We made it to Tennessee, but ran into a lot of rain. We hide in a car wash place waiting for the rain to let up.
In eastern Tennessee, we met "Mad Dog", a self-proclaimed "hill-billy." Here Mad Dog chases his moonshine (right hand) with Natural Ice while getting a fire ready in his front yard to cook up some hot dogs for us.
He teaches Christi how to roast hot dogs using a tree branch. Is she a hill-billy in the making?
Finally, woohoo! North Carolina, our last state!
Through the Appalachian Mountains. It's all down to the Atlantic from here!
The day came ...when we needed money and ...rode the bike to a bank's ATM. This should be an advertisement for gas-free transportation!
We get on the Blue Ridge Parkway ...but it was caught in the clouds. Visibility? Limited. Captain Tauru, with poor vision already, now has to navigate through this.
What Captain Tauru sees...
Near Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the rear rack broke. We had to move as much of the weight in the rear panniers to the front panniers.
Woohoo! The emotion -- AWESOME! The butt sores -- PRICELESS!
Tauru, "That's it! I've had enough of this bike!"
Christi -- is she stopping him or helping him? Her butt sores will tell the truth.
Christi's family... the ones who inspired the whole trip in the first place. They wanted to have a family get-together on the Outer Banks of North Carolina... so it was either the plane or the bike to get there. We chose the road less taken, and that has made all the difference.
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