Category: Tennessee

  • Danville Grill; Kentucky Lake TN

    July 15th, 2006

    The next day we tackled some really, really serious hills in Tennessee, headed towards Kentucky. We ended the day at Kentucky Lake, and couldn’t find a campground anywhere within reasonable distance. On a hunch, we stopped at a small convenience store and grill at the end of a road, near a boat launch, where I asked about camping. It turns out that it is so relaxed there, that people just pop up a tent by the side of the road. They offered the use of their outdoor bathrooms, and the bathrooms even had a shower. We were able to set up our tent just off the road in a shady, amazingly private area, and walk to the store.

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  • Loretta Lynn Campground near Waverly TN

    July 14th, 2006

    The day after I last wrote, we did make it to the Loretta Lynn campground, near Waverly TN, and it was just what you might expect from the name. It had a great swimming pool, where we played around for a while, gratefully (yes, it was still in the high nineties with a heat index hovering around 105), and it had a washer and dryer so we could do our clothes, and showers with hot water. What a treat! The whole camp had a very country/cowboy flavor, with a separate horse camping area, gift shops, tours of her house, a museum, an old mining tour, club house, basketball, a creek that we could wade in, paddleboats, and soda fountain – where we killed time out of the heat by ever so slowly drinking a root beer float and looking at all the food and supplies. The heat was really overwhelming, but we did enjoy the campground (other than the rather large number of flies and mosquitoes, and then huge bugs in the washrooms). We got a spot right next to the creek.

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  • Centerville, TN – 1,356 miles

    July 13, 2006

    We have finally finished the Natchez Trace Parkway, and tomorrow we start the serious roller-coaster hills of Tennessee. Chelsea and I have made good time the last week on our riding days (we took 2 days to catch up on our organizational issues). We have ridden 65-72 days almost every day except today, when we did only 38 miles. But wow, they were some miles! We were extremely tired when we woke up, and it was very hard to get going, and then we hit our steepest hills yet. We had several hills today that were 1-2 miles long, and we had to put it in a low gear and just keep going. We have gotten a lot stronger, and the long slow hills are quite do-able now, but it’s a killer to have steep hills and steep downhills one after the other. That’s what we will be facing the next 4-5 days as we cross the Ozarks. We’ve apparently been in the foothills of the Appalachians the last few days.

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