Day 1 -Plan? What plan?

For weeks I have been researching, studying, mapping, planning, writing, asking, talking, routing, rerouting and highlighting the greatest way to get from Atlanta, GA to Newfoundland, Canada and back. The only "planned" stops Catherine and I have are night one and two with my friend Jeff near Little Switzerland, NC and another stop in a little B&B north of St Anthony on Newfoundland (get a map and look north!) in early July. No other itinerary, no schedules, no expectations, no nothing. Just a rough plan to go 2,500 miles north along the Appalachian, Shenandoah and Adirondack Mountains and then 2,500 miles back south along the eastern coast. Perfect....

Except plans can easily get tossed aside when Mother Nature wants... and so it was on Day 1. After pulling out from Atlanta at 11:50 am (see picture below), the first 200 miles of the trip were great as we rode up through north Georgia and along the Nantahala river in North Carolina. Then things changed. First came the rains, light at first but then slowly creeping up in intensity. Then came the cold as we began going up the mountains of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Then came the mists which made visibility an issue. Then, as we crept north along the BRP at 20 miles per hour, we hit a fog; fog so thick the yellow lines on the road were all we could see. With cliffs hundreds of feet on either side of the road this was not a good thing. We were barely moving at about 15 miles an hour and seriously debating whether we should forget about Little Switzerland and just set up our tent somewhere and bunker down for the night. But the lure of a hot meal, a warm shower and a comfortable bed kept us going. And so God threw in His last challenge - wind! OMG, seriously? 

There are no pictures of this ordeal as all we cared about was keeping the bike upright and staying on the road. Finally, at 8:30 pm, drenched, cold and exasperated, we came around a corner and saw the most beautiful sign in the world: It read "Little Switzerland" with an exit arrow. 30 minutes later we were eating a hot meal with Jeff, another 30 minutes later we were drinking wine and laughing. A d an hour later we were asleep. All's well that ends well. 

But oh......so tired...