Wednesday morning
In the early morning hours I heard some booming and looked out the window and saw nothing. We are close to Interstate 40 so I thought maybe I was hearing empty trucks hitting a bump in the road. Later I looked again and saw nothing except that it was dark because the skies were cloudy. Las night Linda had washed my special riding shirt in the sink. It is designed for that and is supposed to dry quickly. It was not dry yet so I decided to hang it on the bike to see if the warm weather would dry it. But when I looked outside this time it was pouring down rain complete with lightning. So I went to the lobby for coffee and let Linda sleep in. It appears now that the rain is letting up so maybe we can be on the road at 10 AM. If we were in a hurry we would have left in the heavier rain, depending on how much lightning there was, but we are not really in a hurry so we waited to see if the rain died down.
So we left at 10:45 and rode in the rain for about an hour. We went over the Mississippi river and then south into Mississippi for a BBQ picture. I was going to go into Alabama for another picture but decided to skip it as it would have cost us another hour and a half. I wanted to get to Nashville in time to go through the Country Music Hall of Fame. Linda is a country music fan and she would enjoy the visit. So we negotiated the Memphis traffic and once again proceeded east on Intestate 40. It is interesting to be on the top of a hill and look along I-40. It is big trucks as far as you can see. It is less pleasurable to ride I-40 among the trucks. While riding along I thought about staying in Nashville and getting tickets for the Grand Ole Opry show. I checked at a state information center and found that there are no shows on Wednesdays. Darn! Finally we arrived at Nashville just in time for the rush hour which was made MUCH worse because a freeway was closed and I-40 had to carry the extra traffic. What a disaster! It was almost as bad in town. We finally arrived at the area of the Hall of Fame to find a big construction site where we would have parked. A policeman told us where we could find public parking but it turned out to be private parking only. So we did not see the Hall of Fame. But there was a BBQ in Nashville that I wanted a picture of but it was on a busy street where I could not stop. My pictures must have the motorcycle in them and I could not stop in the street. But I did find a parking spot a block away but we had to take everything that was loose off of the bike and carry it with us to the BBQ. We might not get a picture but we could see if the food was as good as I had heard. I was not that impressed but I am not really a BBQ fan. There was a loading zone in front of the restaurant so Linda waited while I went back, reloaded the bike and came up to the loading zone. She took a couple of quick pics and we left for Kentucky. I did not want to stay any longer in Nashville. I remember a song about musicians coming to Nashville with their guitar hoping for fame and fortune. It is still true.There were many people walking the streets carrying their guitar cases. The traffic leaving was not as bad as the traffic on I-40 but it still took some patience to get out of town going north towards Kentucky. We found a motel 22 miles into Kentucky in Bowling Green. We found a BBQ restaurant and got our Kentucky picture and then got a salad as the order of ribs we shared in Nashville did not quite fill us up. Our bike is parked in front of the motel lobby. It is covered up as we are expecting heavy rainstorms tonight. Our plans for tomorrow are not decided. The motel told us we could take tours of Fort Knox but according to the internet there are no tours. So tomorrow will also be a day of improvisation as are most of our traveling days.
In the early morning hours I heard some booming and looked out the window and saw nothing. We are close to Interstate 40 so I thought maybe I was hearing empty trucks hitting a bump in the road. Later I looked again and saw nothing except that it was dark because the skies were cloudy. Las night Linda had washed my special riding shirt in the sink. It is designed for that and is supposed to dry quickly. It was not dry yet so I decided to hang it on the bike to see if the warm weather would dry it. But when I looked outside this time it was pouring down rain complete with lightning. So I went to the lobby for coffee and let Linda sleep in. It appears now that the rain is letting up so maybe we can be on the road at 10 AM. If we were in a hurry we would have left in the heavier rain, depending on how much lightning there was, but we are not really in a hurry so we waited to see if the rain died down.
So we left at 10:45 and rode in the rain for about an hour. We went over the Mississippi river and then south into Mississippi for a BBQ picture. I was going to go into Alabama for another picture but decided to skip it as it would have cost us another hour and a half. I wanted to get to Nashville in time to go through the Country Music Hall of Fame. Linda is a country music fan and she would enjoy the visit. So we negotiated the Memphis traffic and once again proceeded east on Intestate 40. It is interesting to be on the top of a hill and look along I-40. It is big trucks as far as you can see. It is less pleasurable to ride I-40 among the trucks. While riding along I thought about staying in Nashville and getting tickets for the Grand Ole Opry show. I checked at a state information center and found that there are no shows on Wednesdays. Darn! Finally we arrived at Nashville just in time for the rush hour which was made MUCH worse because a freeway was closed and I-40 had to carry the extra traffic. What a disaster! It was almost as bad in town. We finally arrived at the area of the Hall of Fame to find a big construction site where we would have parked. A policeman told us where we could find public parking but it turned out to be private parking only. So we did not see the Hall of Fame. But there was a BBQ in Nashville that I wanted a picture of but it was on a busy street where I could not stop. My pictures must have the motorcycle in them and I could not stop in the street. But I did find a parking spot a block away but we had to take everything that was loose off of the bike and carry it with us to the BBQ. We might not get a picture but we could see if the food was as good as I had heard. I was not that impressed but I am not really a BBQ fan. There was a loading zone in front of the restaurant so Linda waited while I went back, reloaded the bike and came up to the loading zone. She took a couple of quick pics and we left for Kentucky. I did not want to stay any longer in Nashville. I remember a song about musicians coming to Nashville with their guitar hoping for fame and fortune. It is still true.There were many people walking the streets carrying their guitar cases. The traffic leaving was not as bad as the traffic on I-40 but it still took some patience to get out of town going north towards Kentucky. We found a motel 22 miles into Kentucky in Bowling Green. We found a BBQ restaurant and got our Kentucky picture and then got a salad as the order of ribs we shared in Nashville did not quite fill us up. Our bike is parked in front of the motel lobby. It is covered up as we are expecting heavy rainstorms tonight. Our plans for tomorrow are not decided. The motel told us we could take tours of Fort Knox but according to the internet there are no tours. So tomorrow will also be a day of improvisation as are most of our traveling days.
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