Mineral may only have 400 some-odd folks, but it sure has one killer of a Mexican Restaurant.

Tienes cerveza? No? Bueno, entonces por favor, tráeme agua y para la cena, voy a tener Pollo Con Mole De Jefe, gracias...

Neat. In the south, and not an y'all to be found.

Alla en el rancho grande, alla donde viva

Habia una rancherita, que allegre me decia

Que allegre me decia... 

Then, like everything under the Sun, time spent fails to equal time desired, and zoom! It was time to go.

 So, off we go - south to Georgia, via (grab your maps) 522, to Powhatan (due west of Richmond), onto 609, which runs and blends into 360, which, in turn, runs south and west almost to the North Carolina border, where you peal south onto 119, which gets you into North Carolina before dumping you onto 158 then 150 which slides you down to Gaffney, South Carolina - at which point I threw in the towel and got onto I-85, which screams South and West right to my next stop: 547 miles from Mineral.

There are good people, there are nice people, there are great people, there are wonderful people, then there is Lori and Chris.  They'd been following me via an app on my phone and when they saw I was headed for I-85, they called me, told me where to stop and said they would grab me at that stop.  So they rode their bikes 1 1/2 hours north, picked me up, shoveled energy in the form of a large Dairy Queen Sundae into my tired body, then sandwiched me between the two of them and led me to their house.  Can it get any nicer than that?

I call the two The Beemer Twins – although not to their face.  They both ride l a r g e BMWs (and very well too, thank you) and had ridden up to Maine last summer spending  some fun time with us.

This year I was in their territory and we had much fun chasing down BBQ places and eating about every two minutes.

Two days – much too short days later, Chris and Lori, took me out for a fantastic pancake breakfast, then, leading the way, they started me on my final leg: South to Florida.