I spent the last two and a half hours writing an article only to lose it in it's entirety. I suspect my little notebook keyboard may be failing.

I stayed with Francois and Megan from Friday through to this morning. They were extremely kind to me. They too have a guest and gear room where they store guests and gear and I was stored there quite comfortably. We spent two days doing a shakedown run through mountain gravel roads and even did a night run through Deal's Gap. (Much of what I spent this evening writing talked about my time with them.) 

Because of multiple failures and errors, I did not get to the start of the Trans America Trail today until 4pm. A GPS error took me 50 miles out of my way. The error was probably mine. I swear I triple checked the coordinates but the GPS still routed me over 50 miles from where it was supposed to. I should have realized something wasn't right, but did not. Details. Details and I have an antagonistic relationship. However, the road from where I erroneously ended up and where I was supposed to be was fantastic. 

Unfortunately, the two days of shakedown runs I did with Megan and Francois have shaken a bit more loose than I realized. Parts are starting to fall off. 

One of the brake light mounting screws has fallen off so it's now held on by gorilla tape.

 

The heat shield on my exhaust has fallen off so my leg gets quite warm. I pondered why my leg was getting warm and thought maybe the engine was running hot. To actually look and see did not occur to me. Details again. They say I am smart. I suspect evidence may point to the contrary.

 

The right side rollchart holder cover has fallen off. Having a rollchart which is a form of step by step directions mounted in a convenient fashion to the handlebars is especially useful as a backup when the GPS gets confused. At one point the wind grabbed the sheet and it started to stream out flopping all over the place. 

 

I suspect other things will fail as well.

I had great plans of making good progress, but was thwarted by these errors. There is rain in the forecast for tomorrow and I wanted to practice traveling a bit in the clear so I opted to ride a short section to start getting a feel for it. In retrospect, I should probably just have stayed in Andrews and started fresh in the morning. I was already pretty sore and tired.

The first section of the trail was this one lane deeply wooded mountain road that was carved into the side of a mountain. It was a seemingly endless onslaught of hills, switchbacks, cliffs, and beams of sunlight

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I rode to mile 30 which took me fairly close to Robbinsville where I knew I could get a room. I opted not to try the next section as it was getting late and I was pretty beat. 

Hopefully, I will become less error prone. At present, nothing is flowing. I am making a lot of mistakes. Everything is forced. I am off-balance and strangely disconnected.

Writing is proving difficult. 

I feel very closed.