Sunday March 29
Raining. Mario calls at 6:55. He comes over at 7:15 to help put the luggage box on my car, drop off his luggage and pick up my bike. He is driving the bikes inside his Trailblazer and I am carrying the luggage in my car. This will keep the bikes dry for the trip down. After we get the box on, he goes off to get Eric. Since that will take awhile, i have time to load our stuff, get gas and cash and say goodbye to Kathi. Then I drove over to Eric’s and pick up his stuff, then we all drive over to Michael’s. No sign of Michael, but his stuff is on the porch for us to load. Miraculously as we put the last bit in, he appears and we are off; buy only to the Fanwood bagel store store so Mario and Eric can get breakfast.
Once we finally get started, Mario shoots a yellow at Bonnie Burn and Valley Rd which we run following him. Of course a Watchung cop is sitting on the other side but leaves us alone as we weren’t speeding. That would have been perfect getting a ticket before we even got onto Rt. 78. After that it was pretty uneventful although Michael and I observed that Mario’s driving was like his bike riding. We’ll leave that for the insiders to figure out. The rain was never hard, but was pretty steady and there were some pretty foggy areas. Traffic was light. We took an exit for a bathroom break for the coffee drinkers where Eric got, more coffee! Although highly tempting, we did not go over to Cabellas to check out the deer dressing department.
Back on the road for another 80 minutes, then lunch at Subway. We pretended it was reasonably healthy, especially those Italian subs and fresh cookies for dessert. Oh yeah, and chips. The rain had stopped but it was still gray. Another 90 or so minutes, we were out of Pennsylvania and could see blue skies ahead. Virginia did bring the blue skies and the temperature on the car thermometer jumped 15 degrees. We had agreed to stop for gas once we went from I 81 to I 64. Of course, we stopped at a Sheetz gas station on Tinkling Brook Rd. I think Michael is still cackling over that one. Taking a clue from the names, we used the facilities, filled up and did the last bit of the trip. Very pretty country.
We arrived at the Acorn Inn about 4:30. Mario and Eric are in the main house and Michael and I have a small house to ourselves. It has a kitchen, bathroom, living room and bedroom. When you first walk in and look in the bedroom you only see one double bed. We immediately laughed and thought of John Martin’s tent that only sleeps one. However there is a second single in there as well. We set up the stereo and got the tunes going with the 4 of us hanging out with beverages. Beautiful and sunny, but with the big ride on Saturday and plenty of riding to come, we didn’t see the need to get a ride in. We did note that the Inn is at the top of a hill so any return finished with an uphill. And yes, this is foreshadowing.
Dinner was very pleasant grilled salmon, steamed vegetables and garlic mashed potatoes. Allegedly the potatoes were added for the Fatmen. The group seems pretty serious. We don’t so it looks like we are the amusement for the group.
A few words on our hosts, Martin and Cathy own the acorn inn. Martin is Dutch and a former professional cyclist. He is 63 and looks like he can still smoke anyone here (he can). Cathy is a professional photographer and her photographs help decorate the main inn which is a converted stables-the stalls have been changed to individual rooms.
Our ride leaders are Josh and Doreen. Josh is 6’9” and has the largest bike I’ve ever seen. Nice folks. Doreen will be looking after the stragglers like Mario and I. Tom Kellogg, frame builder par excellance is here along with one of his brothers and his sister. There are more Spectrums (Tom’s brand) here than you can shake a chain wrench at.
The day ends pretty mellow at 11.
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