Date: 2007-03-26
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Miles today: 0.0

My last two days at my RV here in Northern Georgia will be Monday and Tuesday. I will be leaving here on Wednesday morning and heading towards Richmond, Va. I plan on stopping off for a couple days at Chief's house in Garner, NC. He promised to feed me well for a couple days, so I'll gain more weight and really feel those hills in Virginia. He's a true friend...always thinking of my well being. :-)) This is Sunday night and I'm too excited to sleep. I was tired after working all day on more stuff that needed to be done, so I went to bed about an hour ago, but couldn't stop thinking about this adventure that Mrs Gorp and I are starting soon. so I got up and decided to write my last preparation journal entry before I leave Georgia. I did get another climb on the bike up to Brasstown Bald in today. After riding on some flat ground for a while, that climb felt good. I knew I had gotten a good workout when I got to the top, so I took a short break and enjoyed the unusually warm day. I watched a few other racer type bicycle guys get to the top of that mountain and for some reason, they didn't look as tired as I felt. I got back on the bike and into an aerodynamic position again (no matter what Chief says about that in my guestbook) and I hit 45 mph coming down the hill. I thought those speeds on a bicycle would scare me, but it doesn't and I'm having a blast!! :-)) I decided to turn off my phone, DSL and satellite here at the RV since I won't be back this year. I've got all three bundled. It was easy turning off the DSL and the phone through Windstream, but they said I needed to turn off the satellite through Dish Network. That was a real pain!!   I waited on hold for quite a while for customer service. When I got a person to talk to, I told them I wasn't going to be here the rest of the year and I wanted to cancel. When I finally got it through that person's head that I really did want to cancel, that customer service person said she had to transfer me to someone else. Well, they did and the line went dead after about a minute on hold. I had to go back through Windstream to get reconnected to Dish Network. To shorten the 2 hour story (that's how long it took to cancel), the same exact thing happened two more times. Finally I had Windstream do a conference call so they could stay on the line for when Dish Network "accidentally" disconnected me again. The guy at Dish Network just couldn't understand why I wanted to cancel. He finally said it would cost me $100.00 to have them roll a truck by to pick up a receiver. I said good...do it. They got their receiver yesterday. I don't like to complain about things, but Dish Network was the worst company I can remember ever dealing with. Two hours just to cancel and I fulfilled my one year contract 3 months ago with them. OK, back to the good stuff. :-)) I've got a list of things that I need to tend to tomorrow and another list for Tuesday. My to-do lists are getting much smaller everyday. I did get the two mirrors that I wanted from a bike store in Atlanta. I really like the mirror that attaches to my sunglasses. It's called "Take A Look" and works nicely. The other mirror fits on the hoods on my handlebars and I think that will work out too. I like to know what's coming up behind me. I would like to get in one more ride up the mountain before I leave here too. Oh yeah, I had a nice surprise yesterday morning. Lone Wolf called me and said that Circuit Rider, Sherlock and Ox were walking into Neel Gap that day and wanted to get together for dinner. I was hoping I'd get to see those guys before I left. I knew where we would eat at because Sherlock was there.....The Cookie Jar buffet in Blairsville. Food is important to him......I understand. :-)) Circuit Rider bought dinner...he insisted. I think I'll see them somewhere in Maine or NH in September and that dinner will be on me. I didn't say anything at dinner, but I thought about how many thru hikes had been done by the bunch at the table. I think Lone Wolf has done 5 and Circuit Rider and Sherlock have both completed 4. The most impressive part to me is that Sherlock is only about 27 years old and he's on his fifth thru hike of the AT this year. It was hard thinking about them being out walking right now, but then in a few days, I'll be on my own adventure. I am so excited that I can't stand it!! This coming Sunday, April 1st, the fun begins at Yorktown, Va.....the start of the Trans Am Bicycle Trail. WOOHOO!!!!!!! :-))