Day 5 - Making it up as I go along

Day 5 is now in the books. I'm at a Motel 6 just down the road from Cove Lake State Park. Today has been all about improvisation. First thing this morning, Tim, my host last night, helped me make a better route than Google gave me. By better, I of course mean more scenic and less turns, or at least that was the game plan. Tim put together a good route, but the county was doing its best to make things difficult. I had a bunch of streets dead end into nameless streets, making navigating my route a little challenging.

As if that was not enough, one of the roads I was on was closed for construction. There were excavators on site, so I suspect that closure was a very recent development. Since I couldn't follow the planned route, I took a left on the last road before the closure, hoping I would be able to quickly get back to the road I was supposed to be riding on. Well, long story shorter than the long winding road, I never got back to the desired road, but I did make it to the next road on my route, and that took me in to Knoxville, where I got the picture below:


Just after I snapped that shot, another cyclist pulled up next to me to chat. He did a tour with some friends last year from Knoxville to Savannah. As we chatted, he led me to a bike shop in downtown Knoxville, where I was supposed to get some good city directions from "Doc." Unfortunately, it was Doc's day off, but the other guys at the shop managed to find a bike map of Knoxville and get me pointed in the right direction.

I left Knoxville by TN-33/US-25W, which took me through Claxton, Clinton, and Lake City. It was a bunch of up and down, but I had fun with it. I saw a few drizzles off and on, but missed the worst of the afternoon storms by stopping at Heavenly Hog in Clinton for some lunch. Not ten minutes after I arrived, the sky opened up, and fifteen minutes later, the rain stopped. When I was done with lunch, I got back on the bike to start the last climbs of the day.

After 61 miles, I was starting to feel tired, so when I saw a VFW Post, I pulled in to find out how far I was from my destination. As it turned out, I was just 2 miles short of Cove Lake Park, but both miles were uphill. After refilling water bottles, I pushed on, and less than a mile from the goal, the sky opened up. Luckily, an abandoned Exxon Station had a good roof over the old pumps, so I could stay dry. The same cannot be said for the camp ground at Cove Lake.

When I arrived at Cove Lake Park, I had no idea what the evening's weather report looked like, but one look at the campsites told me any stay would likely be damp. Since I'm heading to a KOA in Corbin tomorrow (where it is expected to be dry all day), I decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and found a nice motel with AC and internet.

The wake up call is set for 5:30 am, so I can eat breakfast and be on the road by 7:00 am.

Miles today: 67.31 miles
Max Speed: 33.7 mph (hooray downhills!)
Total miles on the trip: 277.79 miles