Day 83: Clinton, TN

Day 83

August 7, 2015

Miles: 72

Crossville to Clinton

Today was a weird day as far as time is concerned.  Di's alarm went off and I figured, "Hey, its seven o'clock and Di wants to get an early start, so I'll surprise her by jumping out of bed and starting to get ready."  So I did, and she was surprised, but pleased.  We decided to get all our gear ready and take our bikes downstairs for breakfast so we didn't have to come back to the room and waste time by lounging around (like we usually do).  The breakfast at the Super 8 wasn't that great, but again, it was free, so it was worth the price. (Though this reminds me of my high school economics teacher who would always say, "Class, there is no such thing as a free lunch." I'm sure this applies to breakfast as well.)



Di ready to eat a (comparatively) meager breakfast

We finished breakfast and I figured an hour had gone by since we go up, so I said to Di, "It must be close to eight o'clock now, not a bad time to get on the road." She smiled, a little too enigmatically for my liking, and replied, "Its actually a little before seven o'clock." "How can this be?", I protested.  "I thought we got up at seven!"  "No, it was actually 6am when we got up."  I could tell she was very pleased with herself.  So, that is how we came to be on the road today at 7am

It was a cool and overcast morning that greeted us as we rolled out bikes out of the hotel.  The temperature was only in the upper 60's, which is quite cool for this time of year in Tennessee.  There was so much moisture in the air we were as wet as if it were raining.

Di stopping to put on rain gear and to turn on her back light

After a little over two hours we had ridden 25 miles and were feeling good about our prospects of riding over 70 miles and getting into town early.  We rolled into some small town and went into a convenience store to get some gatorade and inquire about where to get some more breakfast.  The breakfast we had eaten earlier wasn't enough to get us too much farther, so we needed to supplement first breakfast with second breakfast.  Imagine our surprise when the clerk told us we would have trouble getting breakfast because it was so late.  "Its only a little after nine", we protested. (There was a lot of protesting going on today, apparently.)  "No, I regret to inform you it is already past ten o'clock", the clerk replied, a little apologetically.  It dawned on Di and me simultaneously that we must have  ridden into the Eastern Standard Time Zone and therefore lost an hour.  I accused Di of knowing this all along and orchestrating the one hour earlier wake-up to compensate.  She denied doing this, but she had that same enigmatic smile again. 

We rode from the convenience store and found Alice's Restaurant, a place that served breakfast all day.

You can't get anything you want, but the pancakes and eggs are great

Me, posing next to a great sign in Alice's

Leaving Alice's Restaurant

We left Alice's feeling as any hobbit would: quite contented with second breakfast.  We rode for about an hour until we saw a man standing by his truck on the side of the road holding out two bottles of water.  I thought it was a mirage because Tennessee isn't the most biker friendly place, but no, it was a real person with a big grin on his face as we pulled up and accepted his offering.  His name is Ed and he rode the TransAm by doing "one leg at a time", as he put it.  He finally finished his last leg at the age of 59 and said he was happy to return some of the kindness he had experienced from folks when he rode across the country.  We chatted with Ed for thirty minutes or so and he shared some of his experiences with us.  He is in his 60's now and he still gets on his bike whenever he can, but his goal now is to hike the Appalachian Trail.  I told him its a lot easier to carry your load on your bike than on your back, and he laughingly agreed.

Di with Ed

We left Ed and rode until we came to a pretty lake in the center of some town whose name I didn't bother to learn.  It was still cool with sputtering rain, and on a day like that we tend not to drink as much as we should, so we decided to stop and have a good drink while we enjoyed the beatiful view.

The beatiful view

We arrived in Oak Ridge at 4:30pm, though in my mind it was really 3:30 pm.  We had already ridden 55 miles, and if it was 3:30, we were doing great, but if 4:30, then not so great.  So, of course I preferred to think of it as 3:30.  I thought Oak Ridge's claim to fame would be the Oak Ridge Boys and their hit song, Elvira.  But the owner of the local bike shop we visited told us the real claim to fame was Oak Ridge's participation in the creation of the atom bombs used in World War II.  The putonium used in those bombs was refined here in Oak Ridge.  Di and I rode through town and pulled into a shopping plaza that had two delicatessens.  We passed up on the first one and when we pulled up in front of the second one we saw it was named, "The Other One Deli".  So, we at the other one (no really, the one called "The Other One Deli").

Di ordered a veggie sandwich and I two lamb sliders

I am perplexed by the miniscule size of these so-called "sliders"

We rode the remaining 17 miles and were in our hotel room at the Hampton (naturally) by 5:30.  But, if you want to be technically correct, it  really was 6:30.  By tomorrow all this time stuff should be cleared up (I hope).  On the other hand, being on Eastern Standard Time makes me feel I'm getting close to home, so I'm happy about that.

I don't know where we are going tomorrow, but it is about 55 miles in an easterly direction.