August 1, 2017
to Jeff Busby Park: Short day to a nice afternoon
It is going to be a short day today so we take full advantage of the comfortable bed in our guestroom to sleep in a little. Donna fixes coffee and we spend some relaxed time having breakfast and doing a couple more internet things. At about 9:30 we set off. Donna will not let us leave without some high-visibility riding vests, so dressed in orange we leave her driveway.
Back on the Trace it is only about 32 miles to Jeff Busby Campground, but there is one important stop along the way. The Trace is beautiful and very nice for cycling, but one major drawback is the total lack of facilities directly on the route. The National Park does not allow people to put signs along the road, so we never know whether the towns along it have a store or cafe. An exception is French Camp, the cafe there has such a reputation for its food that everybody knows about it. It is about halfway down our ride today. We pull in at about 11:00 and share a nice BLT sandwich (thinking of you Jo S.) and potato soup, together with a bottomless glass of sugared ice-tea, Southern style.
With very full stomachs it is another 13 miles to the Jeff Busby Campground. After our experience at Rocky Springs we are a bit tentative, but this site is beautiful with nice campsites, large trees and a clean bathhouse. No showers or power, but there is water and toilets. The site does not have a lot of biting bugs, so we spend a nice afternoon in our little camp chairs, reading and catching-up on the journal until the netbook runs out of power.
For dinner we make another macaroni dish with lots of veggies, hamburger meat and a spice mix we carried from Holland. Patrick bought a small handheld battery powered fan at Walmart and hangs it inside from the top of the tent. The batteries last long enough to keep us cool while we read until we fall asleep.
When it’s fully dark and we’ve been asleep, Rachel wakes Patrick “there’s something at the panniers” she says. We hear rustling by our bikes and Patrick gets out of the tent to chase away the raccoon trying to get into the food panniers. Then he hangs the food bags in a pole that seems to be constructed for this purpose. Not long afterwards the raccoon is back and used the bikes to jump onto the pole and to the panniers. Patrick’s back out of the tent, throwing pinecones at the raccoon. The food bags go into the tent, no grizzly’s here. A little later our friend is back again, checking out the other panniers. We end up with all our bags either in the tent or under the rainfly. He is not brave enough to get that close, but does spend his night pulling off the lid of the garbage bin to get to the garbage.
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Today's ride: 53 km (33 miles)
Total: 36,400 km (22,604 miles)
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