Never A Dull Moment
Thursday I bonked. Not like “I can’t go on” bonk, but more like a “it’s going to take a while to drag my butt home” type bonk. I did an hour of tempo with my friend Rich out on the Vomet. I planned for only 3 hour, but ended up doing 5. Not enough calories, plan and simple. I made it up with pizza and cereal….not at the same time… when I got home.
On Friday Namrita and Danielle went up to the Cohuttas while I stayed home and did bike fits. Around 5:30 Namrita called to ask about directions for the Death March around the Cohutta and Big Frog Wilderness Areas. It turns out they did not take a map, but had a cue sheet. A cue sheet is only good if you stay on course….that didn’t happen. I didn’t think much of it because Nam sounded confident that they were on course and just unsure of a turn. I took the dogs out and hung out with the neighbors for a few hours. Back inside I began to worry a little. It was 7:30 and still no word. By 8:00 I was on the phone to Mike Palmeri looking for some folks who may be closer to the area Namrita“>Namrita & Danielle would have parked. I was hoping someone local could go check up on them. 8:30 and many phone calls later I still had not heard back from the girls. I started packing and made another round of calls. Just after 9:00 I called Zeke Lilly who lives on the side of Cohuttas that I figured the girls were on and asked him to call 911 for me. I grabbed my pack full of food, water, base layers and enough lamps & batteries for like 300 hours of continuous light. I stopped to fill my tank and then headed north. I was still making calls on the way hoping to contact someone who lived near the Bear Creek area to head up the ridge to look for the girls while I drove. Finally at about 9:30 I got the call the I had been waiting for. Namrita and Danielle were OK, in the car and heading home. A minute later the 911 operator from Fannin County called me to ask some questions. I let her know the girls were OK and to call off the troops. Then I called the girls back to find out what happened……you can read their accounts here and here.
Saturday I rode the a big chunk of the Fool’s Gold loop with this guy and his friend Scott. Namrita and Danielle opted for a road ride after their adventure on Friday. My legs were still a little heavy from Thursday’s effort, but they still worked OK. The guys rode well, but suffered a bit from mountain shock (they are both from Chicago). We veered off course on Jones Creek and made an abbreviated loop back to the cars. Later on my home I met Namrita and Danielle at Octane for a beer, then we went out for dinner. After all that all, I went to a party at a neighbor’s place, drank one too many and had a great time.
This morning we lounged for a bit then went to another neighbor’s place for Easter brunch. The food was great and we stuffed ourselves. We hung out for a couple hours and chatted. On the way back to our place we see Glenn, the neighbor adjacent to us sitting in front of his door looking a little disheveled. His Shelby Cobra (yeah, it’s a sweet ride) parked half way out the garage and up against the garage door jam. The engine hood was up. There was a fire extinguisher near by and evidence of it’s use all over the car. Glenn was OK, but pretty shaken up. The engine had caught fire. He got out of the car and then he says it started up on it’s own and started rolling forward into the garage. His place has another garage door on the back, so he jumped back in the still flaming car and stopped it. Then he says the doors would not open. He managed to get the window down and crawl out. It was tight…the windows are pretty small. Luckily he had the extinguisher or I may be writing about how our house went up in flames (we are all connected townhouse style).
A few hours later I’m down in our nature preserve area with the dogs. I’ve been letting them run off leash down there for much of the winter. They love it, though twice Porter disappeared and went home where a neighbor let him in the house. The first time I freaked and spent an hour looking for before returning home to put Jackson up and return to the search. Well today Porter was not responding to my calls and I thought maybe we took off again. I took Jack back to the house, but Porter was not there. Namrita and I went back to the woods to look for him. We split up and I found him a few minutes later. He was acting a little weird and then I noticed the foam around his muzzle. I opened his mouth and saw nothing, but I noticed a sore like a sting on the side of face. We walked back toward the house. Half way in between is our truck and by this time his breathing was labored and the foaming was worse. We got in the truck and headed straight for the emergency vet clinic. Snake bite. Most likely a copperhead. He’s there overnight now. He should be OK, but his face is swollen up nicely. They’ll give him fluids via an IV and monitor his blood pressure throughout the night. I sure hope he is OK in the AM.
I could live without any excitement for a few days…