Day Sixty-Three: Acworth - Snellville

We didn’t get far today, but we had that coming—after all, it’s never a good sign when we wake up and say, “Sooooo, where are we going today?” even though that tends to happen quite often. We woke up late, but earlier than the Stockman kids, so we didn’t feel too bad about it—hee hee. Kerri and Joe were already up and at ‘em, however, and they invited us into the kitchen, where they proceeded to cook a breakfast scramble, bacon, and pancakes that were out of this world. We ate outside on the second story deck, which overlooks a gorgeous lake just feet from the house. It was muggy yet pleasant, but we knew that we were in for a hot day of riding, so we procrastinated further by watching clips from “Bad Grandpa” (Kerri’s favorite movie—watching her laugh at it hysterically was the highlight of my day) and catching up with the family after breakfast. Before we knew it, though, the time had come to get a move on, especially since we were getting into a race against time to make it to Charleston by our deadline.

We took photos with the Stockmans and hugged goodbye, sad to have spent such a short time together, but thankful nonetheless, then hopped back into the truck with James so that he could take us out of the city. Atlanta on a map is a giant, mind-boggling mess of freeways, and in person, it is even worse. My brain could hardly wrap around the idea of making it out alive on a bicycle, so we knew we made the best decision by accepting the offer of a lift out of the hectic part of the city. We joked back and forth with James and heard stories of his experiences in a frat at University of Georgia, while he convinced us that we should try to stay in a fraternity while passing through Athens, GA. It can’t smell worse than we do, right? James dropped us off at a busy gas station outside of Atlanta and we said our goodbyes, then wandered inside for snacks.

We spent the next hours (yes, HOURS) deciding what to do next. Bad weather was approaching and it was blistering hot. Sitting around was not our intention, but it turned out to be our fate, and before we knew it, we had hung around just a bit too long to leave ourselves any time to ride to our tentative destination for the day, Athens. But once again, thanks to warmshowers.org, we were in luck. We found Carol’s profile, which gave limited information about her past with cycling, and we decided to reach out to her for an opportunity to crash at her place. She was only about seven miles away from our current location, but we knew that we were contacting her last-minute, and we felt terrible about that. But to our surprise, she responded almost immediately with a welcoming “Of course you are welcome to stay, as long as you love animals!”

Carol showed up with a warm smile and hearty laugh, ecstatic to welcome us into her home. She had spent months of her life on a bicycle as well, venturing on lengthy tours with friends and exploring the country on her colorful recumbent bicycle, so she knew the drill. We met her husband, daughter, and son-in-law in the span of a few hours, as well has the plethora of animals in the house—many of which are not actually Carol’s, but rather other friends’ pets or service animals in training (she is very involved in this program). She had a knack for managing the chaos, and she did so with a wide grin the entire evening as we exchanged stories, munched on frozen chocolate-dipped bananas, and watched the Tour de France in the background. It was an awesome evening, especially considering the last-minute nature of the visit, and as we tucked ourselves into bed that night, we looked forward to continuing the cheerful conversation in the morning.