2015 Road Trip Report #04

Yesterday was…um…interesting is one way to put it. The day started off well with an omelet at the student dining hall, an excellent one at that, lots of coffee and a decision to head in the other direction along the Beltline this morning.
Yesterday I’d gone north once I connected to the route, today I would try heading south. As it turned out, this was both more or less impossible and a lot of fun.
Where I’d picked up the route yesterday, just east of GSU, the path heading north was lovely, the path heading south was…a dirt road behind a construction site. I started off and within a quarter mile I came to the end of the dirt track and no clue how to continue. Okay, back the other way and lets try again.
I’d seen some other folks bike up a road just bit further that what should have been the start of the trail heading south and found myself in Cabbagetown. This is a decidedly funky neighborhood and I’d love to live there if I were a resident; lots of street art, small cafes, and small residential homes of a certain age. It’s not one of the toney neighborhoods I passed through heading north, nice as they are, but rather one that has a working class character, and one would hope, price level. Honestly I’d be more comfortable there than up in the stratosphere. Enough class warfare for the moment.
Okay, as nice as Cabbagetown is, I soon discovered that I’d found the Beltline again and started off. This time it was a dirt track alongside old railroad tracks.

Beltline South
As I’m riding on 2″ tires this presented no problem and it was great to be a on a bit of ‘rails to trails’ conversion.
This state of affairs didn’t last however. The path got narrower and narrower and the tracks were harder and harder to find.
Beltline South ... where?
 
I pressed on. Soon the tracks were back but the ground where it was clear enough to ride was sandy, beach sandy. Even with my 2″ tires I found it almost impossible in places and had hike a good part of the way. Sometimes I could ride, sometimes I walked. No worries, with my new hip and after only a year I still think of it has new, walking isn’t a big issue.
Finally, however, I realized that if I kept this up I’d be at it all day. The next time the path crossed a road, I started cycling again. As luck would have it I’d been moving mostly south and just a bit east so the road I found was exactly the one I’d have chosen. Go figure.
I ended up passing by the Atlanta Cyclorama, which has nothing to do with cycling and a lot to do with the Civil War. I didn’t stop but if I’ve time on Monday I plan on getting back to it.
Again I hit Cabbagetown and as it was still early I decided I’d stop at one of the cafes for a quick cup. Big mistake.
The morning, which had been overcast, opened up with major passing thunderstorms. In seconds the roads were awash. Luckily I was under cover having hot coffee, but I did wonder if it would let up. It did, but none too quickly.
And here’s where my actual day deviated from my plan. On the way back to my dorm, probably less than a mile from my newly found coffee house, my camera dropped out my bag and hit the ground.
Toast.
Really.
Toast.
Sigh.
PIcked up the decidedly broken camera and tried to figure out what to do. Get back the room first, then decide. When I got back to the room I checked the camera just to be sure and I’d been right. Toast.
Since I’m on a rather longer trip, with more stops to come next week and beyond, I needed a camera. It turns out that downtown Atlanta isn’t the most shopping friendly place I’ve ever been and finding a new camera became an adventure.
More on that in my next post…

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