Nomadic Cycling

Phil made breakfast in the morning, and baked an apple pie to bring to Crystal’s cousin’s house in Collinsville.  I ate a mixture of avocado, banana and cottage cheese and made some phone calls outside, where the sun was warm and phone reception was decent.

Phil, Crystal and me at Daphne's house for Thanksgiving

When the pie was out of the oven and Crystal was ready to go, we drove to her cousin Daphne’s house, about 15 minutes away.  At least 30 family members were in town from all over for the holiday.  I didn’t recognize a lot of the food, but it was all delicious.  I even enjoyed the deep-fried turkey.  There was cornbread stuffing, corn casserole, a baked bean/meat dish, ham, broccoli rice casserole, green beans disguised in a creamy dressing, and mashed potatoes.  Of course, the desserts are always my favorite, and I had to save room for the pies, puddings, and cake.  Aside from the desserts that Phil and I brought, there was pecan pie, a lemon layered pudding dessert with a pecan crust, yellow cake with chocolate frosting, and banana pudding.  Banana pudding is something I’ve seen almost everywhere since we reached Alabama, and it’s incredible.

After eating, the family dispersed – the kids played outside with the dog, some watched football, and most of them just talked.  Several hours later, after many people had gone home, the food was broken out again.  I had a second course of much of the same food, plus extra banana pudding.

Me, Kenny and Phil at Starbucks in Tuscaloosa

We woke up at 8am, packed, and headed to Starbucks, where Kenny was already working for the day.  The weather was supposed to hold off until 2pm, so we decided we would make a run for it and try to get to Eutaw before the impending thunderstorms struck.  Kenny treated Phil and I to tea and coffee, respectively, and then we said goodbye and hit the road.

We made it 26 miles before the rain hit us.  It came after a small pit stop at a gas station, one of the only things we saw along the entire route.  I heard thunder in the distance and started thinking about tornadoes.  Tornadoes can form rapidly whenever there are severe thunderstorms, and my imagination fueled most of the energy in my legs for the rest of the ride.  At one point the rain came down so hard that I worried about cars being able to see us.  The water running down my face was burning my eyes, making it difficult to open them.

View of the river on the way out of Tuscaloosa

Eventually, it eased up, and as we pulled into Deirdre’s driveway, the sun actually peeked through the clouds.  Phil and I were both completely soaked – we finally really put the waterproof-ability of our panniers to the test (and they passed).

Deirdre and her son, George, helped us bring everything inside.  After showering, the four of us went to the only restaurant in town for lunch, where we had barbecue (pulled pork) sandwiches.  The population of Eutaw is greater than that of my high school by no more than a few hundred.  Everyone seems to know everybody.

In between lunch and dinner, Nola, Deirdre’s daughter, woke up and joined us, and Ken, her husband, came home from work.  Dinner was excellent – baked pumpkins stuffed with rice, cheese, bacon, apple and herbs, and breaded chicken.  We talked for a while in between dinner and dessert, which was brownies with ice-cream.  The family has great stories about un-schooling (different from home-schooling), what life is like in Alabama, and other people they’ve hosted from around the world.  I thoroughly enjoyed listening to all of them.

Phil, Bailey, Joe, Cooper and me

Joe had an exam on Monday morning and then was driving to be with his family in Memphis for Thanksgiving, but his roommate, Kenny,who was initially skeptical of couchsurfing, kindly agreed to let us stay another night after Joe was gone.  Joe also let us use his bed, which was a great improvement over the couches in the living room.

We spent most of the day relaxing and recovering from the 4 hard days of riding we had done since Atlanta.  It was just over a mile walk to Bama Jama’s, where we ate breakfast by the football stadium.  After walking back, Phil played video games while I napped with Kenny’s dog, Bailey.  I brought Bailey out for a walk and then went running myself through the University of Alabama campus and to the Tuscaloosa River Walk, just over 7 miles total.

View of the river during my run

While I was running, Kenny came back from work and went on his own 6-mile run, and afterwards, we all went grocery shopping.  Kenny made three pizzas for dinner, which were all delicious (especially the BBQ chicken pizza).  Kenny’s neighbor, Chris, and friend, Kari, joined us for dinner.

My good friend from RI, Ashley, has family in Tuscaloosa, and she had put me in touch with her cousin, Jon, who I was hoping to meet later that evening.  Unfortunately, he ended up not being able to meet that night.  Phil and I weren’t sure if we would leave the next day because of severe thunderstorms that were predicted for Tuesday, so we decided to wake up early the next morning to get a better idea of the weather.

Me, Jen, Mark and Phil before leaving Birmingham

Jen was on call on Sunday and got called into work that morning, so Mark made pancakes and eggs for breakfast.  By the time we had packed and were ready to go, Jen had returned, so she and Mark walked us downstairs.  Mark had to go to work this time, and he rode with us as far as his office, just a few blocks west of their apartment.

The first 15 miles of the ride were actually very depressing to me.  The homes were all run-down, very small and close together, and Garmin kept sending us down narrow alleys that were littered with trash (and sometimes broken glass).  The weather didn’t help.  It was cloudy and misty for most of the day.  We couldn’t pick up any speed because we weren’t on any roads for long enough before being sent onto unpaved, bumpy pathways or turning onto another ally.  Old American cars with pimped out wheels seemed to be in style, and many homes had been patched with random materials for example, the top surface of a small corner desk had been nailed over the bottom corner of a broken window).

Alabama is hilly!

Conditions improved after we stopped for lunch.  We were finally out of the city and the mist had lifted, but it was still cloudy and the roads became hilly.

When we finally reached Tuscaloosa, the last stretch looked like a war zone.  Joe, our host, later explained that an enormous tornado had gone through in April, picking up everything in its path.  Trees, cars, houses – entire neighborhoods – were now completely gone.

For dinner we went to Dreamland BBQ – a place that was rated number one for their dessert (banana pudding) and runner-up for best barbecue, according to the Best of Tuscaloosamagazine.  The ribs were good, but the banana pudding was incredible.  I’m already thinking about how I could get some more of it before we leave Tuscaloosa.

Walkway leading up to the UA Crimson Tide's football stadium

From there, Joe brought us to the University of Alabama campus to walk around and see the Walk of Champions, outside of the Bryant-Denny football stadium, where a bronze statue was erected for every coach who won UA a football national championship.  Ever since we reached North Carolina, it became increasingly apparent that college football is a big deal in the South.  The UA football stadium can seat 104,000 people, and another 50-60,000 usually just tailgate outside.  Joe told us that home games always sell out, and games can generate over $20 million.

Joe’s roommate, Kenny, came home shortly after we returned to Joe’s apartment.  Both Joe and Kenny had to wake up early the next morning, so we had a relaxing evening and watched a movie before going to bed.

Phil’s alarm clock didn’t sound this morning, so when I woke up and saw that it was 7:30, we both jumped up and started packing.  We had told Reverend Chuck that we would be leaving by 8am.  We made it out by 8:05, dropped the key in Chuck’s mailbox, and rode about a mile to Starbucks for breakfast.

Phil and I with some of the Oxford locals at Starbucks

Having a loaded bicycle in a small town in Alabama (or anywhere, I’d imagine) is a great conversation starter.  Several people struck up conversation, asking what we were doing, offering their advice on places to check out around town and when we get to New Orleans, and informing us that there is a pretty high-profile bicycle race just a few miles away in Cheaha State Park, the location of the high point in Alabama.  We were lucky enough to get a photo with a few of the folks who spoke to us at Starbucks.

Back on the road, we backtracked to the church before we were on course with Garmin.  I’m afraid I’ve been spending too much time following the purple line that Garmin lays out for me.  Like any computer game that one gets addicted to, I’ve been seeing the purple line in my dreams and every time I close my eyes.  It’s really quite fascinating, as I thought it could only happen with games like tetris and minesweeper, but a little frightening as well.  I’m glad that New Orleans is only about a week away, so I will be free from Garmin’s trance for a few months.

In the first twenty miles of the day, we passed various attractions such as the Eastaboga Nut House (another pecan facility), the Talladega Super Speedway, and Scuttlebutt Wireless (sorry, Verizon, but I think I would switch to this wireless provider just for the great name if I lived here).  We also had tremendous luck with the winds and terrain, as route 78 was mainly a gradual decline in altitude and we were going downwind the entire time.  This luck changed shortly after we stopped for food in Pell City at the Ark Family Restaurant.  We turned off of 78, and were faced with some serious hills for the second third of the journey.  Heading back towards 78, we turned into the wind.

We stopped at a gas station for our second break of the day about 20 miles outside of Birmingham.  There, we saw all sorts of interesting people, but nobody talked to us except for a cross country coach who was stopping in with the team after they had run a half marathon.  The last ten miles into Birmingham were very industrial.  We played leapfrog with a train heading into the city, and then ended up riding down a road that reminded me of Allens Avenue in Providence, minus the bike lanes and the strip clubs (I know, I know…what other distinguishing characteristics could there be?  It just felt like Allens Ave).

Phil, me, Jen and Mark in Birmingham

We arrived at Jen and Mark’s apartment just before Jen was leaving to go to a movie, so she left shortly after letting us in.  After showering, Mark took Phil and me to a modest, but very delicious French restaurant.  We finished the night off with a beer at Avondale Brewing Company, the local brewery that recently opened.  The beer was very good, and the bartender and brew master were both very friendly.

Me, Jesse and Phil before leaving Carrollton

Jesse stayed in the main house, and didn’t end up getting home from work until 5am.  I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been, but he still managed to wake up at 10 to bring us breakfast from the house.  I felt surprisingly fresh for having danced all night and gotten so little sleep.  My only complaint is that smoking was allowed in the bar after 10pm, and so all of the clothes I wore the night before stunk of cigarette smoke.

The ride was mainly downhill and the wind was generally behind us, but our average speed was slower than I had expected under those conditions.  We stopped at 23 miles for a quick snack, and then continued on to a vineyard where Jesse had recommended we stop.  Along the way, Garmin directed us down a short, nonexistent road that was thickly overgrown with young pine trees and thorny branches.  We struggled to push our bikes and ourselves through to the road up ahead.  Maybe that’s what slowed our average speed for the day.  Once on our bikes again, Phil brought to my attention that it was an hour earlier than I had thought, since we had crossed into another time zone at some point in the last hour.

Southern Oak Vineyards (aka White Oak Vineyards) is located in Anniston, Alabama, and gives free wine tastings.  We stopped in to sample all of their offerings and decided on the Scarlet red muscadine table wine to purchase for one of our lucky future hosts.  The wines were all delicious and mostly on the sweet side.  The owner recommended a restaurant for us to try when we got to Oxford.

When we got to Oxford, we went straight for the restaurant, but it was closed until 5pm.  It was going to get dark soon, and we still needed to find a place to set up our tent, so we went on down the road to seek out a patch of grass somewhere.  We ended up at the First United Methodist Church of Oxford.  The pastor, Chuck, initially told us that we couldn’t stay there because the church would be full of boy scouts that evening, but he agreed to let us pitch our tent on the grass by the church.  Almost as soon as we had finished setting up the tent, he came back outside to tell us that there was a scheduling confusion, and the boy scouts were actually coming next weekend, so we were welcome to stay inside if we wanted.  Since it was going to be in the 30’s overnight and we were already cold, we gladly accepted.  Chuck showed us inside to the youth recreation room, which was full of couches.  He is also a cyclist, and offered us any of his tools if we needed to fix anything on our bikes.

We went back to the restaurant that was recommended to us, but after looking at the menu decided it was too pricey (Chuck had warned us of this, but the reviews online did not seem so bad).  However, just the thought of all the other options around there made me think “heartburn”.  We decided to part ways for dinner and Phil went to Waffle House while I splurged at Garfrerick’s Cafe and enjoyed a heartburn-free meal of tuna ceviche, pan-seared fish and risotto, and cranberry-pear bread pudding for dessert.  Phil and I met up again after dinner and biked back to the church to get some rest.

Thursday was sunny, but much colder and windier.  We got off to a rather late start, first biking 2 or 3 miles to find breakfast and not taking off again until after noon.  Our host for the evening, Jesse, had to work at 5pm, so we had to race to try to get there before he left for work.

In our haste, we somehow got separated when Phil and I turned opposite ways onto route 166.  I stopped to wait for Phil at mile 27 and continued to wait for a suspiciously long time, so I phoned him to see if something was wrong.  He was about 7 miles away from me, heading east instead of west.  After back and forth map checking and some discussion, Phil told me to go ahead at my own pace and he would meet me at the address I gave him.  I went on for the second half of the ride alone, riding as fast as I could.

The hilly terrain and nasty headwinds prevented me from going as fast as I would have liked, and I ended up arriving at Jesse’s house not 5 minutes before he had to leave for work.   Jesse’s dad was outside with their mini Schnauzer puppy, Muffy, and he led me behind the house to the cottage where we were to stay.  Jesse told me to make myself at home and to let him know when we were ready to go out into Carrollton, and then he left for work.  Phil arrived shortly afterwards.  We showered and ate some food that Jesse’s dad brought over to us before texting Jesse, who left some friends in charge of the bar while he came to pick us up and bring us into town.

Jesse tends bar at the Alley Cat (which is nothing at all like the Alley Cat in Providence), one of the four options for food and drink in downtown Carrollton.  We relaxed at the bar with Jess and his friends for a while before going across the street to a restaurant called Plates, where Amber, another couchsurfer we had contacted, was singing that night.  The Cowtown String Band was between sets when we walked in, and Amber sat and talked with us until she had to go on stage.  I hadn’t been to a show since I was living in Newport, and this one was great entertainment.  When they were finished, we all walked back to Alley Cat, where they were having a dub step dance party.  This was my first time experiencing this type of music and dancing.  My ears were still ringing from the loud music the next day (hopefully it won’t be permanent), but it was quite fun.  Although, it still doesn’t beat salsa dancing.

When we were ready to go home, one of Jesse’s friends, Jay, kindly drove us back to Jesse’s house.  I tried to catch up on blogging, but it was already after 2am when we returned, and I ended up falling asleep without finishing.

Me, Phil and Doug before leaving Athens

This morning my legs did not want to work for me.  I don’t know how late I slept, because I didn’t look at a clock until we were leaving the bakery we had biked to for breakfast.  After eating breakfast, Douglas led Phil and I for the first 7 or 8 miles out of Athens.

We stopped at a gas station for a break after 20 miles, and shortly after that we passed a pecan-cracking facility called Granddaddy’s Crack House.  I should have taken a photo of the sign.  For lunch, we stopped at the Publix grocery store in Loganville, where I found the coconut water I had been craving for the last few weeks.  While sitting and eating by our bikes outside, a few people approached to ask us what we were doing.  One of them was a cyclist driving an old VW bus who asked if we needed anything and warned us to beware of the traffic.  A woman, who was also a cyclist, with her daughter, came over to talk, and after going into the market, she came out and gave us a Publix gift card.  Once again, I am so touched by the generosity of strangers.  Everywhere we have been thus far, we have met amazing people, and I am convinced that we will find them all over the world.

We still had more than 30 miles to go from Publix, and it was already after 3pm.  Getting back on the bike after such a long rest is always the most difficult part of the day, but we had to get moving.  We were headed to a park about 16-17 miles away called Stone Mountain, where we would be able to get onto a bike path that would take us all the way into Atlanta.  Garmin wanted us to go through a gated community, and we slipped in before the gate closed after a car exited.  We ran into trouble when we were directed to go through another automated gate, that needed a key to get through from both sides.  I flagged down a woman driving by in a golf cart who informed us that we could not go in there unless we were members of the private golf course.  We had to go back out the way we came in, and find a way around it into Stone Mountain park.

Stone Mountain (not the best view, I know)

As we neared a busy highway, we spotted two cyclists up ahead, and I asked one of them for directions into the park.  We had to ride against traffic on the freeway for a short distance in order to get into the park.  There was very little traffic at this point, but it was approaching dusk, which is the most dangerous time of evening because drivers have the least ability to see at this level of light.

The park was really lovely, and the enormous stone rising out of nowhere clearly explained the origin of its name.  I only wish we had reached it a few hours earlier, as it was getting darker and threatening to rain, although, there were numerous cyclists and runners out and about.  It actually did start to sprinkle a few times during the rest of the ride.  It grew even darker after we hit the bike path, and it became difficult to see, which slowed us down for the last 10 or 12 miles.  At least the warmth didn’t leave with the sun – the temperature remained at a comfortable 70 degrees for the duration of the evening.

Drew, Julie, me and Phil, after eating pizza in Atlanta

We finally made it to Julie and Drew’s apartment at 7pm.  Phil knows Julie from Brown – she graduated at the same time as me, earlier this year.  Julie and Drew offered us snacks and beer while we cleaned up and got ready to go out for dinner.  The pizza place they brought us to was authentic Italian.  We squeezed onto the end of long table shared by other patrons and opened the first bottle of wine.  After nearly two pizzas and two bottles of wine, we all went home content and shared some pumpkin pie before passing out for the night.