Day Twenty Nine              Tues 19 August                                    Hurricane Mills – Nashville, TN

Distance: 68.4 miles           Total Distance: 2387.7 miles

Ride time: 4hrs 40 mins       Including stops: 6hrs 21 mins

Ave speed: 14.6mph            Max speed: 34.5mph

93°F

Feeling much fitter this morning, Keith headed off at 8:20am.  For a while, the hard shoulder was completely taken up with the rumble strip making it tough for Keith against the traffic.

Due to the areas being much more lived in, it has been getting more and more difficult to find places to pull in for pit stops, and today we pulled into Dickson Country Memorial Gardens, which was a very serene, neat and colourful place despite the fact that all the flowers were artificial.

Around lunchtime, we neared Nashville and therefore prepared Brian with the maps, and Pam was primed as backup in full anticipation of us getting horrendously lost!  In reality it all went relatively smoothly and most of the time we were up behind Keith, giving him protection from the other cars.

Once we got out the other side, the RV pulled away and headed up the road for a pit stop, where Keith pulled in for a break.  After having a discussion about the sights that we had seen whilst going through Nashville, we decided that we would end the day slightly short of the planned mileage and head back into town to find a hotel for the night, as it is unlikely that any of us would be back any time soon.

So we showered and changed and headed out on the town at about 5pm to see a bit of Nashville.  We took some pictures and wandered some streets, and then found a lovely restaurant, with an extremely friendly waitress, who served Keith the most enormous piece of Carrot cake any of us have ever seen (certainly plenty for all 4 of us to share!).

Due to us all being stuffed and needing to let our food go down, we decided to take a Horse and Carriage tour of the Historic district before popping into Tootsies Wild Orchid Lounge, which backs on to the “Grand Ole Opry”, and therefore has had all the stars perform in the bar.  We had a nightcap and a dance, before heading back to the hotel for a good nights sleep.

Day Twenty Eight                  Mon 18 August                                  Hurricane Mills, TN (Rest Day)

98°F

As usual we got up at 6am, showered and had breakfast.  We could hear the local woodpecker sat in a tree right by our site, as well as all of the other bugs and birds that were nearby. 

While we were preparing to clear the site, Keith mentioned that his ankle was still a little sore and suggested that we take a rest day at the ranch, so we re-prepared the RV for an overnight stay.

On the campground map there was a town marked down the road, so we thought that we would wander down for a coffee, whilst taking in the facilities on the ranch.  Little did we realise that the town was actually 2 miles away and that the ranch in its entirety was 6500 acres!! 

Once at Western Town, we noticed that perhaps the ranch was a little version of what we would expect at Dollywood, and that perhaps Loretta Lynn is actually a star-studded western singer, as there were pictures of her everywhere, as well as her Plantation home, a replica of her childhood home and a museum dedicated to her life story, which has also been made into a movie, “The Coleminers Daughter”!! 

After learning all about Loretta and realising her husband is Conway Twitty (which Pam & Brian had actually heard of!!), we headed back to our site area, and popped in the soda shop for a ice-cream shake! 

Brian and Pam headed to the pool whilst Amy went for a run, closely followed behind by Keith in the Golf Buggy that they had hired for the afternoon. 

At around 7pm we all had dinner around the camp pit fire, and enjoyed listening to the night symphony music provided by the local insects, and watching the fireflies in the trees.

Day Twenty Seven            Sun 17 August                                         Dyersburg – Waverly, TN

Distance: 102.9 miles          Total Distance: 2319.3 miles

Ride time: 6hrs 51 mins       Including stops: 8hrs 29 mins

Ave speed: 15.0mph            Max speed: 30.2mph

89°F

We decided to get breakfast in the restaurant this morning, as it was open 24 hours, and then Keith set off at 8.15am. 

Things got a little fraught in the RV today, with regards to navigation and map reading, due to the US70 branching off in several different directions at many different times! 

We drove through a town called Trenton, where oddly enough the speed limit was 31 mph – whats wrong with 30, like everywhere else!?!

The rest of the day was spent travelling along the US70, passing through small town America, until we hit Waverly, our stop for the night.

Through the day we had called several RV sites in Waverly, all of which came to nothing, so we headed to one about 10 miles down the road in Hurricane Mills – “Loretta Lynn’s Ranch”.

We found a spot on Stage Coach Hill, and whilst Brian, Pam and Amy sorted out the RV and prepared dinner, Keith sat nursing a strained ankle with an ice pack.

Day Twenty Six                 Sat 16 August                                        Paragould – Dyersburg, TN

Distance: 75.1 miles            Total Distance: 2216.4 miles

Ride time: 4hrs 50 mins       Including stops: 6hrs 34 mins

Ave speed: 15.4mph            Max speed: 21.6mph

85°F

Back to our 6am start today, and we managed to get waffles in the hotel lobby before leaving. 

About 10 miles up the road, we crossed the Missouri state line, where this time we managed to get a piccie with a sign, although going the other way, there was still no Arkansas sign! 

The most noticeable difference in Missouri, was the roads were identified as letters rather than by numbers or names, as well as their districts, so we continued up Road E for a while, towards Hornersville.

Once again we hit some very long, straight, flat roads making it hard work both physically and mentally for Keith, and for the first time, he actually took to his MP3 player for just an hour, to help take his mind off of the roads and the aches and pains!

Later in the day, we hit another state border, and travelled into Tennessee, our tenth state of the trip.  The only problem with this state line, was that you had to cross the Mississippi River and the bridges are all about 80 miles apart along the river, and the bridge which we were using did not allow bicycles to travel along it, so after much discussion and thought, we had to take Keith across the bridge in the RV.  It was lucky that we opted for this, as State Troopers were constantly monitoring both ends of the bridge and did actually stop to check on our activities, when we had pulled in on the side of the road, to let Keith out. 

Once again, our end destination did not have any RV sites, so we reluctantly checked into hotel for the night, at Dyersburg!! 

We decided to have dinner in the adjoining restaurant, and knew it was the right decision to stop in the hotel, as it actually had a fully stocked bar where we had a celebratory drink for Pam & Brian’s wedding anniversary.

Day Twenty Five                          Fri 15 August                             Paragould Rest Day

73°F (Very Wet)

Brian and Pam rose at a respectable 8.30am to sample the complimentary Belgian Waffle breakfast in the lobby, whilst Amy & Keith took the opportunity to sleep in! 

Brian’s eye had been playing him up for the last few eyes, so Brian & Pam headed down to the local eye clinic to get it checked out.  $145 later, he walked out having undergone an eye exam, and with prescription eye drops in hand.

As the weather was miserable, Keith and Amy decided to go the cinema in the afternoon, to watch “The Dark Knight”, while Brian and Pam did some laundry and mooched around the town, before we all met up in order to get some dinner before heading to bed at around 10pm.

Day Twenty Four              Thurs 14 August                                     Salem – Paragould, AR

Distance: 97.2 miles           Total Distance: 2141.3 miles

Ride time: 6hrs 03 mins       Including stops: 7hrs 22 mins

Ave speed: 16.0mph            Max speed: 37.6mph

88°F

We were up again at 6am and did some laundry prior to leaving this morning.  Keith started cycling at about 8:15am, heading towards Ash Flat. 

Generally the road surfaces were pretty good today and Keith, although he started the day rather tired, seemed to cycle at a slightly faster pace today than on the last few days. 

Most towns that we went through today were very spread out areas with very few stores or amenities, and most of the houses had yard sales or flea markets outside. 

As we continued along the road, 4 oversized loads passed us by, with houses on the back, all going about 60mph and using both lanes!  We just about managed to stay on the road, and Keith said that the back draught from them stopped him completely dead on the bike!  It was actually quite frightening how fast they were going. 

We arrived in Paragould, at around 3pm, slightly earlier than we were all expecting, and checked into the Best Western for two nights, in preparation for our rest day.