I have two different ways to start this one—to \ rn. There's one where I refer to all three people who helped me as assholes but I'm not sure about dropping a curse word like that in the opening paragraph. And then another one where I start out by telling you how I like waiting until my second run at these singletracks before filming. Otherwise I would've missed this cover image.
The Next One
This One
He was free climbing the face of that rock—about 500 feet in the air without ropes. Since I've never experienced having two different beginnings like this and uncertain which to use, I'll flip for it.
Heads goes like this: Waiting until the second ride on these singletracks before filming is a good idea—allows me to take my time on the first ride. I can pay as much attention to my surroundings as what's in front of me when scoping out these trails. I'm identifying hazards, snapping as many photos as I want, and watching the gps for forks. This is what it looked like the first time at Ijams Nature Center.
This is if it lands on Tails: I'm surrounded by a considerably larger number of assholes these days—gotta be a combination of things. With the uncertainty in 2020 followed by 2021 not looking any different running concurrent with nobody even has to fake smile anymore because of these masks, there's a lot more assholes out there today than I remember there being this time last year.
I asked three different people at the staging area if the east or west side of Turnbuckle was the downhill entrance. All three said east—the uphill one. Assholes. This is what it looked like the first time at Ijams Nature Center.
Ijams Nature Center is a 175 acre wildlife sanctuary south of downtown Knoxville open to the public year-round. There's two staging areas—one at the east end near Meads Quarry Park and one closer to the center at Aberdeen Drive. I parked at Aberdeen. Both have an 8am - dusk electric gated vehicle parking. So if you drive yourself there, your vehicle has to be out by dusk or it's locked in for the night.
Daily visitors touring and fishing the 25 acre lake, exploring protected caves, and climbing rocky bluffs are common. The sanctuary is home to several breeding birds including a few resident bald eagles and screeching owls. I went there for singletrack trails—more than five miles of them ranging from easy to black diamond. I scoped out (red outline) a 3n1/2 mile loop on Trailforks with 2n1/2 miles of intermediate riding and a little under a mile of black diamond—Turnbuckle.
This trail's less forgiving than the last one I showed you at Fort Dickerson Quarry—either that or the three assholes had me going the wrong direction. Several spots require dismounting and carrying the bike up rocks. This trail, however, unlike the previous one, had a few benches to catch your breath along the way—bowl benches.
There's a lot more technical riding at Ijams than Fort Dickerson. I only spotted a few speed sections and each of them are short. Rocks, boulders, steep inclines, tight turns and carrying the bike over obstacles make it more technical than fast. Plus it rained a few days prior so the mud made slippery conditions.
The trail's maintained nicely. It's cut deep into the mountain so even now, when covered in fallen leaves, you won't lose sight of it. There's several junctions that change direction, they're identified by a 6x6 post in the ground.
Along the trail are four or five nicely built bridges for creek crossings and on turns when large boulders aren't passable without them. One's built on a tight 180 degree turn, it's banked high like a slingshot, it came and went before I had a chance to snap a picture—next time.
With about 1/4 mile remaining on the 3n1/2 mile loop, around a few more turns and over another climb, I found another bowl bench. The car was a short distance away so I hung out for a minute in the forest and caught my breath, even posed for #shadowhunters before I left.
I'll need to ride the opposite direction now, see which of the two is best for recording. Pura's off for a few days now, too, so that's cool, if it doesn't rain between now and then the mud won't be an issue—see you then.
"Peace"
!BEER
for @dandays
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It looks like you found another great place to ride. When you mentioned a bowl bench, I thought you were talking about outhouses.
Beautiful landscape and this trail doesn't seem to be as death-defying as the last one.
The wooden bridges over the water had to be a little tough to construct., just getting the material to the location could not be easy.
Bowl benches, are very easy to find when you're out in the woods.
My man! Good morning, happy holidays, merry post Christmas, all that stuff.
It'll be a minute until I get back, it dumped "record breaking" snow here Christmas Eve—it's everywhere! I wasn't a big fan of the mud. Under this white stuff is more of it.
Funny. Not quite the same bowl bench but the ones you're referring to are everywhere in the woods!
The materials, getting them there like you said, the construction of the bridges, very impressive. This trail's a much less dangerous ride, that's for sure.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend sir.
Doing a little catching up this morning. So how much snow fell for it to be record-setting?
That is the one nice thing about the cold weather here. Once it snows and the ground is frozen, it stays that way until March. I'd rather have snow cover the ground than mud.
From the pictures of your most recent bike ride, I could tell that it was not as dangerous. I'm sure Pura had something to do with where you ride. Any more bike adventures like the first one you should keep under wraps, that is unless you enjoy her wrath.
It does feel good though knowing that she is concerned about your well-being and not saying, "do it again Sam".
They listed it as 8". It had rained most the day and then outta nowhere, within a few hours we were covered in it. This is right out the back door.
Good morning sir! Not gonna lie, when I thought about recording bike rides, I had it all figured out. Avoid the rain, it'll be cool to do some recording with snow on the ground, stuff like that.
Well.....
Mud sucks! No good for traction, cleanliness, just ain't there, 'mud sucks.' And that part about recording when there's snow on the ground, that's a California boy talking, what he meant was "no way! If there's snow on the ground it's freezing cold!"
Haven't got to get back on it since I did that last article, dammit! May have to pause the bike trails for about a month or two.
When's the Florida trip Bob? Brother I'll put it out there right now, when ya'all make that trip to Florida, gimme a heads up and we'll meet up with you somewhere in North Carolina.
There, it's on the table now. 👍🏿
8" of snow, are the road crews set up to handle snow, like do the trucks even have plows on them?
The California boy also had me scratching my head, I thought any temps under 60 you would be rolled up in a blanket sipping on some warm tea.
Maybe you could put some snow tires on the bike if you get daring.
We are supposed to leave for Florida on the 25th of January.
With us so isolated at home and feeling safe from this dam virus, we have been kicking it back and forth if we even want to take a chance going to Florida.
It has been a cold snowy winter already and getting away is still in the cards, but we're not sure. It would suck to have to forfeit the $$$$$ we spent on the place.
Any other time we would not hesitate to meet up, anywhere along the trip, even if it required us going out of our way. But for the last 11 months, we have been keeping our circle to a bare minimum. It bothers me greatly to have to say that if we do head south, our circle will only be getting tighter.
Thanks for the invite but we're going to have to pass this time around.😥
The only reason Robin and I are being so very careful is that we have so much to live for, and one-day meeting you and Pura is on that list.
Before posting this comment, I wanted Robin to read it. It was nice that we are both on the same page, and running into you guys would be our pleasure, and that's coming from the horses mouth!
Fair enough. Yeah, steer clear from us then. We've been doin all kinda weird stuff like a big group of us got together on the 26th, enjoyed each other's company and socialized, and an extended group of us are getting together tomorrow. I mean really social like passin'em around and everything. and we don't even carry masks in the car.
The one couple are friends of mine, their kids, some friends of theirs I've just recently met, some other people are supposed to be there, too, I guess a couple firearms pros and a few others who wanna pick my brain about Bitcoin. Firearms and that gun show we went to the other day intimidate the shit outta me.
Oh, ramble-ramble, yata yata. What I meant was, my circle's always open and if this world is on its way out, I don't wanna be the last one standing.
Here's another one of those instances where I ask the dude who's my senior a question. You think man's capable of developing a worldly destructive virus? Or do you think that's fate?
Want another one?
Rather than going to google, I'll ask you. Pine nuts, those come from a pine tree? Why in the heck are they so expensive?
Everyone has to decide for themselves how they will handle this thing.
I know that I am much more cautious than I was 35/40 years ago.
Being young brings on a sense of invincibility, many years ago, youth passed me by like I was standing still.
Gun shows, now that's a hot topic. Being a gun owner, and a staunch believer in the 2nd Amendment, I think much will change under the Biden administration. I'm all for background checks, limiting assault rifles, limiting magazine sizes, and reforming how guns can be purchased at gun shows.
As is always the case, I feel that any middle ground on this subject will never be reached and that is a real problem.
"Under a Biden White House, the ATF will weaponize against the American gun owner. One-by-one, rulings and interpretations will change. Like bump stocks, AR pistols, pistol braces, accessory features, and more will likely suddenly change classes. In a worst-case scenario, overnight American gun owners could reclassify as felons."
"Get ready for the greatest attack against the Second Amendment of our lifetimes."
https://www.personaldefenseworld.com/2020/11/biden-white-house-gun-owners/
This is exactly what I mean. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I'm just happy I'm locked and loaded already.
Man is the most destructive living organisms on this planet, capable of all and any atrocities.
Do I think that what is going on with the cornavirus has been implemented by mankind, NO.
With that said, if there is anything we have learned over the years, it is that humans are capable of genocide and this may be an example of just that, but I wouldn't bet on it in this case.
Great question, and not knowing the answer to why they are so expensive, I did a little research, but before searching pine nuts, I thought it may because of the difficulty with harvesting and the very small size of the nut.
Here is what I came up with.
Most pine nuts take roughly 18 months to mature, but some can take up to three years.
The cones are then smashed (as a way to quickly release the seeds) and the seeds are separated by hand from the cone fragments. The fact that it takes a lot of time and patience is an understatement -- and justifies the high price of pine nuts.
Pine nuts are the smallest and the fanciest of all nuts.
Pine nuts come from pinyon pine trees. These pines are native to the United States, although other pines with edible pine nuts are native to Europe and Asia.
While tooling around the internet, I ran into this video, I thought you may be interested.
https://www.yourgutreboot.com/GC-mom/?source=a2f262cc-eb8f-4d8e-8914-da0960e49faf&s5=wug0t2eage61hrf4icp6mg40&s2=OutBrain
Happy New Year!
Keep spirit
Consider it kept. Merry Christmas @davidmuhammed.
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Well I didn't know what #shadowhunters meant until I got to the last picture...✌️
Hey @dandays I hope you & Pura had an awesome holiday! Ours was pretty quiet and just felt like a day off. I'll take it, I kinda feel these holidays are overrated. Anywho...
I absolutely love the pictures and this looks like yet another adventure that I would more than likely sustain injury if I tried. Now that doesn't mean that I'm not willing, because I am totally up for an adventure any day, I just know myself and know I should carry an emergency medical kit!
Bowl bench... cause why not? My son and I just took an 18 hour drive to Colorado to get some goodies. Went there, got the stuffs, and drove back.. and that was right after working a straight 48 hour shift. Is that bad??? That I would do something like that for some goodies?? I think possibly.
I'm playing catch up right now. With the holidays my patients had a good bit of company, not leaving much time for anything. So here I am to read and laugh and give you my thoughts.
It's good to see ya Dandays!! I see you have another post out, I'll see ya soon on that one, I'm working my way up there now!
It's good to be seen! Happy New Year's Eve. Thanks for keeping an eye on me, I don't mind your holiday patient timing one bit.
I almost suggested Illinois but the map doesn't do it any justice so I'll suggest shipping/receiving. Ya'all don't have anyone in the states where it's just a plant? What's the return road trip like with vegetation in the car?
I think you'd be alright. This trail's a lot more forgiving than the previous. I haven't gone back yet cuz mud sucks and the snow is still melting. Probably won't be consistent decent riding weather for a few months but I'll try to sneak in a day here and there when it is. It's fun, when's the last time you rode a bike? They have trails with pavement, too, that are flat.
Thank you! Any better woulda been against the law, I hope you and your boy had the best Christmas ever.
Obligatory #shadowhunters:
You know @dandays I'm not sure about shipping and receiving? Maybe you should elaborate on that a bit for me. But after not having goodies for a while, that return trip was just ... well some very deep conversation had been had. It's amazing how the mind expands and the conversation gets taken in a direction that we think to ourselves: if anyone else was overhearing this conversation, they would lock us up! haha
Ummm, No? I'm not sure how to answer that... I like the cartridges, they're cheap and last me a while because my tolerance is pretty low. And the stuff we've gotten in CO has been the best stuff I've ever tried. I never got anything remotely close to that quality in Louisiana.
It's been quite a while since I've ridden a bike. I would say about 5-6 years. I've been on rollerblades since then though. Now that was a challenge. I was never great at roller-skating but loved it.
That one does look a lot tamer than that last one you were on. I would love to either walk or hike, We took a hike in Pennsylvania before we got to SD and I saw a chipmunk for the first time, so freaking cute!! But loved taking my time, taking tons of pictures. The weather was still nice and warm. It was perfect.
And my boy and I had the best Christmas ever. We cooked, played some rockband, had an adult beverage and was flying high. The stars were aligned and all was right with the world Thanks Dandays. See ya soon!
I'm not a fan so much of pens and oils, never tried a dab or whatever other terminology is out there. Just flower, please, no CBD either.
Just a plant as in the states who don't see it as criminal.
I meant people in California or Colorado, Oregon, etc who partake and have delivery dialed like a clock so you don't have to make the trip. I'm sure we're not the only one's talking about weed delivery on the blockchain, right? 🤔
I mean doesn't everyone know the mailman like that?
Ahhh yes @dandays... unfortunately I don't know the mailman like that. The house I'm in right now doesn't even have a mailbox, it's out on the main street grouped with the rest of the mailboxes of the people who live on the same street.
The people of South Dakota did vote to legalize medical and recreational but there's some people trying to stop that from happening come July. For me, the pen is easy to hide and doesn't smell as strong. I can take a hit off of my pen in a tiny room, and no one would know a thing. Maybe shipping and receiving once it's legal.
I would love weed delivery Dandays. But until I can do that, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!
Shooooot. So long as you got a system!
I'm with you about those pens and convenience. Convenient for sure.
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