.
Sunday saw another trip OTP, with Black Sheep being held in Buford. The trail was fine, the couple of beers I had were fine, and I was home and asleep by 9:00pm at latest. I invented a new risotto last night, a hot and spicy risotto with undercooked mushrooms”; I think I need to keep tweaking that recipe.
Because all I did last night prior to falling asleep was make a huge mess in the kitchen, this morning’s first task was to do a cleanup and put away all of my hashing stuff.
Later today I get to make my first COVID dentist visit. Oh joy!
Hope your weekend was happy and healthy.
71 mile bike ride on Saturday included 40 miles on the Silver Comet Trail as well as getting there and back from/to Grant Park. The South Cobb Drive stretch is the ugliest part of getting there, but it doesn’t take very long. I see why Florence Road is where to convene. As I remembered from years ago, the first 10 miles of the SCT are pretty crowded. I have my eye on a repeat of this ride in October during which I’ll g0 70 miles on the SCT to complete my first century. The weather was perfect Saturday morning until it wasn’t. Cool and overcast until the sun came out late morning, then a pleasant ride turned into a slog. But, mission accomplished on making it to the SCT under my own power.
I also did a pandemic purge this weekend by renting a dumpster and filling it to the brim with literally a ton of crap the previous owners left behind in the garage and cellar 16 years ago plus some of my own cast offs, a dead tree, and a couple of weed trees.
Whoa, *fist bump* to both endeavors!
Thanks, Bonnie!
Ditto on the *fist bump*.
Out of curiosity, from whom did you rent the dumpster?
Thanks, Paulie.
Regarding the dumpster, I paid $311 from http://www.goloadup.com. You can keep it for up to a week at that price, but I only kept mine for 3 days, it’s going away this morning. Oddly, 3 of the 4 hinges on the first dumpster they brought on Friday popped off when I opened it. They had a replacement to me within 90 minutes. In any case, it’s money well spent for me. My house feels much lighter, even though I didn’t get rid of anything that was actually in the living areas. I partly chose this company because I could do everything online without having to make a phone call. Most dumpster places want you to “call for pricing”.
Thanks. Sounds like money well spent.
Money well spent indeed. The dumpster was picked up within the scheduled window just now. That’s the way to do a pandemic purge.
Wow, riding to the SCT from Grant Park. That’s impressive.
(And the 71 miles too)
All y’all road riding might get me motivated to ride my bike one of these days.
Thanks, Barb! It was a fun challenge.
Crap, I see by my USPS email that it’s time again for the Tax Collector to come and extract more money for the “privilege†of owning a house. 😢
The Friday report of termite activity was false. He made up for it by stopping in and working a half day yesterday. As Debbie left to go ride, he was just starting, and by the time she returned, the place looked like a war zone. Currently, at least 2 folks are working, as I see the loader stacking and the drag claw is keeping the loader supplied. Drivers should be hauling today as well.
I spent Saturday and a couple hours on Sunday repairing the front porch screens. The cats had ripped them in order to navigate wherever they wanted- even pulling one down from the top so they could enter from the roof!
No 2 wheels of any kind this weekend. When Debbie returned from her ride yesterday, she dragged me to the pool (kicking and screaming). “But honey, I need to exercise! I can’t just go hang at the pool and drink beer.” Oh, yes I can!
Lurker, an impressive achievement! Paulie and Bonnie, you’re both on my list for coming so close and no call.
-FP
We didn’t have cell service down in the sticks? 🙄😂
Good excuse, but probably not true Paulie.
Thanks, Steve! I have Sweetwater Creek and Serenbe on my radar for future rides. Separately, not both on the same ride.
We had a wet weekend up at the Ocoee, both on & off the river.
It’s rained quite a bit, so we have a mess to clean up. Even with the camper, everything is so dirty.
The full day trip rafting was fun, finally doing the Olympic course from ‘96 was cool.
They said you needed a mask on the bus, but didn’t enforce it.
We wore ours, and most of the people we knew were wearing theirs, but not so much the others.
The Bus bar is the place to go in that area, all outside, so not too bad to stay away from people, until it started raining. The covered area was the packed. Most of the locals did not even have masks.(of course) we left & headed back to our campsite.
Sunday we stopped in Ellijay on the way home to tube the Cartecay. Lovely day, didn’t get rained on once.
Sounds like a fun weekend.
Bonnie has informed me that this year’s Lake Hartwell Campout has been postponed until to late November (when it will probably be canceled this year like everything else has been). Now to figure out what to do (where to camp) that weekend now that it’s available.
The Payne’s Creek campground near Oops place is nice. We drove thru it when we were up there in July.
I also want to go to Vogel & camp some day.
A few Parrothead friends are going to FDR state park Columbus Day weekend. Trying to decide if we can make that work, or the Wheelhopper one – if STU is cancelled.
On a couple of occasions I have nearly booked a pioneer site at Hard Labor as a STU backup plan.