It's the middle of the day on Thursday, and we're in Tennessee ... chugging to Chattanooga.It's the middle of the day on Thursday, and we're in Tennessee ... chugging to Chattanooga. The temperature guage is nudging ninety (Fahrenheit), and the scorching sun is right above. The sky is the palest powder blue, with just a few thin cotton ball clouds, and we see turkey headed vultures riding the up draughts above. With burnished bronze fields of corn interspersed between the long stretches of vivid green, we pass farms and homesteads, rockers on their porches, their mailboxes standing at the highway's edge. The undulating road stretches straight ahead, until we're into tight bends right and left as we climb to Mounteagle. Long sweeping bends take us down the other side. The soundtrack to our ride is the burbling exhaust note of Craig's bike ahead, the purring note of our own ride, and (through our earphones) the country music voices of Johnny Cash, Willlie Nelson, Dierks Bentley, and the the Old Crow Medicine Show - all of these are occasionally overlaid by the thrum of cicadas in the nearby trees. For mile after mile, we see no other vehicles, but when we meet other bikes coming in the opposite direction, they are generally Harleys, and their outstretched hand salute as we pass reminds us of the fellowship between bikers. If I had to explain the feeling, you wouldn't understand … this is freedom, this is unadulterated fun. As we came into Chattanooga down the Road of Tears, we crossed back over a time line losing an hour, but reached our hotel by 3.50 pm, giving us time to look around the city once we had settled into our rooms. When I say hotel, I mean an old Tennessee river paddle steamer, converted into a shore-side hotel! All credit to Craig for finding this gem. This message may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient please inform thesender that you have received the message in error before deleting it.

The Tennesse River

The Delta Queen

Has anybody seen Titanic?