It's pretty tough to buy the same toilet paper on back to back shopping trips, there's too many choices. Single-ply: Yeah, right! Thanks but no thanks. Only grandma bought single-ply. Relentlessly, too, I don't know why she did that. I don't know why anyone does that. Single-ply requires about nine feet rolled around your dexterity dominant extremity prior to applying it to the paperless area and you're still left with half ass production a roll of double-ply would've mopped up in four or five squares.
Unscented—has to be unscented. I've made the mistake of purchasing scented before, Pura won't touch that shit. Look, I'm as surprised as you are that I'm two paragraphs into this article talking about toilet paper when all I meant to do was explain how difficult it was to choose a cover image. I got three of'em—decisions, decisions.
There's the one I snapped when I first got to Fort Dickerson Park, a military fort built atop a 300 foot ridge across the Tennessee River in 1863 to protect Knoxville during the Civil War. When the Confederate Calvary organized an assault against Fort Dickerson, General Joseph Wheeler cancelled the attack due to "formidable terrain, artillery, and unexpected strong force guarding the approach" (I peddled out there yesterday). That's the first one, it's gorgeous, but I have two others.
The second one's nice too—bicycle leaning against a warning sign (I like signs occasionally—adds character) with a really nice reflection of the quarry behind it. And then the third layer, tri-fecta, it's another shot of the quarry only this time I walked through the wooded forest a little bit to get it—decisions, decisions.
First One Images - phone
Here's the other two. I don't know, #2 would've been solid but #3 could've gone either way.
There's three different staging areas around the quarry—I parked at the one nearest Chapman Highway. Parked, unloaded the bike, checked and double checked TrailForks—intermediate trails on my right, one black diamond on the left. I meant to go right!! I meant to do a couple things...
Helmet—it would've served much better had it been with me rather than back at the house. Water—equally important. I don't know why I take off like that without water, I did it once in the kayak, too, stewpid. GoPro—not completely unintentional. I figured I'd get a feel for the trail first and return another day to film but as soon as I saw the place, I knew I shoulda brought it, would’ve saved a lot of stops.
There's four miles of single-track bike trail weaving through the forest and around the quarry. About 80% of it's intermediate—100% good times. It's less than a mile from Tennessee Volunteers football stadium who happened to be playing a home game that day so every once in awhile I'd hear the roar of the crowd.
I like being on my bike. I like being by myself out there where the only noises I hear are the tires against the leaf scattered dirt, unexpected puddles, and the sound of twigs ricocheting from the bike. I hear birds but I can't see them. Occasionally a squirrel plays chicken in front of me. I hope those are twigs or rocks making all that noise through the leaves beside me and not a snake—I hate snakes! The downhills never last as long as the uphills but they sure are worth it.
Balanced. Momentum forward. Tuned into the trail—there's no one else out there. Fingers resting intently on both brake levers while maneuvering handle bars a little wider than most through, over, and around banked turns vigilant not to clip a tree.
