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Tennessee


I always think the flag of Tennessee looks like a bowling ball. I didn't actually realise I had chan... Clarksville's little airport. I've taken a little detour here because I noticed on the map that the roads in this estate were all ... This is what Bo-Peep Lane looks like. I wonder what happened to Tony. The road into Clarksville is busier than I would like. Today has been another day when I have seen far more churches than I would expect the population cou... I don't like this road. There are cars constantly turning in and out of all these places along the s... A parade of shops:... This is like Mullen, Nebraska. Zebra crossings but no footpaths at either end of them. I've been using my original camera again today. It was fine but now I physically can't move the cont... There was something a bit like that at ... A strangely-shaped jeweler's. It looks like it might have originally been something else. Clarksville has a bike hire scheme. The Tennessee flag at the end of a line of national flags. Are they trying to claim independence? The Cumberland River is higher than normal. A swinging bench. Clarksville. The traffic lights are sideways, like at a grand prix. Another tourist. I've just been to the bike shop down by the river so the bike has a new saddle and rear cassette and... This area is called Public Square. A week ago, I booked a room in this hotel for last night and tonight, and then phoned them to ask if... At the hotel. The mural on the wall is what the tourist was photographing a few pictures ago. The stairs in this hotel aren't very glamourous. As always, the number of flights that I actually ha... The view from the end of the corridor. From ny room. The hotel is called the Riverview. Only the rooms on this side actually have a view of... That viaduct carries a railway line. I don't expect to hear any trains tonight though, through seale... The round packet of soap is labelled "FACIAL BAR". The rear cardboard box is labelled &quo... City Hall, in Public Square. Hire bikes. Clarksville. A manhole cover. Clarksville. Clarksville. The court house. The court house. Clarksville. This sculpture is called "The Day After". It was sponsored by the local newspaper and depi... This church has just the outlines of towers. The building spanning the road is a church. Clarksville is like Independence: it has an unbelievable number of churches. A purple plant. These buildings belong to the American Snuff Company. You can't really come to Clarksville without seeing the station. I'm sixteen minutes too late to meet the Monkees. The station actually closed in 1970. It doesn't have that stupid banner over the town's name in any ... As well as churches, there are a lot of funeral places. I hadn't noticed any solar panels until today. Now here are some more. Wherever you stand, you can look around the skyline and see the spires of several obvious churches b... Student accommodation for Austin Peay State University. Another vehicle with strange wheels. One of the university buildings. I've just walked past a fraternity house. I don't really know what ... It's a crematorium. Clarksville. There's nothing remarkable about this view but I think everthing looks good in this sunshine. This bail bond business looks a bit weird. Why does it have three stuffed wild cats in the window? I think it's going to be a stage show of the Wizard of Oz but some of the letters have fallen off th... John Montgomery. The county is named after him. Clarksville itself is named after the brother of Cla... Clarksville sunset. There's some mist sitting in the valley on the other side of the river. I'm glad they didn't try to post this invoice to me. A war memorial. There's a tidal flow system for traffic on this road in and out of Clarksville. This is a good set of roadworks. It's left a lane and a half where I can ride over here on the right... Foliage. I used route 41A all the way from Clarksville to Nashville. It was pretty good for most of the way. There are two reasons why I didn't get one, which is good because it sounds a bit weird. The same place. They're trying everything. It's another church but this one is slightly more interesting because people are coming out of it. Sliproads cutting through the rock. Suburbs of Nashville. Nashville! That's a big net. I never found out what it's for. The Tennessee Titans' home ground. I've just remembered that my backup camera can do this. A paddle steamer. Nashville. Nashville. The court building. Nashville. There's some kind of big festival going on. I never did find out what it was but it explains why hot... Nashville. Somehow I've ended up inside the festival anyway by mistake. A few minutes later, to get out, I woul... Both sides of this road are full of fast food vans. The Tennessee State Office Building. A statue of Edward Carmack, who was a senator and then a newspaper editor. His Wikipedia article sug... Nashville. The state capitol building. Somebody, I can't remember who, was telling me a few days ago about her ... The view from next to the capitol building. Now I briefly get a second chance to pretend I'm doing that other trip that I once considered: the o... The Polk grave. It's a bit hard to see but the little group of people in front of the viaduct are standing on a larg... A flag and its babies. This squirrel doesn't have a very bushy tail. A similar view to the earlier one but with a train on the viaduct. Underneath the three puctures on the pedestal are the words "BLUES", "GOSPEL" an... The road at the side of the capitol. Nashville. Nashville. Broadway. These rooftop bars would have been good places to see the eclipse, although totality here lasted for... Nashville. Nashville. A pedal-powered vehicle with music playing... ... and a horse-drawn carriage. A tandem. A tour bus. There's an elevated route out of the city centre. Nashville. When I was little, I had a book with pictures of a train that shape. I've only seen a couple like it... The way out of Nashville. Nashville. The Music City Bikeway. The Music City Bikeway. The Music City Bikeway. The view from the bridge. The river here is the Cumberland, the same one which flowed past my hotel in Clarksville. It feels a... An underpass. A bike and skate park. Near here is a car park where a lot of people are taking bikes on or off cars... A school with a lot of air conditioners and not many windows, and a sign which I don't really unders... The top of a steep hill. The hill. A large field of sports pitches. It took me a moment to realise that it was a bit strange that they ... A wild area. This road is similar to the one which I used yesterday evening but with a bike lane. A civil war cemetery. Three presidents are buried within the path of totality. I've already shown you the graves of Truman... If that's the law then why did you put the bike lane right next to the traffic lane, rather than ove... Is that what the Amish are driving these days? In Oregon and Idaho, the signs at the entrances to towns gave the elevation. In Wyoming, Nebraska an... A big house. The motorbike parked outside has a front wheel a bit like the ones on ... The road into Lebanon. The main road was a little busy so I turned off it. Now it's gone to the other extreme. I've been trying to get a picture of a train of lorry cabs like this for weeks. It's going dark before half past seven. There's a time zone change coming up in a couple of days, wh... Two points about this petrol price sign. Firstly, and this has been annoying me all the way from Ida... The moon is nearly full again. A Post Office van making a delivery to a mailbox. Just a view of a farm track crossing a railway line. Tennessee scenery. An American football game at a school. Today isn't a normal schoolday though because it's a bank hol... Watertown. Watertown. Watertown. The thermometer module is slowly rotating. The other side is a clock. Watertown. On the left is possibly the sparsest cemetery I've ever seen. I didn't notice until after I had take... Alexandria. I didn't look to see what the Extraordinary Strordini's is. It could well be a fortune telling place... What, the repository for all knowledge in the ancient world? I have passed a few of these on this trip. I assume they are bird houses. Scenery. A stream. Rocks. Scenery. This part of the road is a series of tiny hills. A river. A heron. Having Knoxville and Nashville on a sign feels quite exotic. The notice on the wooden pole says "NO HUNTING". It doesn't look like the kind of place wh... A little further down the hill, a man is constructing this fence. It's a barbed wire fence supported... A painted fence. The road. The soil here is a rich colour. The old station in Baxter is now a visitor centre for the town. Cookeville. The mural on the left is a tribute to Ronald Reagan. I've hardly seen any graffiti on this trip but this particular bridge is covered in them. Foliage next to the road. I'm now back up to about 500 metres of altitude; higher than I have been since before the eclipse. A historical marker. I don't always stop to read them. This is how my shadow looks in the evenings. Monterey. My hotel in Monterey. The weather forecast predicted some thunderstorms today. Last night, I was considering changing my p... There's a Nashville/Knoxville sign over there but it doesn't feel quite as exotic as yesterday. I took my bike into my room just before going to bed last night. I wasn't sure whether this little hut belonged to my hotel or to Burger King so I went over to see w... They're not Smarties. They're quite clearly Fizzers. It's a foggy morning but the fog can't be very deep because I can see blue sky above it. A golf course. A well-preserved dead frog next to the annoying runble strips which have been a feature of many road... There are mooing noises which seem to be coming out of those tunnels. Where possible, I've been riding to the right of the rumble strips but as a result, I've picked up a... Crossville. The building was originally a water tower and the administrative offices of the Cumberland Homestead... An old police car. Scenery. The third and final time zone boundary of the trip. None of them have been on state boundaries. By c... I'm standing by what I was saying nine or ten days ago about Steak'n Shake restaurants being peculia... This is where my road plunges off the side of the Appalachian Plateau. A rest area part-way down the hill. It probably had better views before the trees grew all around it... A view. A view. Cooling towers. The rest area. Concessions or confessions? Spring City. A few minutes ago, I could hear a train honking through here. I didn't see which way it... Spring City. Spring City Depot. Electrical equipment next to the Watts Bar hydroelectric dam. How Watts Bar Dam Has Changed: the sign has become so cracked that it's unreadable and trees have gr... The Watts Bar Dam. If you look at a relief map of North America, there is a band of ridges and valleys as if somebody h... As I approached the Watts Bar Dam, I realised that that was where the cooling towers which I saw ear... That looks like some new electrical switchgear being delivered to the power stations. Google wanted to send me on some gravelly back roads but that main road has signs saying that it is ... I'm impressed at how well the land here drains. Despite yesterday's rain, there is virtally no stand... A school in Athens. The school is having a new building added. Athens. The McMinn County Courthouse. I think that even by American standards, the number of flags around it... Until now, I haven't seen either a clock or a sign to confirm that I have actually moved from Centra... Athens. I've seen a lot of sheds for sale over the last few days. On a day when I had the radio on, there we... Up ahead are the Blue Ridge Mountains, the third and final phase of the Appalachian Mountains, after... Tonight, I will be staying in Etowah. If all goes according to my current plan, it should be the fir... The road into Etowah. My hotel. My room tonight is next to the gym. I was hoping to end my trip in Charleston, South Carolina on Monday. It seems that there's a bit of ... I've been seeing occasional advertisements for Rock City for a few days now. It's a viewpoint in Geo... This is a very clear river. I can see the stones on the bottom. Along with the mountains and the gen... The same place. The Blue Ridge Mountains. An airfield for gliders. Ocoee Dam Number 1, with Parksville Reservoir, also known as Ocoee Lake, behind it. Ocoee Lake. I will be crossing that bridge in a while. A caterpillar tent. A boat on the lake. Ocoee Lake. The Ocoee River. It feels like Oregon again. Just a view of the sky. The river is quite empty here because most of the water goes in a separate channel from Ocoee Dam Nu... Ocoee Dam Number 2. It's hard to see but there is a suspension footbridge running above the dam. The Ocoee Whitewater Center. There's not much white water at the moment. This is like being back in the Rockies. This looks like a bear-proof bin. It's only now I've got to this end that I've realised that the flags are in alphabetical order. Mountains. Something weird has happened to my phone. After a couple of hours in that river gorge, it's a surprise to pop out at the top straight back int... I'm going to have lunch here at Hardee's Charbroiled Chicken. I've passed a lot of them but not been... A pagoda in a garden. Each carriageway of the road is finding its own way to negotiate the terrain. In some places, these climbing plants have covered everything. The end of Tennessee and the start of North Carolina, a state with an Atlantic coastline.