I wanted to do an overnight bicycle trip, but something different than my usual trip to the Walls of Jericho. I decided to head north to Henry Horton State Park in Tennessee.
The route today was excellent, primarily on back roads with very little vehicular traffic.
I was on the Richard Martin Trail, which is a rails to trails in Limestone County, for about 5 miles (pics along the trail below).
Elkmont, AL, was the first small town I went through. Below are some pics around the town.
The next, very small, community was Veto, AL, which is right at the Tennessee border. The Richard Martin Trail continues from Elkmont to Veto, but has some rough spots in that segment. So in Elkmont, I decided to get on Veto Road, a paved road which is part of the signed Limestone County North Loop bicycle route. Below are some pics around Veto.
After entering Tennessee, I rode through Prospect (pics below).
Below are pics of scenery from my ride.
The only major, but still small, town I went through was Lewisburg, TN, which was about 12 miles from my final destination for the day.
Just outside Lewisburg, I found a lady's wallet laying beside the road. It had a small amount of cash and several important items in it. I could not find a phone number to call. On Google Maps, I looked up the address on the driver's license. Fortunately, the residence was located right on my route about 4 miles from where I found the wallet. I stopped at the residence, knocked on the door, and a woman older than the lady on the driver's license came to the door. As soon as she opened the door, I could tell she recognized the wallet, and she had a look of concern on her face. I'm sure she was wondering how this guy on a bicycle ended up with her daughter's (I presume) wallet. I explained I found it by the road, and told her where I found it. She then thanked me and we parted ways.
A few miles down the road, I was making a left turn onto another road when a yellow sign caught my attention. I thought it might be another road closed ahead sign like the one I ran across earlier this trip that caused me to add about 3 miles to the trip. Because I was paying attention to the sign, I missed seeing the nice, neat, loose pile of gravel in the middle of the road at the turn. My front tire hit the gravel mid turn and it was as if my tire was on marbles. Below is a pic of the skid mark I left through the gravel. Me and the bike ended up on the road, but no harm was done to either because I was going pretty slow.
I made it to Henry Horton State Park, and met my friends from Chattanooga who were camping there in their RV for a couple of nights. We had a good visit, and enjoyed sitting around the campfire talking. Below are pics of a couple of birds of prey housed at the park.
A little information below regarding the park's namesake.
The next morning I got up and headed back home on a slightly different route. I was on Alt US Hwy 31 for several miles. It was not extremely busy and had about a 4-foot wide shoulder, but there were several large dump trucks and semi trucks that passed by me at about 60 mph. To me, that is not a pleasurable riding experience. As soon as I could, I found secondary roads to take the rest of the way home.
Total miles there: 81.4
Total miles back: 74.0
