Eastbound and not so down

I made it to Jake's in Tennessee Saturday eve. It was raining when I got here, as it tends to in the mountains in March, but we went out for a ~2hr spin anyway. I brought my rain bike and my "A" bike, so I rode my rain bike since we left in the rain (getting caught in the rain is far different for leaving in the rain).
Sunday we were going meet a group to do a ~4hr ride into the mountains and climb 3 passes. Highs were forecasted @ 47, it may have hit 45 though. And it rained 100% of the time. It never poured, but it spit constantly and were totally soaked to the bone within an hour.
Jake and I dropped the group and ended up doing most of the whole ride alone. It was too cold to wait, so we just kept going. It was cold enough that we weren't overheating on the climbs, but we were shivering on the descents.

This is the peak of Tail of the Dragon (Deal's Gap). The peak is the TN/NC state line.


Parkway. At Bikesmiths we have a on going joke about things "blowing up on the Parkway." Specifically the Blueridge Parkway, but close enough.

My face after 4+hrs of climbing mtns in the rain and cold. I don't look as gassed as I felt.

So that's days 1 and 2. More to come.
Oh, and 2 observations about getting here:
1) GPS is the shizz. I was weary about putting my getting here in the hands of the device, but I lept in, and it was good.
2) having both sideview mirrors rules too. They have both been broken off of our car recently and I now have then both on and working. It's way better.
And, as for the title, we watched season of Eastbound and Down over the past two nights. Good stuff.