Dupont trip

Our trip to Dupont started off a little hectic this year. The Pancake Shack has been in the shop since April and the week before we were supposed to leave we found out that we were finally going to get it back. I talked to the guys at A&L on Wed and they told me it would be ready Thursday, I said that's fine but I can't pick it up till Friday. Friday rolled around and Melinda and I headed over to JC to pick up our missing camper. On the way I decided with all the problems we've had I should probably call ahead to make sure it was ready. Well my hunch was right, it wasn't. We went ahead anyway because Melinda had enough and wanted to talk to the owner and tell him all that we had been through. After a nice chat the owners told us they personally would make sure it was finished quickly. We decided to run a few errands around town while we waited for them to call. About an hour and a half later we got the call that after the rebuild the top would still not stay up. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. To make a long story short the manufacturer left out a key part during the rebuild and we we're there until 7:30 that evening trying to figure out a solution. I finally told them to put it back together and I would use my original supports to hold up the top like we did in Savannah.
Somehow we managed to get it home and packed up in time to leave just before noon Sat morning. I was beginning to wonder if we'd even make it. I even took our tent as a backup just in case. Once we got there we only had 1 issue with it, a small wiring problem but my genius bro-n-law remedied that problem and everything was smooth sailing from then on.

It turned out to be a great week with even better weather. Very little rain, cool temps and almost no back pain! Well at least no pain until the end of the week.

Here's my girl all set up and ready to camp in her Pancake Shack.

I got the truck loaded down with bikes, looks pretty good I do say. I think I could easily manage 2 or 3 more up there.

We started the week off right with a pancake breakfast on the porch of the main house at our campground. The fine folks at the Black Forest campground con their Mom into cooking homemade pancakes every Sat and Sun morning and man they were good.

We got about 5 good days straight of riding and I thought before we left that we might get tired of riding Dupont everyday but we didn't, in fact Melinda wanted to stay an extra 2 or 3 days to ride some more. We hit trails we'd never been on in previous trips. There are a lot of really great trails out there that go unnoticed.

We had to hit Bridal Veil falls of course but I decided against trying to ride across the river this year. It just wasn't warm enough to risk going for a swim that day. Last year I tried to cross and the river bed is a solid piece of granite covered in the slickest moss on top of a pretty swift current. Needless to say I made it only about half way across. Here's a link to the video from last year if you haven't seen it. picasaweb.google.com/b...3117522610

Olga was the only one to crash that day and luckily Dustin manage to catch the carnage.

We did go for a swim a couple days later in the nearby lake which was crystal clear. Dustin tried to talk me into recreating the "Dirty Dancing" lake dance scene with him, me being Baby and him being Patrick Swayze but I wasn't having any of it.

Mary performed flawlessly all week, she just may be a keeper. We rode down the old abandoned airstrip and I thought this pic looked kinda cool. "Mary your cleared for take off."

Amazingly the only mechanical we had all week was a broken chain on the Monkey. Yeah I took both.

We only ate out once at this cool little Mexican joint in Brevard that sold Margaritas by the pitcher.

My mother-in-law won't let you take a picture of her unless she poises so I had to have a little fun with her and accessorize her ensemble a little with a tortilla chip on her shoulder. She had no idea it was there. And of course we didn't want Olga to feel left out.

One day Melinda and I decided to leave the bikes at camp and go out for a hike with the dogs.

We saw this really cool water snake but I don't think he was as excited about seeing us as we were about him.

On the last day Dustin and I decided to get up early and climb up the Big Rock Trail just after sunrise.

Dustin battle scar from that nasty downhill run off the top of Burnt Mountain.

I swear I could go back this weekend and ride 5 more days. I just can't get enough of that place. Black Forest campground is a great place to stay, they really cater to mountain bikers. I have only one complaint about Dupont, having to share the trails with horses, I get tired of having to get off my bike and off the trail because an animal that's 4 times my size is scared of my bike. Why would you bring a horse that's scared of bikes to a trail head that is a very popular mtn bike destination. I don't understand it, my bike isn't scared of them and it sure doesn't leave turds on the trail. I'll try and get some videos posted up but the quality seems to get cut in half when viewing them online so I need to try and remedy that. Hope you enjoy!

Later