Unfortunately, I did not have my camera for the majority of it (I ended up borrowing a camera from Jody – she was on support for the day), so I wasn’t able to catch many of the scenes. 
So you’ll just have to trust me when I say that it was amazing. 
For the most part, the roads were pretty devoid of cars, allowing us to enjoy the scenery without interruption. We crossed the Ohio River and in to Indiana around mile 50. 
It was very exciting. One more state down. And we passed in to the Eastern Time Zone. It seems like we are moving so quickly! It’s really hard to grasp the fact that, not too long ago, we were back in California…
About 45 miles in, we came upon a group of riders standing around on the side of the road. Turns out there had been a small run-in with a traffic cone, leaving Pete with a hurt hand/wrist and Roshan with a broken bike. I’m not sure which one is worse. Pete’s wrist can heal with Roshan’s brand new carbon frame was cracked (and it is not possible to fix carbon once it is cracked). Sad.
Once our support van came to help out, we got on our way again. Unfortunately, I only got about 5 miles farther down the road before I had a flat. When I turned my bike over to figure out what the problem was, I found an object in my tire that should not have been there. When I removed it, it turned out that I had managed to get a 1-inch nail imbedded in to my tire. Awesome. Strike one.
While riding through Tennessee, Bryce began thinking about “the hills of Tennessee.” This, naturally, led to him thinking about the song, “Proud to be an American.” Randomly, Bryce, Jody, Travis, and I burst in to song. It was fun. I’m sure we were a sight to see – four cyclist wearing orange spandex riding down the side of the road singing “Proud to be an American” at the top of our lungs. Fun times…
Before arriving at our lunch stop, we passed in to Kentucky. 
We were also able to get the Tennessee state sign as we left. Very exciting. 
However, because we had to wait on the side of the road for so long after the accident, we didn’t arrive at our lunch stop as early as we normally would have. Our support team had us rack our bikes at lunch so that we could make it to Mammoth Caves in time for a tour.
It was pretty interesting. The caves are definitely much larger at Mammoth Caves than Carlsbad Caverns.
I guess that’s probably how it got its name… At one point during the tour, we had to go through this area known as “Fat Man’s Misery.” It was an incredibly tight walkway which is approximately 200 yards long. I was not very happy about it. 
But Tim talked to me about ice cream the entire way, so I made it through. Like I’ve mentioned before, ice cream makes me happy…
Lenore and I decided to sleep in the van. 
Luckily, they unlocked a building with running water, or we would have been using a Port-a-Pottie for the evening. Strike three.
We stopped by the Country Music Hall of Fame. 
Because, again, I hate country music, I opted not to go for the tour. We did a little bit of shopping downtown, complete with a stop at a delicious ice cream shop. 
We then hiked about 2 miles to Centennial Park for the local arts festival. It was really neat. There were tons of local artists with all different types of art and mediums. It was like going to a museum – except it was outdoors and it was free. You couldn’t ask for anything better! While we were in Centennial Park, we ran in to the Parthenon. 
In the past two weeks, we have been to Paris, Milan, and now Greece. We are such world travelers…
We were in lead van and had to mark the route, so we had to make sure we stayed in front of all of the riders. Whenever we came upon a scenic stop, we would park the van, run down to the waterfall (or whatever else we were looking at), hang out for a few minutes, run back up the trail, jump in to the van, and peel out. 
It was adventurous. We had fun.
The roads were lined with trees and there were gorgeous overlooks throughout the route. It was so incredibly peaceful. I’m pretty sure we saw more bikers on the road than cars. So jealous. So incredibly envious that I did not get to ride today. 
I’m pretty sure we looked incredibly idiotic. But we had a great time. 
Some of us attempted to actually ride our bike in the parade, but we were moving so slowly that it made the task nearly impossible. The parade route itself probably wasn’t much longer than two miles or so. But those two miles were completely lined with people, at least 3-4 deep on both sides. It was crazy. And there seemed to be a Strawberry Queen/Princess from every single po-dunk little town around western Tennessee. We even had our own Strawberry/R4WH King and Queen – Justin and Maggie. Fun times for all. 
I had imaged strawberry everything – strawberry shortcake, strawberry smoothies, strawberry jam, and (what I was most excited about) strawberry pie. But, alas, this was not the case. There were abundant strawberry “trinkets,” but not many delicious strawberry creations. I guess the reason for this is that, back during the depression, this area of Tennessee was one of the top producers of strawberries in the country. There was a large railroad that ran through the area, delivering the strawberries to Chicago, and from there, to everywhere else. However, after the implementation of minimum wages, the farmers in the area could no longer afford to maintain and produce the strawberries, so the crop effectively disappeared from the area. Sad. But they still love the Strawberry Festival in West Tennessee and they still celebrate it every single year (with much hoopla and excitement).
We were in no mood to attempt to bike during the hottest time of the day. We all hopped in to the van and were driven to our final destination for the day. We were originally supposed to be traveling to McEwyn, Tennessee; however, with the flooding around the area, the schools were closed and we were not able to get a hold of anyone at the school the day before. Luckily, our wonderful hosts in Hohenwald, Tennessee helped us to find a place to stay that wasn’t too far out of the way. Thank goodness, or we would have ended up in flooded country with nowhere to stay. We are staying in Hohenwald, Tennessee. When I first heard the name, I thought it was called “hole-in-the-wall.” This might be fitting for the town. It’s pretty darn small.
