A long and winding road
Today we are staying near Brastown bald. Brastown Bald is the highest point in GA. Our Soigneur from 2004, Amy, had informed me that the weather report had a forecast of snow at the top of Brastown Bald. I personally prefer to ride/race in the snow as you tend to not get as wet as when it is just full out raining. Colder for sure but If you dress warm, then snow is not much of an issue.
I wish we could have stayed in Gainesville last night. Our rooms in Lake Lanier were epic but it was an hour transfer from yesterdays finish in Dalonega to the hotel. And then today we had another 45 minutes transfer to the start in Gainesville. It was easily less than 30 or 40 minutes from Dalonega to Gainesville so if we stayed in Gainesville, we would have had easily an hour less transfers and thus an hour more to relax. And it was a late night last night (twice this trip) and thus broke my golden rule of not working in the dark once more.
Driving to our next hotel was along some small highways. Almost the whole way it was one lane in each direction with a small spattering of passing lanes and even smaller number of double lanes sections. The North eastern part of GA is awesome. I got to experience some of that a few weeks ago when I did the trip with Frankie and the tour group riding parts of the Tour of Georgia. But this trip, I got to see even more of that awesome part of Georgia.
Our hotel was again Cabins. What a great place to relax. There were 4 rooms to a cabin this time. Again there was a full kitchen and a main living area in the center with two of the rooms connecting directly to the living area. The two other rooms were not readily accessible to the main living area as that person would have to go outside the building and reenter the living area. Being there first as hotel mechanic (with Stephanie the hotel Soigneur) I got a pick of the litter. So, of one of the staff houses, I picked a room with easy access to the living area and proceeded to start a fire for later on.
Dream on I guess I should have told myself. For two reasons. First was Dan Osipow who wanted to switch rooms with me since I was alone with two beds and he was rooming with Mark Higgins (LA assistant, but does so much more) and their room only had a single bed. So that meant I had no “EASY” access to the living area and the fire I started for the staff house. Second problem was that work was AGAIN late into the night and so I just finished work and then had dinner and straight to bed. These transfers are tough on staff as we don’t get to the hotel till 6:30 or sometimes 7:00. With a minimum of an hour and a half but most time 2 hours that means we are already at 8:30 if not later when we have s small surprise of extra work.
There are a few tough parts to this job. But today’s SOLID plus was the drive up to the hotel (cabins). It took me 2 hours but it was a scenic drive up there on………………..A long and winding road.