This weekend was a ride-fest. On Saturday I rode out and met with my mates from the Security Bank team for what turned out to be a one hundred mile training ride. I got to ride a couple of roads that I hadn't ever seen due to thinking they were dirt when in fact they were paved. I also got to tear my legs up for what ended up being a ride filled with harder than expected interval efforts since the cat 3 guys went up the hills faster than us cat 4 guys were used to. Hard on the legs but good for improvement.
For me, the ride ended up down in Macon where I met my wife. As is our custom we went to the most excellent Ingleside Village Pizza. I think there is something inside of me that believes that I'm not really worthy of IVP's wonderful pie because the only time I ever seem to eat it is after I've suffered for four or five hours on the bike. And you know what? It's so worth every mile of hanging on to Stoney's rear wheel while he exorcizes his inner demons by crushing them beneath his thundering pedal strokes (all I know is that Doug said that we were going to do a paceline where we were all going to take minute or so pulls and pretty soon Stoney's hammering along at 31 mph for four minutes at a time...I figure it's gotta be demons...).
Today was something between a tempo ride and a tour. I had set out to take some pictures of a couple of local warm springs near a route I usually due for harder efforts with some climbing intervals. I was hoping to get a shot of an old polio resort from the 40's or 50's. Back then, before there was a vaccine found for the scourge of polio, victims believed that soaking in mineral warm springs had a recuperative effect on arms and legs withered by the disease. FDR picked the appropriately named Warm Springs, GA as the place for his therapy and soon there were little places through the area. One place that I knew of was a small resort north of Thomaston in a place called either Lifsey or Lifsey Springs depending on the year of map you look at. I knew there had been something of a resort at one time that had tried to transition into a place to take your family for a day of picnicking and fun at the pool after the vaccine made polio something of a thing of the past . I was hoping to get a shot of an old sign or something cool near the now empty public swimming pool or at least a look at the spring itself.
My first stop was at a different spring a map had mentioned called Wellingham Springs along a ridgeline connected to Hagan's Mountain (or King's Mountain or Indian Grave Mountain). I found the spring and while it has a pleasant natural pool, there was no old buildings or the like mainly due to the fact that the water temp couldn't have been more than 70 degrees. Not a warm spring and not a cold spring. Still, it was a lovely place whose pool looked like it had been formed when the spring's channel had been dammed by a rail cut. After taking a couple of shots, I headed over to Lifsey by taking an old shake and bake road that I've always avoided (I was feeling adventurous). I got to the old resort and was shocked by how much of it had completely fallen apart since I had last looked it over about six or seven years ago. The public pool was still there but all of the bath houses and such were fallen down and almost completely overgrown. Hard to get a good shot. What was even more odd was that I couldn't get a good sense of where the spring actually was. My research had indicated that it was supposed to have a temperature of around 78 degrees and a higher mineral content and I was hoping that I might be able to stick my hand in the water. After some searching around and following some trails (in my cycling shoes...that's a lot of fun) I found both another pool sort of thing that had water in it that was covered with algae and a large and long trench or channel of some sort that I was unable to find either end of. The pool was surrounded by a rusting chest-high chain link fence so I didn't really want to try to negotiate it. While I'm not sure what either of these were, I have an idea that the algae covered pool is the old warm spring pool that was probably either built on or near the spring. It wasn't like your normal public pool with a poured concrete side and bottom but was formed instead with several concrete slabs that looked like they'd been placed in the hole to form something more palatable to sit on that the dirt basin the spring had carved out. It was hard to tell for sure and I wasn't in a good position to do much exploring in my duck shoes and spandex and lycra (and the aforementioned fence). My plan is to head back when I have some time in late June or early July with good, solid boots and long legged pants to do some trudging around to see what I can discover. If anyone has any info on the town of Lifsey or the spring, feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you know.
On the way home, I did get the picture with the old ladies' bike that you see here. I sort of stopped on a whim in front of a house along the route on the way home and took the shot and I just liked the way it turned out. I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks for Reading.
