Day 5: Cold, cold and more cold

4 May 2011
Leaving Monterey VA at 8 in the morning seemed like a good idea; that is until the south decided to be cold. The temperatures were probably low 40s and our gloves still hadn’t dried fully from the night before. We lined them with nitril gloves to prevent the moisture from hitting our skin. That didn’t help much. We even had multiple layers and our rain suits on as wind protection. This still didn’t help much. I’m sure some of the scenery that we rode through was beautiful. I know at least a portion of it was because we had to stop within the first hour of riding to thaw our fingers at a beautiful lookout point. But the rest of the way, I couldn’t tell you. If I turned my head, the icy wind would get under my helmet and into my shirt so I didn’t look around too much.

For gas one time we stopped at a really hillbilly-style station. We thought we would get some sandwiches across the street at a building with a sign that said “Deli”. It turns out that it was a convenience store with some day old looking fried chicken under a heat lamp. We pushed on a few exits and luckily found this place called Wildflour Bakery and Café. It appeared to be owned by affluent older hippies and while a little pricey was absolutely delicious. I had turkey pastrami with honey mustard and gouda with a cup of tomato and basil soup. It certainly warmed me up.





Mostly we just put on some serious highway miles to get as close to Deal’s Gap as possible so that we could get to Charlotte sooner the next day. Sometimes highway miles are necessary. The temperature didn’t start to get warmer until we got off the highway in the Gatlinburg area of Tennessee. Boy howdy, that is a lot of tacky junk all over the place to assault your senses. Words cannot really explain it and one would have to see it for themselves.

We pulled into camp at the entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The hammocks were set up with a great view and we chowed down on some camp food. The little warmth we had found in this part of Tennessee quickly faded as the sun went down and the wind picked up. Apparently during the course of the night the temperatures dropped to 30 with windchill making it feel like 25. Needless to say it was hard to sleep. My top-side was fine, but there was far too much heat transfer on the smooshed underside of my sleepingbag due to the wind. This resulted in me getting out into the cold at two in the morning to insulate my hammock with clothes.