I had planned a trip to Georgia and due to the workload had even canceled it. But on Thursday, I'd gotten enough of the jobs done that I felt I could blow off a Friday. So, I loaded the car up and started down the road. On the way, I stopped in for the Thursday night Morgantown training crits. They lasted 3 laps as organizer did a really bizarre endo and wound up on his face. After getting him packed off to the ER, we decided WVU might not like it if there was a second wreck in the race and we opted for a training ride. It was a nice 20+ mile ride with a couple big climbs and a tour through the downtown and campus area. Thursday night in town is ladies night at the bars so from a guy's standpoint, it's a good time to be in town. I really do want to go back to school. I don't want to take any classes, but I do want to go back to school. Once back to the car, I did my stumping to a couple other riders for the Enzymatic Therapy product, Fatigued to Fantastic. I can't say enough about this stuff. It really does help out. I'm just a couple weeks past one of the little warning attacks of chronic fatigue I have to deal with and I'm feeling one hell of alot better. I just have to remind myself to stay on it now. Afterwards, I got the car loaded up and did the next 3 hour leg of the drive(4 hours total by now). In the morning, I got myself ready, had a good breakfast and started on the next leg of the journey. I was hoping to make it in for the finish of the 5th stage of the Tour de Georgia. Unfortunately, I found out that they went a bit faster on that day and came in quite early. I was able to check the race progress via the notebook's wireless hookup. If you don't have a regular service aircard, one trick you can do is pull off at any exit where you see hotels at. Most have free wireless, though you do have to have a log in for it. I have found that Holiday Inn Express just make you click past the usage screen and then you're ok. Most Day's Inn and Super 8s are the same. Some hotels like Motel 6 charge for it - Jerks! So anyway, I finally found a hotel in Northern Georgia in the evening. It was a bit difficult since there was a big NHRA drag racing event in the area where I was looking to stay. In the morning, I drove to Blairsville to the start of stage 6 and met up with some people I needed to see for work before the start. I made the arrangements to link up with them after the stage and with work done for the time being, I drove to the finishing mountain. There was quite a few people on the mountain. I road it on a 25 and cursed the extra 20lbs I'm carrying right now the whole way. One way to tell if I'm suffering, is to listen to me and what I'm saying when riding. If I'm cracking jokes and making fun of myself, I'm hurting. I was doing a regular stand up act the whole way up. I knew I should've put the 27 on. I also knew that I should've put down the donut earlier in the day too(the day before too...). But there I was. I actually ran into a few people who were there from the Mid-Atlantic cross crowd. They recognized me even though I was in my WVU Healthcare kit instead of the Fort team's. I guess it's a good feeling to be seen and known. For the race, I was hoping Sevilla could pull something out. It was really good seeing him cross back to the front group towards the top, but unfortunately, his race form just wasn't quite as good as the others and he slipped off after passing the spectator area. After the race, I caught up with the guys who were in the race caravan and had a brief chat with them and re-established communication with a company after our contact had abrubtly left a bit more than a month ago. Hopefully work on the projects we'd been talking to them about can start.
From there I continued on down to Atlanta and stayed with my brother and his wife for the evening. By now, I'd been driving for a total of 14 hours. Man it was beginning to suck. On Sunday, I got into town with zero issues and even found free parking too. There was a pretty good crowd, though it seemed a bit packed into just the start finish area. I filled up a schwag bag with souvenirs and even stopped by the Rock Racing booth and got some of the autographed posters. I have friends who are big Tyler and Freddy fans. Say what you will about this team, but they are the ONLY team to have an organized place where fans can meet and actually talk and get photos with the riders. This is the sort of thing that people respond to at a sporting event and can only be a good thing for the sport. Maybe more teams should take a look at what they're doing and start trying to one up them and we could actually get noticed much beyond our small little world. Once the day was finished up, I hopped back in the car and began the drive home. Crap, it was past 5. It was going to be a long one. This leg of the trip ended a bit earlier than I thought. I wound up having a headlight switch crap out on me when getting gas. I'd made to to 20 miles away from the WV border. After tearing apart the steering wheel a bit and realizing I didn't have all the tools to fix it I was going to need, I just opted to sleep in the car and finish the drive in the morning. Audis are nice cars to drive, but they suck for trying to sleep in them. I finished the drive home, Monday morning. It rained almost the entire way. At the end, I'd spent a bit more than 25 hours behind the wheel of the car in about 3.5 days. It was a good trip, but I really don't want to do that again for a while.
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