Day 2 - Walls of Jericho Alabama Trailhead to Athens, Alabama

Well, we made it thru the night. Fell asleep to a calm night being serenaded by the crickets.  The wInd picked up during the night, which makes life interesting when camping around oak trees. While laying in your tent, you can hear the acorns coming thru the leaves, chink, chink... chink.......chink.  You anxiously await the final sound, and wonder if it's going to hit your tent. If the little pointy part of the acorn hit your tent's rainfly just right, I guess it could potentially put a small hole in it, which you would not discover until your first night of camping in the rain. Then you hear a fairly loud "thunk" of the acorn hitting the ground.  Dodged another bullet.  Simple pleasure, wholesome entertainment. 

Speaking of rainflys, I had a Kelty tent that I lived in for 3 weeks when I first moved to Chattanooga. It served me well, but several years after I bought it, I was on a bicycle tour and was camping behind a church in Gate City, Virginia. There came a steady rain that night, and that was the night my rainfly decided to "bite the dust".  I was in my sleeping bag inside the tent, and it began raining almost as much in the tent as it was outside. I had a, "Well, what do I do now moment".  I had a piece of black plastic that I was using as a ground cloth, so I pulled it out from under my tent. Of course, it would not stay on the rainfly, and I did not have anything to anchor it down with. So I hopped on my bike, went down to the 24-hour laundromat, and found a pair of jeans and some other clothing items that had been thrown away in the garbage. I took those back to my tent and laid the clothes on top of the black plastic on top of the rainfly. The wet clothes, wet from the rain, were heavy enough to hold the black plastic on the rainfly. I crawled back in the tent, and actually got some sleep. Of course, it was still somewhat drippy and wet inside the tent - I just had to find a non-drippy space, and then remain perfectly still. It was a good memorable night. Without the challenges, we would tend not to appreciate when things are really going well.  (Prior to this trip, set up my tent in the yard, crawled in, and let Mother Nature Lisa pour down upon me with a water hose - I think we're good.)

Last night's moon. Almost full, but not quite. Like a freight train light in a tunnel. 

This morning, we had to have a little testosterone boost, so we stopped in for biscuits at Cumberland Mountain Outdoors. (Please mentally insert Tim the Tool Man Taylor's manly grunt here because I do not know how to spell it.). I've never seen furniture made from wood as heavy as these - definitely  built to last. We watched bow hunting while having breakfast on the tv that's right above the stuffed bobcat, raccoon, and deer skull and antlers. I've never seen as many Polaris atv commercials as I did during the few minutes we were here. I had to get Bob out of there because he was getting tempted to buy one.  Please notice the camouflaged bathroom door. It took me forever to find it. 

This was staring at me while I used the bathroom. When I looked in the mirror, I thought I was growing antlers, but then realized it was just part of the mirror frame. 

Really though, it was a great place for a break and some food with very friendly folks. I give it 2 thumbs up. 

After we left Hytop, we biked through a valley for several miles with view like these

We then arrived in the settlement of Francisco, Alabama, which was settled in 1812, and is the last settlement in Alabama on the Curly Putman Highway before entering back into Tennessee.  Curly was a songwriter from Princeton, Alabama, who wrote Green, Green, Grass of Home.

We entered into Tennessee and were immediately greeted by this

Instead of football time, looks like it's cotton picking time in Tennessee. 

You may notice from the photo, I am wearing the same shirt today that I wore yesterday. I noticed this morning that I accidently put it on inside out, but then recalled what a neighbor, who shall remain anonymous, once told me:  "A shirt is only half dirty until you wear it inside out."  She told me this after I noticed she had a shirt on inside out and I asked her about it. Well, to me that is very sound logic so I decided to apply The Rule of Pat (oops) today. 

As we were riding thru Elora, Tennessee, we saw a lady carrying what looked like a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun walking down the street. I thought to myself, "That's odd, why is a lady carrying a BB gun down the street?"  Well, about the time we got almost directly behind her, two gnarly looking, fairly good sized dogs came bolting toward all 3 of us with a look of "Buffet" in their eyes. The lady must have been a guardian angel because she commenced to cocking and firing the BB gun at the dogs. The dogs immediately hit the brakes and took off in the other direction as though they had previously felt the sting of her wrath. The lady mumbled something to us about those dogs doing something to her dog. We didn't stick around the area long because we knew there was likely some feuding going on between neighbors. 

I had to stop and take a photo of this street sign because it made me proud to know my employer has had an influence on road names as far away as Madison County, Alabama.

We made it to my brother and sister-in-law's (Ricky and Pam) house in Athens, Alabama, where we will stay tonight. We were treated to Whitts BBQ and a shower.  What a treat. Lisa also came over from her parents' house in Huntsville to visit, and we all went out for ice cream in Athens. 

Total miles today 68.3; 5 hours 21 minutes saddle time