USA - Tennessee

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Now the heat was on to get to Nashville on time so we headed for the major roads and the Interstates. Nothing much to mention on the route down to Tennessee apart from having four 250 mile day on the trot and driving in a horrendous thunderstorm in St Louis. The Rain was so bad we couldn’t see, so we ended up waiting on a Petrol Station forecourt for the rain and lightening to ease up!!

We arrived on time in Tennessee and once we had booked into a Motel we headed straight for the airport to meet Sally. We hung around for a while but no sight of Sally or her flight so after a quick phone call we found the flight had been delayed for a few hours so we headed back to the Motel.
Or so we thought... The road system in Nashville isn’t hat well laid out and you can forget sign posts to help you . But after 30 mins of getting around one way systems and roads closed for repair we made it back to the right Interstate and off to the hotel.

Nashville maybe the home of country and western but it sure ain't the home of driving!!! The Americans on standards streets and blocks are patient and considerate drivers but once they get onto the Interstates they drive without consideration of others and more worryingly of consequence! Even compared to the M25, there are so many that drive so close, at such speed and on the mobile, that it verges on suicide. Whilst we were there for a short time we saw the remnants of a accident every day which were being cleared up by a police department dedicated in road accident clear-up!!!

Although neither of us are Country and Western Fans, there is no point coming to Nashville not to see an act so we booked tickets for the Grande Ole Opry for a show.
The show turned out to be all we expected and also a disappointment. The disappointment was after every other song there was a five minute advert from the sponsors. The night we were there was for the Cracker Barrel chain, which for those of you that don’t know is a chain of greasy spoons. All the adverts were trying to link this restaurant chain and its qualities to those of country music. The show went on for hours and so did the commercials. Quite disappointing especially as the tickets weren’t cheap!! On the flip side most country songs are about betrayal, heartbreak, deceit and violence. Weird a family food chain wants to associate with that!!
The music and the rest of the show lived up to expectations. The songs were full of bad times, with some occasional hope, and the singers all dressed in sequins and flamboyant ‘cowboy /girl’ suits with big pearly white grins as big as their Stetsons.

The next evening we met up with Alex catching up on stories since we last parted and had several pleasant beers which made a most enjoyable evening.

The next day we headed off for Memphis. On route we stopped at a small Pizza place. Before we could stop the engine the owner was outside and all over the bikes. It turns out that he owned a BMW as well and before we could get into the café for some much needed coffee we were taken to see his bike. We chatted with him for some time but we needed to head on as the light was fast disappearing and we still had a fair few miles to do. As usual it was dark when we arrived but we booked into a hotel on the outskirts of town.

The next morning we were up bright and early and heading for Gracelands.
The tour of Graceland was one of the biggest surprises of the trip. From accounts we had heard we were expecting a huge tacky place. In reality the house was relatively small and although the décor was 70’s it wasn’t anywhere as excessive as it could have been and did have a feel of a family home.


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Entrance to Graceland


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Living Room


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The infamous Jungle Room


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The TV room


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The rear of the House


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One of many Jump suits on display


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The pink Cadillac


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The pool...


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To keep the authentic feeling, horses are still kept...


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And finally....

As we were leaving Elvis´s building !, we found three boys very interested in our bikes, and they were asking-pleading if we would give them a ride. I wasn´t able as my auxiliary fuel tank was still on but Mike was and despite Sally´s concerns of being sued etc if their hair got out of place he gave all three of them a ride. They were all around 9 years old and they hung on for varying degrees of white knuckle, but loved it. The leader finished off by saying he "was really glad he came back down to the car park this day". (You have to foster the enthusiasm in these would-be riders !)

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Mikes intrepid passengers !!


That evening we headed off to Beale Street for some blues. The whole of Beale Street was packed with bars all playing different, but live blues. We decided to start off at B.B.Kings place and spent the evening wandering from bar to bar which rounded off a great day.

The next day we headed back towards Nashville to continue onwards to the Smokey mountains. The interstate taking us back (I40) was wall to wall trucks. There were hundreds of them on this road. Most where fine but there were too many driving at 90 miles with no hope of stopping in the outside land. At one point we were travelling at 80 mph when a house , which was wider than a lane, came past us !! The constant buffering took its toll on me and I baled out of going to the Rocky mountains and spent a couple of days chilling out in Tennessee.

Mikes Story of the Smokies

Sally and I continued towards the Smokey Mountains the following morning and headed for the I129, which apparently is the road all bikers wish to ride in the States. It is called the Dragons Tail due to the ever-winding bends it presents to the rider. 318 bends in 11 miles to be precise. My appetite for bends was ready and waiting, and I rested for the great event. The road is interesting and challenging but the bends are so close together you can never get any real speed up, and the corners can be so adversly cambered, that you need to keep your wits about you for the whole ride and it was hard to pick any sort of satisfying line. When all said and done, it was fun & novel, and after driving on so many straight Interstates it is not hard to see why the American bikers rave about it. (However if you want to read about some really serious corners to crave, see our accounts of the I-200 in Mexico in a later post) At the end of the I-129 is Deals Gap, which is primarily dedicated to bikers who´ve survived the ordeal, and those that didn´t! There are a few motel rooms for bikers, a quality souvenir shop, and a tree of shame which has various bike parts strung upon it with suitable tales written onto them to tell of their story. We finished the day by staying at a nice Inn by a stream in the mountains.

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Deals Gap !...in case you were wondering....

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Tree of shame ! .....in ca.....


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Black photo collection creating "the wall of shame" ...it includes a picture of an overturned squad car which had been in pursuit.......

The following day we visited Bryson City and stayed at Motel in Cherokee later on and visited the Cherokee Museum the next morning and were astonished to see how much British influence was felt by the Indians. In the afternoon we headed up to the peak of the Smokies, in Northern Carolina, and were equally surprised to see snow and Ice on the road and in the trees.

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Models representing traders of the day in the Cherokee Museum....scarrily realistic !

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An Indian chief on one of a few vistis to England-also in the Musuem.

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The Smokey Mountains-No prizes for guessing where they got there name from !

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Icicles on the walls of the approach road to the summit of the Smokies in North Carolina

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An observation Tower at the summit. To access it, a very slippery walk was necessary up an adult-sized Helter-Skelter !

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One of the many views from the top !

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Our friend Sally...now living in Australia.

On the 30th I Drove back to Nashville at a fair old rate for the Dakar as Sally needed to pack for her flight the following morning. Just as we arrived, Alex arrived with all that he had been storing for us. He was very tired as he’d been up the previous night working a homicide case. He agreed to meet up with John and I on Monday evening.

John

Sally's short stay with us was over already and she was flying off today to San Francisco before her connecting flight to Australia. After our goodbyes and the reality of a welcome short holiday in our travels we were back into thinking about the trip.

Something that we had been considering for some time was replacing our 35 Litre panniers with something that could hold all of our additional bags which we had strapped to the top. The soft bags on top were wearing out and starting leaking so we had to make a decision. With 4 months on the road we have paired everything down to what we wanted. Obviously there is always less you can do with but with so long on the road, and we’re not as young as we once were, there is a level of comfort items that make life enjoyable rather than bearable.
The combination we had discussed was investing in tank panniers and increasing the size of the rear panniers. As we now have a known volume the sizes needed was easy work out but the issue was how big will the rear panniers be? So in true Blue Peter style a cardboard mock up was made. The long and the short of it was 50+ litre rear panniers but only 1 cm wider than a 41 Litre Touratech pannier for me and 3 cm for Mike. So after debating the extra expenditure and pro’s and con’s for a while we agreed this is what we wanted and an E-mail off to Ernie at Overland solutions and Touratech for the rear panniers and tank panniers respectively.

With all this decision making we needed some R&R and having left a message with Alex to see if he was free this evening we decided to go out for the evening which happened also to be Halloween. We unfortunately didn’t hear from Alex before the evening so headed to Downtown Nashville we had a spot to eat then headed for a bar that looked lively. We didn’t have to wander far as there was a good band on in the Stage called the Drew Davis band. The music was a combination was a cross between country and rock but the atmosphere they created was lively and fun. Along with all the Yanks in some interesting fancy dress costumes a good evening was had. We’ll in reality it was a good chunk of the morning too!
After the previous nights enjoyment a long lazy day was required before heading off to our next destination. Unfortunately due to Alex’s homicide case we were sadly unable to meet up before we left.


John
 


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