Day 1 - Eastern NC to Clarksville, TN 

692 Miles

Well, Day 1 is in the books.  I left out of Eastern North Carolina at 0607 this morning and pulled into the hotel in Clarksville, TN, ~692 miles and 13 hours later.  An excellent first day's effort.

I rode a mix of country, four lane and interstate across the way.  I had intended to take 52, I-74 and I-77 north out of Winston-Salem to 81, but Gertrude read the route as going west out of Winston-Salem on 421.  It was a nice surprise to go that way and find myself heading straight toward and through Boone, NC.  Since the time still matched what I had projected, I figured why argue with her.  Inside Boone was my only bad traffic portion of the trip with all of the Appalachian State folks in town for the ball game.  I tried to take some pictures (below) of Watauga Lake and some of the scenery going through Cherokee National Forest, but I ended up deleting most of them.  I did have a very interesting shot of what I think was a bug on my leg, but I couldn't find him again to sign off on the privacy form.  Say levee.  Monday I have the ride photographer back in the saddle.

I started out in muggy 72 degree weather, shot up into the 80's, back into cool low 70's three time (as I skirted three different bouts of rain across the ride), into and out of the 90's three times and finally hit rain as I got to Nashville.  However, it only lasted long enough to make me sweat in the rain jacket I threw on and my pants and gloves were dry by the time I hit Clarksville.

Tomorrow I'll shoot across from here to Springfield, MO and on to Salina to hook up with Denise.  She pretended to have things to do with her mom (a dear sainted lady if I ever met one) to get out of the first two long day rides.  No issue - there will be plenty of long days to come.  Heh.

That's it for today.  Here's to another great rider tomorrow!