Here I am with my loaded bike at The Bicycle Inn

The bad weather I mentioned in yesterday's report arrived in western North Carolina , so my 'ride' turned into a drive in my friend Mike's pickup truck. We actually drove the route I would have ridden, stopping at the

The view from the Mountain Hill Art Gallery

Mountain Hill Art Gallery in Kona on NC 80 to visit the Dowds, very nice folks whom I met on an earlier tour, see:

http://www.cs.unca.edu/~boyd/touring/tour99/day54/day54.htm

Here I am with the Dowds

Michael took these pictures and I just cropped and resized them for this page. After visiting the Dowds, we stopped for lunch at the, very down home, Micaville Grill. Speaking of food on NC 80 - this is bicycle related because NC 80 has some the best, as well as some of the most challenging, riding in North Carolina - there is a new restaurant in Hamrick NC, Sally's Kitchen, which offers good food in large quantites. Nice folks too! They used to run the restaurant on Mt Mitchell.

The right front pannier contains tools and supplies, including my Dopp Kit and my spare pair of Shimano sandals. Its top compartment hold my tools and my cable lock. The left front pannier contains my laptop, some accessories for it, a folding spare tire, my down pillow and my sleep sack for hostels. Its top campartment contains my first aid kit. The right rear pannier contains my sleeping bag and tent. The left rear pannier contains my clothing and my cold weather gear. The handlbar bag contains my rain cape, some spare cables, my glasses and sun glasses. The rear rack has two sleeping pads - one for under the tent, the other for in the tent, the rain fly and the tent poles. The bungee cord that holds the pads and poles on is also used to attach a slow moving vehicle triangle to my bike and to attach bags containing food.