There’s dogs in them there hills!

After a short 5-10 mile ride from Blythe Ferry to Dayton, TN, I ducked into the Huddle House for some breakfast. I hadn’t even set down my helmet when a woman at the bar exclaimed, “Bless your heart. I saw you peddling down the road all weighted down. Your breakfast is on me.” Bless her heart. I enjoyed hearing her story.

After I finished my biscuits and gravy (why of course!), I proceeded northwest towards the largest climbing challenge of the entire journey. In front of me was a 2,000 ft hill, which locals referred to as the mountains. To put this in perspective, I rode MacKenzie pass in Oregon a few times before I left and that tops out at around 5,700 ft. And, Mt Hood is twice that height. Nonetheless, I was intimidated by the old smokey mountain in front of me. And for good reason to. She kicked my butt. I didn’t even make it 1/4 of the way up before I began pushing my bike. Although my inability to complete the ascent might be deemed a failure in some circles,  I felt that it made my experience a bit more authentic. I pushed my shit over that mountain, a fortunate way of doing so compared to the Cherokee people that carried theirs on their backs. I was so exhausted when I reached the top that I downed 3 huge horchatas and napped for an hour before continuing on.

I enjoyed rolling down the mountain and into the cute little town of Pikeville,  TN, at least it would have been cute had it not been a Sunday. In the south,  nothing is open on a Sunday. I tried the only motel in town and the sign said no vacancy. I found a Mexican restaurant open so I sat down and refueled. My options were simple. Eat Mexican food again (for the third time that day) and pitch a tent in one of the church yards OR push my bike over the SECOND pass, the Cumberland Gap, and see if I could make it to Fall Creek Falls, a highly desirable camping and swimming destination that the removal riders had camped at too. I still don’t know what possessed me to choose the latter option, but I did. The sun bore down hard, and the humidity had already drenched my shirt before I had even reached the edge of town. I took the lesser traveled route up, Old Spencer Road. I pushed the whole {insert explicative of choice} way. I had to stop several times and take a break.  At one point,  I was sitting in the middle of the road when the sherif pulled up, well really down. Like everyone that I encountered that day, he thought I was pretty nuts.

Eventually, I made it to the top and began trying to bike the additional 15 miles or so to the park. That’s when I encountered my next hurdle of the journey, gravel roads. Yuk. I biked over about 3-4 miles of them, caked and coated with dust, jarring teeth rattling around in my mouth. Now if that wasn’t a miserable enough experience, let me tell you that TN route 138 might as well be called the unchained, unfenced dog capital of hell. Evil letter carriers must go there after death. No lie. I passed at least 20 different dogs that ran full speed towards me barking their heads off, sometimes in packs of 2 or 3 at a time.

But wait, there’s more!

At one point, a border collie (sorry susan but I simply can’t handle this breed anymore) began attacking my right foot.  Mind you, my right foot was attacked a few years ago by a border collie and I’m simply terrified of dogs as a result.

But wait, there’s more!

When I encountered this ravaging beast, I was biking up a hill.

So let’s get the full picture. I’m thoroughly wasted having biked/pushed up over 4,000 ft of elevation gain, biking on gravel, up a hill, in the middle of nowhere in Tennessee, having a full on PTSD reaction, while a border collie gnaws on my right shoe, over and over again with each rotation of the peddle. I tried being nice. That didn’t work.  I tried being stern. That only made the biting stronger.

I imagine that life probably wasn’t that much different for the Cherokee. They may not have had gravel roads, didn’t have any bikes to carry their gear, and were probably attacked by every single dog that they passed too. Perspective. Just part of the journey I suppose.

I turned left onto Fire Tower Road to discover that I had 5 miles of a bumpy, puddle-ridden dirt road through the forest ahead of me. Although it was a bit stressful to be in the forest near nightfall with ferocious dogs nearby, the ride was fun. I got a ride up the steep hill in the park thanks to Tim and Zonda, pitched my tent, and collapsed.