The Ultimate Trail Adventure Through Appalachia! Trans America Trail

Oh good morning. I slept amazing. Had a very long yet amazing day yesterday on the on the bike. Draven did amazing on the TAT. We're here at Utsav Campground and Hostel in Hampton, Tennessee. What a beautiful little place. We're going to hit the Transamerica Trail, the TAT again today. Hitting the mountains up into Virginia over to Damascus. Today's going to be a hell of an adventure. As you can probably hear it is raining pretty hard right now, but it should calm down just a little bit. We're gonna pack up the bikes, hit the trail, and have an adventure. Come along for the ride. We are packed up and dried off the bike a little bit. There's a break in the rain so hopefully that holds and we're gonna hit the road man. It's gonna be a darn good day. A little bit we'll be back on the TAT. Let's do some riding. One of my all-time favorite views. I just love riding in the mountains and seeing the clouds hovering over and clearing. It's so simple but just absolutely gorgeous. Well yeah unfortunately the break in the rain really did not last as long as we were hoping. Darker clouds are definitely coming in. We are about to head up into the mountains so we're hoping it's not too muddy up there, but hey what are you gonna do? Let's go have an adventure. Right off the bat man just uh, we are wet out here. A couple corners onto the TAT and we are in the middle of nowhere. This is gonna be a fun ride. You can tell it rained pretty hard out here last night. Got some muddy roads and some water runs, but here we go. This is what it's gonna look like for the next couple hours. Less than 30 minutes officially on the Transamerica Trail man and uh, today's gonna be another great ride into Virginia. So we're gonna be clearing the Tennessee mountains, hitting Virginia mountains. This has already been awesome. I guess this is an actual road, but we're on the gravel with twisties. We're here. This is gonna be fun. I have no idea what today is gonna bring, but I'll tell you what, it's gonna be somewhat crazy. So stick around let's see what we can get into. Right back on the gravel. The views on these mountain roads are just stellar man. Get out here and feel like you're riding in a world all of your own. For whatever reason, three or four miles of this road was paved in the middle and the rest wasn't. Can't quite explain that. Look how green everything is. It did rain like I mentioned last night pretty hard. Everything is just so green. It's gorgeous. Look at that road over there. Some crazy switchbacks. This is awesome. Oh don't be the truth. That sign is saying road closed 500 feet ahead and we are in absolutely the middle. Yeah, see what's happening here. We're going. Oh okay. Yeah, we are good. Had a road closed sign back there and we are way into the mountains, but it was a route we weren't on. So we are good. Continue on. What a ride. Draven's getting muddy. Gonna need a wash. Let's get after it. One thing I learned on that pass, that mountain pass right there, I need to slow down on my speeds as I go through water. I'm not screaming through them, but still too fast. My whole windshield, my phone, everything got a little muddy water on it. So we're gonna bring those speeds down a little bit going through water, but man we're on a nice straightaway right now. But check this out. This is gonna get very interesting really quick. Google Maps did not disappoint. This is both extremely curvy and really fun to ride on, but it is a pretty steep downhill. I think we're coming out of the mountains now. I'm gonna enjoy this as the ride goes. Nothing like coming around a corner and seeing this tree and power line down. Definitely not what I expected, but today is the day of unexpected. This has been awesome. Let's hope nothing more like that when you come around the corner and see a power line in front of you. Storms last night must have been pretty bad in this area. We're seeing a lot of different damages up here. But the good news, we're almost to Damascus, Virginia. We have cleared the mountain passes into the beautiful state of Virginia. And if we get there in time, the Damascus Diner guys is amazing. We're gonna get a couple phillies, philly cheesesteak sandwiches. They are killer. Not sure if we'll be there in time, but stay tuned for one heck of a sandwich and hopefully no more stuff in the road. Welcome to Damascus, Virginia guys. Amazing little small town also known as Trail Town USA. Best known for its connection to the Appalachian Trail. The TAT goes directly through it that we're on, the Transamerica Trail. Trail Town, man. What we're looking for is right around this corner, Damascus Diner. Got the bikes put away. We are here. One of my favorite trail towns. I throw that around a lot, but hike through here on the Appalachian Trail. This place is awesome. The Damascus Diner. Great food. I am fat and happy now. Time for some coffee. Oh, my coffee wish may not be granted. Looks like the coffee shop is closed, which is an absolute shame. Mojo's here in Damascus, good coffee shop. I will not be denied. I'll keep looking around, but possibly no coffee, which is a shame. I'm a coffee first, life seconds type of guy. See if we can track down that second coffee shop. Excuse me, sir. Excuse me. Do you know where the coffee shop is? No. How about you? Do you know where the coffee shop is? We're not going to give up. There's got to be coffee to be had around here somewhere. Hit the bikes and see what we can find. They weren't talking much. Macchiato life, baby. That was a fantastic macchiato. Main Street coffee and cream. Two thumbs up. We got about a two hour ride back and a little more relaxing time than kind of winding down about midnight last night. So let's hit some dirt, have some fun, coffeed up, caffeined up, and I don't know if we can make this day any better, but we're certainly going to give it a try. Let's get out of here and hit the road. That's how you come around a corner. Got the entire Appalachian Range in front of us. It has that tunnel feel. Well, that downhill truck sign down up there did not disappoint. This is definitely a fun twisty downhill, that's for sure. Oh, and then it ends right there. That's a shame. But what goes down must go up. That looks steep. Might be a finger of Watooga Lake. I'm not quite sure. Stunning, whatever it is. A couple more views of Lake Watooga before we get to Butaw, which is directly across the street from the lake. Those clouds don't look friendly on the other side of the mountain. We've had lots of rain all day, as I mentioned, but we just have a unbelievable knack to outrun the rain or kind of just miss it. But I have to go that direction to get to Butaw and all the dark clouds are over there. Killer old man. So I wonder as we head that direction if we're going to run into that rain or not. But it was inevitably going to happen at some point, and it's been just a hell of a ride today. For now, I just hope the clouds stay that side of the mountain, I guess. Keep the rain over there. That is officially the direction that we're heading. Well, seems that our luck might have finally ran out a little bit of rain, but certainly not much. We're going to be around it for a little bit, but we're almost to Watooga Lake. We're almost to Butaw and going to enjoy the rest of this ride. What a ride it was. You can see I've kind of repainted Draven today in some mud, which is the goal for today. Kick back and relax. Try to get a little more sleep than last night. Guys, don't forget to have your adventure, whatever that adventure is. And don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, and bing! Hit the little bell button and come join us for the next adventure, guys.