Day 1 | 76 miles Cumberland State Park to Standing Stone State Park

Today is the day, a lot of anticipation leading up to today, and we are off.  Will check in later.

So it started off wet this morning, everything its ode was wet and most stuff inside was damp from the rain. It didn't get wet inside the tent just damp from the humidity. 

Got all packed up and was sweating from rolling everything and putting it into its plastic bags. But got to the early breakfast in time. And then the presenting of the colors and ceremony was pretty cool, the 15th anniversary of 9/11. 

My bike is behind these guys. 

Here is me and the state Racoon. 

And me with some friends from Florida that I met last year, Tom and Jamie. 

And then we were off. 

A sampling of some roads that we rode today. No traffic and a lot of hills. 

The rest stop in Monterey. They opened the museum for us today, Sunday. 

Me with a former Olympian, Missy Kane, a long distance runner in the 1984 LA Olympics.  Very nice lady, and she was having a good ride with us. 

Another rode with little to no traffic. 

And an old church next to the new church. They do use this one sometimes in the spring and fall. 

The inside of the church. We stopped here for s rest stop and got some drinks and food. 

63 miles by noon. Not bad. The pick sheet is the que sheet telling us where to turn. 

Read the sign on this building above. 

And we were to the park very early. I have set up my tent and things are airing out and dinner will be in 3+ hours at 6:00. 

I fell great and felt great all day. 

Day 6 | 75 miles to Southwest Point Park / Kingston

So today was the last long day. It was another great day. We started a little later today, as we are in the far western part of the eastern time zone and the sun wasn't up until around 7:40. 

I rode with some new friends from Chattanooga again today. We all ride about the same speed and had some nice conversation. We got to Kingston around 12:20 and decided to go past the park where we are camping tonight to go another mile or so into town to have lunch. We found a.great old hamburger joint. 

Today's route was back on the low traffic roads like the other days. 

The watts bar nuclear reactors. Clearly this guy built his house after the reactors were built. Nice view. 

We traveled along the Tennessee River for a large portion of the ride today and it was very pretty. 

Crossing the Tennessee River. 

And a view from our campsite today. 

After we had lunch, we got our bags and set up camp. It's another hot day, so we walked down to the lake and had a nice refreshing swim. 

We have a program tonight on the fort on this point. Last nights program was about the bald eagles at Hampton Bay State Park. They have a live web cam up in a tree focused on the Eagles 100 or so feet off of the ground. Pretty cool. Go to the parks website to see the Eagles up close and live. 

Here are a couple of pictures from the top of the fort. 

Notice all of the tents on the soccer fields. 

Here is a picture of our shower truck with 10 showers and 4 sinks. 

1 more day, we ride back to the start tomorrow at Cumberland Moutain State Park. 

Beautiful sunset tonight over the river. 

Day 5 | 73 miles to Harrison Bay State Park

A very warm day. When we got to camp today it was 95 at 1:30 est. it was another great day of riding, except some of the traffic free roads of the past few days was replaced with some more highways with lots of traffic.  Still beautiful but busy and warm. 

When we arrived we checked out camp and then decided that we were hungry since we are in central time and rode over to the marina restaurant and I had a burger and fries. Here are some pics from today. 

Good morning TN

We are going to have to climb those hills. 

On the way down. 

And Rhea County Courthouse, Dayton, TN, where the famous Monkey Trials happened in 1925. 

And here is the lake near Harrison Bay made from the Tennessee River. 

Only 2 more days. Having a great time. I have met some great people this year and rekindled some old friendships from last year. 

Day 4 | 60 mile loop back to Cumberland

Today was a rest day, but I decided to ride with about 50 others that also wanted to ride.   Another great day and beautiful weather, although it has been warming up. It's been in the low to mid 80's and tomorrow is supposed to be in the upper 80's. 

Last night was a good night of sleep, after I got used to being on an incline. A little strange at first. Sometime in the middle of the night I got a little chilled and decided to get into my sleeping bag and as soon as I did, I slid down in the tent. My self inflating pad that I sleep on is a slick plastic type material and my bag is slick as well, and the combination wasn't good. So I just used the sleeping bag as a blanket. Which was probably best, as the temp was in the low 60's and really just needed it as a blanket. 

Because today was a rest day, the ride was a loop, out and back, 60 miles. Very scenic. 

We started close to the top of that range and will need to climb it later to get back to camp. It was a great 2+ mile decent. 

Just great country roads with little to no traffic. 

Just hanging out at a local telephone co op converted into a rest stop with a port o let on a trailer for us to use, and the bike mechanic and a park ranger. 

Even though we rode down the mountain and will climb it later there were plenty of rollers in the valley. 

Tomorrow we head south, heading to the Chattanooga area. The next several days look like great riding days. Right now Saturday is the only question mark with rain in the forecast.