Underground Railroad 2023

Another early start to beat the heat.  Hotel breakfast at 6-ish and on the road shortly after 6:30.  After loading up at the snack table, of course. It was another beautiful day out there and forecasted to be slightly cooler than the last few days.  Big day, with almost 100 km and over 4000 feet of climbing.  Although I'm not normally a really early morning person, I do love the morning light and the fresh & cool air.  Less traffic, too.  And a bonus of travelling primarily north and riding on the right-hand side of the road is that we get quite a few hours of riding in the shade.  Nice!  First picture was at about 9 miles as we crossed the Duck River. I saw the turtle du jour, but the picture is MP's.   A few miscellaneous shots on the way in to the first SAG stop at 16 miles.  It was a nice gentle start to the day; not too many hills..... yet........ In to Waverly at about 16 miles for our first SAG stop.  The van was par...

We were at a hotel last night that didn't provide breakfast, so Emily had a nice spread ready for us at 6am.  I'm not sure when the guides and cook actually get any sleep!  I pulled away from the hotel about 6:45.  Nearly tail-end today, but lots of time ahead to catch up.   Found this bar & grill not too far from town.  "Why not?" is a bit of a joke among a group of friends.  When one throws out an idea for an outing or trip, the appropriate response is "Why not?"  Thus have evolved many of my vacations.   The temperature to start was sub-20C, nice and cool, and a bit misty.  And - we were fortunate to ride in the shade off and on for much of the morning.  But it was humid all day so that when the temperature finally started to rise, it got unbearably hot rather quickly.     At about 6 miles we crossed the Tennessee River again.  Beautiful to see in the early morning light. There wasn't really much to s...

Today was another relatively short day.  Forecast was for hot weather, so breakfast at about 6:30 and on the road by about 7:30.  A bit of backtracking today to get back on course.  Back over the bridge, and again one of the lanes was closed for construction.  I broke the law again, and again am not spending the night in jail.  I wonder if the jails are air-conditioned?  Here's the Tennessee River in the early morning light. Since we started riding three days ago, we have seemed to constantly been riding in rolling hill terrain.  As we turned north today and rode relatively close to the Tennessee River for a while we had the flattest terrain that I've noticed yet.  Looks like some crops are just starting to sprout - corn, maybe?   Nice to ride in the shade for a while, and then the hills began.  Nice view over the waterway below, though. Lots of fun hills for a while (although I might be one of the few who called them "fun").  ...