Mountain Anticipation

October 15, 2014

In getting ready, I had that huge list, but there were still things we needed to do. First was printing out the Cue sheets. With much research I put together two separete tracks, downloaded the TCX files Igenerated from RideWithGPS, and made some hand-created cue sheets in Excel. 20141014_144636

Next we had to make the tasty treats out of the Feed Zone Portables book. The recipe is in a previous post, but we made Chocolate and Sea Salt rice sticky bits. For several I added some PB2 for some extra peanuty flavour. The other was the Beef and Sweet Potato pies. First, the flour and butter mixture:

Key to the mixture was to make the butter sticks small cubes, this allowed them to quickly integrate into the mixture.

Next was making the dough. After adding the 1/2 cup of cold water, it really wasn't enough to make the dough adhere, so in total it turned into 1 cup of water. We put the dough into the fridge, and made the filling, replacing the beef with local bison from Cibola Farms. We did have a bit of an issue with the dough; we were able to make 12 cupcakes worth, but we had WAY too much filling. So either we needed more dough or less filling.

After cooking, we had one for testing. Flavourful, but they're rather dry. Not sure I'd eat these on a bike, but they'll be perfect out of the back of an Xterra with some water.

Because of the oddness of the weather, plus the mountains, I had to pack a lot of things I may not need: leg warmers, arm warmers, rain jackets, overshoes, warm weather gear, cold weather gear, rainy gear, you name it, I packed it. We packed up and went to bed. Needless to say, I tossed and turned all night, my daughter decided to burrow into my back last night. Waking up blearily, we packed up the truck and headed west. Of course, I-66 was backed up until Rt-50. Every time we drive through there I say a silent thank you to God to being able to convince my wife not to live out here and instead pay a little extra more to be inside the beltway. Our first stop was Stribling Orchard. Getting off the exit, I recognized that it was the road that would lead up to a fairly popular bike loop (Naked/Weather), but we were turning left. The variable weather made it near impossible to go apple picking.

We stepped out of the truck to a deluge. No way we were driving off road, nor were we going to trudge thru apple trees to pick apples.

So we went in, bought some apple butter, and then headed towards our second destination, Hollin Farms. Unfortunately, they were closed, but we got to go on a really nice tree-lined drive; with fresh downed trees and pretty leaves. It was a bit of a wake-up call, though the asphalt on skyline drive is better, the reality is that the road will probably be wet and leaf-strewn and treacherous. Because of the rain, we drove to Strasburg and to the Strasburg Museum.

Finally, lunch. We had the Pulled Pork from The Apple House, which, unbeknownst to us, had just been written up in Saveur Magazine. The pulled pork was good, and the Apple and Pumpkin Donuts were amazing.

We then drove off to Front Royal, and to the hotel. Eventually we had dinner at Oesteria 510 in downtown Front Royal, and went on a little drive through main street on the way home. Tomorrow, I ride this way: