Day 5: Meadow of Dan to Mount Pisgah Campground

Today started as good as it ended and just to put the day in perspective we have set up our tent and we are making dinner, pasta a la 5000 ft., all for free because people in North Carolina don’t like to camp in November. We just drove around the locked gate and picked a great spot, now I have to eat so I'll be back to writing in a little while, mmmmmmmmmm pasta!

This morning we woke up at Will’s Biker Campground and let me let you all know that he made a very generous gesture to us travelers. If he is reading this, and we left you a thank you note in the gazebo, we want to thank you again, it is amazing the people you meet on the road. We packed up our stuff before sunrise and jumped back on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was so cold and yet so beautiful. It is amazing when you wake up in weather like that how your body adjusts to the temperature. Your body is still for 8 hours only using minimal energy to keep the body warm in the sleeping bag, than just as you get out of the bag you body has not had time to pump all the warm blood to your body so you stand jumping around shivering. And finally you are kind of warm from packing up the tent and stuffing the bag and making tea and packing up the cases and loading everything on the bike with all of the gear on, socks, boots, long johns, board shorts, double knees, silk shirt, polypropylene, fleece, sweatshirt, and jacket (having three of its own layers, synthetic down, waterproof membrane and outer shell, then the balaclava helmet, clear glasses, fleece gloves mountaineering glove shells and finally a big smile. We preheat the bikes, kick them in gear and pull away slowly down the bush tunnel path of Wills Campground.

The Blue Ridge Parkway was again beautiful today, winding roads through foggy fields and warm south facing slopes. Our helmet shields would fog up and we would have to go bare eyed. There were amazing mountain vistas around every corner.

We got off the parkway to get some breakfast at 9:40 and also to fix my coffee addiction. We met some great locals on the road asking directions.

After breakfast we got back on the Parkway only to realize they closed off a giant section so we had to detour, leading us to none other than… yup a HIGHWAY AHHHHHHHHH! We got off that bad boy asap and got on some back road to somewhere. Winding through cow pastures we were enjoying not knowing where we were going or where we came from, only to glide along the road twisting corners and listening to Jasmin purr to her hearts content.

We came to a beautiful small lake town east of Ashville with windy roads full of tourists. We pulled over at the top of one hill to fix Colin’s mirror and believe it or not we were right in front of a post office with a fax machine. So Colin sent all of his final paperwork in for the bike so the title should be coming soon…

Today was also the day when we decided to be on our own time, this is our vacation so we are from this point on only doing what we want when we want, yes we can keep our itinerary but no we are not going to rush and we made up a three point list of importance.

1. Safety.

2. Having fun.

3. Destination.

Making our way back to the Blue Ridge Parkway we got gas and found a great little organic food shop with NPR playing. Finally we got back to the BRP and made our way up the windy roads through about half a dozen tunnels where we had fun beeping our horns and yodeling all the way to Pisgah Mountain at about 4980. And here is where I started the day. Our computer is about to die, I just saved it, I don’t know if we will be able to do a life blog tomorrow but we shall see.