Friday, September 2, 2011

August 31- September 5

August 31

The boys are back in town! back out on to the open road and boy was today beautiful, there was overcast when we started around 11:00 or so. Nice, cool morning breeze and wow, is the silver comet trail beautiful. Flat and level and surrounded by trees and shrubs. It even had muskeydimes growing on the trees.You haven't lived until you tasted some wild
musky dimes. Anyway, before my mouth starts watering, we rode the the trail, which was far away from any traffic or cars except at intersections, which was awesome. Along the way we met two day bikers, there names were PK and Luarene. We also ran into lots of other walkers and bikers until maybe 25 miles in, then they was a rare site. Later in the day the clouds said "good-bye" and the sun said "hello" and my dad said "go away" but the sun said "Nope" so we found a lake to swim
in for a little while and cool off. After that we stopped by a convenience store and grabbed some drinks. Me and James grabbed a powerade and Dad made the mistake of grabbing a dr.pepper even after James told him don't, so he got a splitting head-ache later in the day. Afterwards, we rode into the town of Rockmart and Ms. Tina payed us a visit. I forgot to mention that this morning we
forgot a few things so Tina told us to call her later in the day when we reached a town and shell bring our stuff. Not only did she bring the stuff we left at home but she brought us some McDonalds to fill us up and get us the rest of the way. We said good-bye and rode on until about 10:30 at night. Yeah it was a long ride and we enjoyed the the cool, night air. we
stopped and slept on a concrete sitting area beside the trail. All-in-all we rode a whopping 47.4 miles today. Thats really good for a first day.

September 1
Slept horribly last night, we John Wayne camped(meaning that we just layed down our mat and sleeping bag and didn't get into a tent) I don't know about the others but it was two hot for a sleeping bag, yet the mosquitoes were a nuisance so you didn't want to get out of your bag. Well the bright side is that I woke up and got up a lot quicker than usual. It was a nice cool morning, and trust me we enjoyed it, but it didn't long. Soon the sun came out and again it wouldn't go
away when dad told it to, but we did run into a gas station in about an hour or so and grabbed us some chocolate milk and sausage biscuits. A very delicious breakfast. Also another biker named Wayne stopped by and talked to us and told us all sorts of stories and
we even took his picture so maybe you'll see him on the picture section, hes riding a red lay back-bike, cant miss him. Afterwards we found out that the next 10 miles were going to be just trail, no water or stores until after Alabama. Luckily though we stocked up on water's and have enough food on us to last a week. We rode and rode an.bd rode and finally we reached a convenience store off the trail were we grabbed some drinks. We sat down and relaxed and the cutest little dog came over and let us pet him. After that we headed off and finally hit the Alabama/Georgia state line and finished our drinks, relaxed for 30 minutes, and took some pictures and headed back down the road. Later down the road we found a river. We couldn't resist the urge and it was so hot so we decided to jump in. We had to make our own trail to the river through some briar bushes but it was so worth it when we dove head first into the ice cold water. It was wonderful with a capital W. It was very still like it wasn't even moving but it wasn't dirty and mucky like most still water. "I heard its coming from a cave" my dad said when I asked. We was in heaven for 5 or 7 minutes until we got out. Then we was in hell. Those briars were harmless when you was dry but for some reason when you was wet they was the same stinging sensation of a jelly fish sting. Stung like a fire ant bite and itched like a mosquito bite on steroids. We had to climb back up the steep hill and sit down for 15 to 20 minutes just to let the pain die down. Afterwards we rode until we hit the town of Piedmont and entered the eubanks welcome center. This was a house that was built in 1800's right after the civil war. It started out as a church and was turned into a pre-school and now it is a welcome center.
We met Jack Holder and he was such a nice and very smart man. He even let us use the shower in the bathroom and told us all sorts of stories and places to go. He even introduced us to his cat Buster Brown. A beautiful brown and white tabby cat with a very cool striped tail and magnificent golden eyes. He was a very sweet cat and Jack gave him an entire back of treats out on the front porch. We asked him if we could sleep outside of the welcome center and he said "Sure, if the police bother you just let them know that I gave you permission". Around 5:00 we started cooking some macaroni&cheese&chili which really hit the spot. While we was eating a lady stopped by and asked us if we had seen or had been chased by any Chihuahuas' recently. We said no and then she showed us her leg which was all scratched and deep red. We asked what happened and she said that she ran over one accidently on the trail when it suddenly bolted in front of bike. We told her what we was doing and about our blog and she told us that she was a 5th grade math teacher. Then we got a picture of her with James and I beside the welcome center sign. Jack locked up the place and let us know that a man named David was going to come by later tonight lock up the
bathrooms outside an we should tell him that we would like to keep them unlocked. Sure enough, when the sun was starting to go down, David cam over with his dog Hank. A very cool guy, always smiling and had a really nice personality. He told us that we should go check out downtown, which we did and sat down in a gazebo for a few minutes and waved at the ladies. Then we headed back towards the welcome center we spent the rest of the night.




September 2
Another rough nite for me, mostly becuase im a big baby but anyway. Dad let us sleep in until 7:30 and we woke up to nice cup of coffee and head out towards the open road. Thats right, we are off the trail and back ontu the streets. It took awhile for James to get used to big rigs flying past him but after we took a break at a graveyard and let our sleeping bags and clothes dry from last nights dew he got into the hang of things. Stopped at a gas station and ate some doughnuts and fish steaksand met two dogs that begged for some doughnuts and fish. We also asked for directions from the lady at the counter. Later downthe road we found a river to swim in. Thankfully there wasn't any briars, I made sure to check. After a nice cold dip and splashing
each other we headed down into SEVERE heat and Heavy traffic. Sure enough we got to another river, a really big one, and went for a swim again. We stayed here for about an hour and headed back out, but we didnt stay on the road for long. We only lasted about 10 minutes before we ran into a luandry mat. We even brought our bikes in with us. We did a load of luandry, eat, and wrote in the blog before we headed out. After heading out from mickey D's, a few little kids stopped by and was really curious about our bikes so we told them stories and took pictures of them to put in the blog. The sun started to go down so we needed to get out of town
so we rode for about 15 or 30 minutes and found an abandoned gas station with a small fenced in area. We rode into the fenced in area and locked ourselves in with our bike lock. It would have been a nice spot except for a few reasons:
1. It was hard to breath with no air flow
2. Ants were abundent
3. the mosquitos tracked our scent after we put some deoderant on and started a war for our blood.

The mosquitos were the last straw, we set up our tents outside on the grass and got inside. James and I got the two-man tentand Dad got the one-man tent. Everything is fine and dandy but its hard to breath and I just killed an ant that bit my leg. Yeah, its gonna be a long night.

September 3
It was a long night, could barely breath, killed about 15 ants, biten 3 times, barely slept. Last night at about 2 o' clock this morning, we see blue lights flashing and headlights pointing right at our tents, My heart started pounding and dad just put his clothes on and got his wallet out knowing they were out to get us but thank the lord they were just pulling over another
car. We got up early to try to beat the police but sure enough they got to us first. Sgt. Darel Williams(sorry if i spelled your name wrong) drove up right us we were about to leave and he said that someone called saying that we were stealing fuacets from the gas station. He already knew that that was a lie being we was riding bikes. we got our picture with him and said good-bye and headed down the road, it stayed nice and cool this morning like every morning. Stoped in at a gas in about 15 miles, Yeah we was in the middle of no were, also the Hills are
big today. At the gas station we grabbed some chocolate milk and and made some penut butter sandwhiches. James made a chocolate, peanut butter and hot suace sandwhich. Its best not to ask why but we know that he would get a super energy boost from it. Afterwards we rode on, going over hlill after hill, and eventually reached a mcdonalds were we added more picutres and charged our electronics back up, grabbed some breakfast and some ice tea and headed
back out. We only lasted about an hour before we had to take shelter under a car-port next to a gas station. So we decided to dry our sleeping bags and work on the blog. Almost thought about going home. The heat was so brutal it made life so tough for all of us that we decided to come back and do the trip later. But we asked around about the forecast and the clouds covered
the sun and let the heat go away. So we decided to give it another day. After about 6 hours of wiping sweat from our foreheads and waiting to go home we headed back
out ontu the open road. Since it was almost night time already so we decided to find the nearest church and lay down for the night. After about 3 to 5 miles we found a church, layed our bikes down behind the church, took a shower with a hose beside the church, (yeah, that wasnt so fun for me being that after i was done and put my clothes back on I thought i saw a cop car pull up so
i ran around the church to were our bikes were just to find out that there was no cops. We normally dont worry about the police but being that it was dark and three strangers at night walking around the church probably wouldnt look so good to motorist) and pulled our bikes up the hill beside the church. We ran into more ants but I got to sleep in the one man tent, which
is pretty much all netting besides the bottom and top, so ill be able to sleep good tonight.

SORRY EVERYBODY I WAS IN A RUSH SO ILL FIX THIS ASAP!

September 4,
And i did sleep good. So good it was kinda hard to get up unlike the last few mornings. Got up and the clouds were still
in the sky, it was like they said yesterday that the rain was finally coming after 4 days of when it was predicted. Headed out
around 7:30 or so. Rode like stink(thats slang for "fast" in england) all the way to a gas station where we met two young
ladies that took our pictures and told us that they would put us on their facebook. We took their pictures as well, youll see them
After breakfast and filling up our water bottles it finally started to rain. We just kept on trucking and didnt bother to put
on our raingear. But it started to rain pretty hard so we pulled over beside a fruit store with a bunch of fruit stands. We cook
some ravioli and made some peanut butter sandwhiches(yeah, james put hot suace on his peanut butter). We took pictures of our
ourselves, put our rain gear on and kept on going. We rode on, it started to rain hard. Tropical storm irene is finally here.
Even with our rain gear on, we got soaked, we were literaly swimming in our shoes, they filled up with so much water i had to
stop and dump them out. After 15 or so miles we stopped at a community center where we just took off everything, put on some
dry clothes and and let all of our socks, shoes and rain gear dry under the canopy. We sat for 15 minutes when a van pulls up
and a guy steps out and asks us where we are going and even showed us pictures of him and hank williams hanging out together
and even of the car from the movie christine. That was really cool and he was a really nice guy. Love to talk and was curious
about us and our trip. But he had to leave so after he left we went and tried to find the nearest church being that it was
sunday. Sure enough we found one that was having a night sermon. We asked if we could join them tonight even though we didnt
have any nice clothes to were and they said "Yeah, come on in". We got into our more decent clothes and two of the church members
came out and talked to us. Their names were Ricky and Tommy and they greeted us with big smiles and were loving how we were
heading to colorado and especially since we stopped by the church. We went to the bathroom, brushed our teeth reall quick and
sat down in the back of the sitting area. Everyone started piling in in a few minutes and a few of them shook our hands and
asked us questions. During the sermon James and I sung some hymns(I didnt hear if dad sung, im sure he did) and then a beautiful
lady named Beth got up and sung a song that sent gave James and I goose bumps(that means its a amazing song). Then pasture kenneth
got up and preached. He talked about us, he said "We got some boys that are here with us tonight, They're not hiking the
Appalachian trail, they've already done that. They're not going to travel from Alaska to San Diego, They've already done that.
No, They're here to travel from Atlanta, Georgia to Colorado, and they're traveling completly on faith. I'm so glad to have them
with us tonight". After the sermon everyone cdame out into the hallway and we all talked, shook hands and even got a big group
picture with everybody. We talked to Ricky and Tommy if we could sleep beside the church under a canopy or anywhere to get out
of the rain for tonight. They told us they got us a place to stay tonight just follow them when we get ready. Sure enough we
got to a house were it was obvious it was being renivated. "Alrighty, here you go, were fixing it up but the toiletries work
and its got heat and a/c. WOW! we asked for shelter and we got a house, we asked for rain and we got a tropical storm. I'm telling
you he works in mysterious ways. Nice hot shower, air conditioning, water whenever you want. Life doesnt get much better than this
I think we all giggled liked little girls when it was our turn to take a nice hot shower.
september 5,
Actually life can get better. It's called people who care about you and accept you for who you are and actually invite
you to the parties instead of leaving you alone. This morning we got up and sanded some doors and helped move some trim and
molding from the walls and before that even started pasture kenneth came over and brought us some home cooking that his wife
made(If you are reading this, It was delicious! Thank you.) Some good suasage biscuits, eggs and hot coffee. We sayed graced
and dug in. After breakfast we had a prayer before he left. Later Gary, Trystan and Timica brought us some subway and told us that they was
going to pick us up tonight around 6 to take us to a party. We chomped down on those sandwhiches like starving hound dogs. They even
brought us some pepsi. Best lunch we've had so far. Thank you so much for thinking about us. After about 6 hours of blog writing
game playing and resting, Gary and Trystan picked us up and took us about 3 blocks down the road to a house with about 20 to 25
people. All having smiles on their faces. We talked and waited for one more group to arrive and then dinner was all ready to
go. James and I was first of course, Hot dogs, red links, Italian dressing porkchops, CHICKEN AND DUMPLINGS(P.S Please send
us the recipe to the chicken and dumplings, they were delicious.), sloppy joe, chicken livers, potato chips, and a whole lot
of desserts including banana pudding, tea cake cookies, chocolate oatmeal cookies and different kinds of cakes. If you havn't
guessed already James had three plates of dinner and a plate of desert(Everything was on there). After dinner they pulled out
this table card game called sequence. Really fun game, very addicting. James and I teamed up with two girls(chelsia(If I spelled
that wrong blame trystan)and Timica). James was on a team with Timica and Chelsia was with me. It was a good thing that we had
some forgiving players becuase James and I kept messing up on the same mistake about 30 times before we finally got the hang of
it. Thankfully I had a good partner becuase I'm really bad at card games. Anyway, Chelsia and I won the first two games and
James and Timica won the last two. We played late into the night. They also had another game going on at the table behind us.
Dad and Trystan DESTROYED the table with teamwork and cunning. They were going up against Gary and Dexter. Both experts at the
game they were very suprised that they lost so many times. Anyway we would like to say that we are keeping all of you in our
prayers especially Mr.Carpentor(sorry im spelled it wrong) and we will always remember our times together and never forget any
of you.

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