The drive back sucked. It was rainy and extremely foggy at times, around 6 I pulled off to gas up and took a 45 minute power nap as I was falling asleep at the wheel almost. I rolled out hard then and made good time the rest of the way back to Woodstock VA where I arrived about 11 pm. I checked myself into my own room and when parking only saw Brett's van in the lot. I didn't care enough to even bring my bike in out of the on and off rain. I turned on the TV for about 10 minutes and was wiped out. I slept till 8 the next morning. Got up showered and hit the breakfast line. Lo and behold half the missing campers were they. Apparently the nutters hit Carvins Cove at night on the way back and didn't hit the hotel till 1 AM or so!
We all watched the weather and patterns as we ate crappy eggs, cinnamon buns, and such. It looked like we would be in just the right place and have a mostly dry day.
By 9 most folks were up and functional and we loaded up to go to Dunkin for some good coffee and donuts pre-ride. We took off and everyone drove past the DD but me which was right around the corner. I about died laughing. By 9:40 we were on our way to Camp Roosevelt.
We hit CR around 10:45 or so I think and prepped and loaded up. Started with a 2 mile'ish dirt road climb. Foggy as hell amazing overlook I'm sure. My one good photo is of everyone looking like were about to take off down the overlook. Then we crossed the road and climbed the rest of the way up on some nice but techy singletrack. Had to hike a bit more than I wanted but it was good. Amazing view at the top and then a pretty impressive descent. Not huge like Saturday but still pretty good. Nice ride with mix of conditions, much more in my capability matrix.
Near the end I was catching the back of the pack and had just waived them onwards when I hear CREEK/Crack!
FCK! Chain break. The last rider had just went around the hill and my swearing loudly had drawn no one back. An examination of the chain showed one bad link, an outer so I would loose no length. Dig out the big multi tool. Dig out the spare QL10. Dig out the kitchen sink. Got the bad section out, got the link ready. Noticed chain is VERY dry from rain on drive/overnight even though I lubed the hell out of it the afternoon before leaving the cabin. Uhg. And the rear D is having issues not shifting down to high gear! a few hits of a rock and shifting fixes it eventually. Reconnect it and flip the bike back over. And start repacking when HO comes back looking for me. I tell the story and we laugh. And it's .8 miles to the car at this point. A quick grind out very carefully and we're back. We start to change and have a beer when in rolls the local forest rep. State or Fed I can't remember but DK is trading war stories and we all want a beer. She leaves after 15/20 minutes. And it's beer time. We enjoy a few last official beers of man camp and head off. We all hit Jalisco in Strausberg VA for some tasty texmex. Damn good and we're on the road at 5pm on the way home.
And home a bit before 7. Unload most of the crap, a load of laundry in the wash and I'm done and passed out at about 9pm, with dreams of cougars, unicorns, tar heels and all the other hijinks of MC 2013.
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