I think it actually warmed up overnight. We woke up to oppressive heat. My bike was sitting directly in front of my room and I took my saddlebag outside to put on the bike and the hot, steamy air condensed water all over the saddlebag almost instantly. I have to tell you, the heat was unbearable. By this point my chain had developed some slack so a took a few minutes to tighten and lube my chain.
We jumped right on the Natchez Trace Parkway and it really was a nice ride. It actually takes you from Natchez to Nashville and we were heading for Memphis, so we only got to ride about 100 miles of the parkway. Still, it was a really nice ride and who wants to be in the city in this kind of heat!
Above you can see me picking cotton. Someday I am going to jump on the start of the Blue Ridge Parkway, go north through the Smokey Mountains, and take the Foothills Parkway into Deals Gap. After a few days there, I am going to ride to Nashville and ride the Natchez Trace Parkway down to the Gulf of Mexico. It would be a pretty cool ride to ride almost all the was from home to the Gulf of Mexico all on parkways
We stopped near Utica, MS to get the genuine southern meal you see above. Catfish, cornbread, baked beans, and turnip greens. That’s right, I ate turnip greens. The waitress could not believe I had never had them before. She guaranteed I was going to like them, and I have to say they were OK, but I’ll not be seeking them out in the future. Mark hated them. As usual, everyone here was just so friendly. We are always wondering why people in Ohio are always so angry.
After leaving the parkway it was pretty much just a boring blast on the freeway into Memphis. We were about 10 miles from Memphis and there was a massive storm just ahead of us, so we decided to pull into a Waffle House and wait out the storm. Upon arrival in Memphis we had a lot of debate as to where to stay and ended up at a Super 7 motel. It was an OK place and it was cheap, so we were happy.