Skip rolled in about 2 AM due to some issues he was having with his trailer. It turned out that it was just slop between the hitch and the receiver, which was fixed by a shim, but noises had him stopping a few times and checking stuff out, which delayed his arrival. Nonetheless, I was up and pouring him a beer as he pulled into the driveway.
After quenching a thirst, we unpacked a couple things including this bounty (coincidently, I had nearly the same amount of interesting brews in the kegerator) ....
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| Skip must be here ;j |
We enjoyed a few more beers and caught up some before shutting down around 4 AM. Heh! at least we didn't watch the sun come up this time.
THURSDAY
Today would be spent trying to get the tractor unstuck, then we would load up and head to Hunt's Lodge. I had got it in some mud and wound up slipping down a hill a bit and it had been stuck there for a few weeks. I had no luck doing it myself, so Skip generously offered to help me get it out of there.
The process was to jack up the tractor, pile wood up under the wheels, lower the tractor, raise the jack up higher off the ground, jack up the tractor, add more wood, and so on. This needed to be done for the two left side wheels to get some weight onto the right side wheels.
Once we had got the tractor to an almost "level" (with the horizon) plane, we hooked a tow strap to a winch, which was attached to a tree and between winching it and letting the tractor drive out, we finally got it unstuck. VICTORY! I was sooo happy, thanks again Skip!
After we got done with that, we loaded my KLR up on his trailer, packed the cooler full of beer, and were Tellico-bound. We arrived two hours later to an empty campground. Apparently, everyone had gone out to eat dinner. They returned about half a beer later and many laughs were had.
Skip and I decided to drink one final beer before heading into the cabin. I think I took my hat off or something (my memory of details by this point are pretty clouded). Anyway, we had a beer and then headed off to see if we could snore poor Curtis out of the cabin.
FRIDAY
Upon getting up, I had a hard time locating stuff. I had apparently emptied out my pockets prior to lying down. However, I didn't put all the items in one place. That was a bit of a pain trying to locate stuff. As I just mentioned I had taken my hat off and left it outside at some point.
Overnight, it poured! I mean cats-and-dogs downpour. I believe Chris Pope asked if I had lost my hat. When I told him I had he mentioned that there was one very wet "black" (it's actually blue, but it looked black due to it being *saturated*) hat on the ground in front of his cabin. Okay, thanks.
Folks paired up and headed off to breakfast, and I typically don't do breakfast, so I passed on it. I figured I would just hang out until Skip and Curtis returned and we would all go play when they got back. Well, most everyone had returned from breakfast, but Skip and Curtis still had not.
The morning rain was getting a bit chilly and it really showed no signs of letting up. When I heard Jack Smith say Chris, Alf, and he were going to go to the Lost Sea, I asked if I could join them. They permitted this and we left within a couple minutes.
The Lost Sea is a HUGE cave with an underground lake. It was well worth the $20 cost of admission. Quite impressive, indeed! plus there were some neat formations as is typical with a wet cave.
Once we got back into Jack's posh diesel Dodge, his info panel told him he had a low tire. We stopped at a gas station with a compressor and as he was filling, he noticed a nail in the tire. There was a tire store right next door, so we went over there and they patched it up for him at a price he was happy with.
Then they started talking about getting lunch. We hit a Krystal and watched the manhunt for the Boston bomber on their TV. By the time we got back to the campground, Skip and Curtis had already left.
I talked to Jack Hunt a couple minutes inquiring about Witt Road and how I could get there. I figured that would be tame enough I could handle it alone and not have any major problems. I have seen video of the road and other than one water crossing it didn't look too bad.
He informed me that if I went right I would go to Conasauga Falls. To stay on Witt, go left. Well, I wanted to go to the falls. I figured I could play with the camera some, and besides with all the rain we got this morning, there should be a good flow there.
I found the parking area/trailhead without issue and began walking down the mountain. I stupidly forgot and left my water bottle in the bike. By the time I realized this, I was most of the way down. I wasn't going after it now.
The fall was indeed roaring and I did play with the camera a little bit ...
Then I started walking back up the hill. I had to stop for a breather a couple times.
It didn't look that bad on the way down -- no real quick change in altitude, just a long steady walk. I was *hating* the fact I had left my water at the bike.
I proceeded along Witt Road and made it through the first water crossing without issue. I could see the bottom and easily chose a line that caused me no problems. However, the second one gave me some pause.
I stopped and surveyed it. It seemed to be about 30' across and I could not tell how deep. It was muddy (due to all the rain we had the last few hours) and had a pretty good flow to it. I couldn't tell what the bottom was, if there were any big rocks to contend with, ledges, dropoffs, who knows?
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| muddy! |
I sat there for a while, wrestling with what I would do. I'm alone. If I drop it, this could be bad.
I was really hoping someone might come along and I could see how bad it was when they went through. I encountered a pickup truck earlier. Alas, no one came and discretion got the better part of valor as I whimped out.
The section of Witt I had just done wasn't bad, and now I knew what to expect so I hit that with a little more vigor -- especially that water crossing!
I had a good head of steam coming into it. I hit that water and a flume of water went OVER my head. It ... was ... AWESOME!
Right after the water crossing, the road has a bunch of rock outcrop sticking up through the sand/gravel road. I just stood on the pegs, goosed the throttle, and let the bike bounce. Good stuff!
I headed back to the campground and by then Skip and Curtis had returned and were quick to rub in all the fun that I had missed out on. Ah well, I will be with you boys tomorrow!
Curtis and Alf were generous enough to setup an order and retrieve pizza for dinner for those of us too lazy to go out. That meant I could stay and have another beer. Sign me up!
They got back and a gaggle of maggots made short work of four large pizzas. Beers were consumed, lies told, good times had.
Russell pulled in around 2:30 ... chilled to the bone. It *was* cold! There were four or five of us still up and stayed up another couple hours then headed off to bed.
It *had* to be cold! I have never had problems being cold overnight when camping. I have a 30* sleeping bag and line it with a nice blanket.
However, I was cold under the covers in the cabin. Skip and Curtis echoed that the next morning when we all decided to get up.
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