A little bit Country

Our plan of getting up early to beat the heat has worked pretty well, the days we are travelling we get it all done by 1pm.

We started this week with a few days riding through the Smoky Mountains and staying in small places along the way it has been a time of meeting nice people and travelling through pretty scenery, most of the time on very quiet roads. One of the highlights was highway 129 (known as the Dragons Tail). Very bendy, we were told it has 300 bends in 29 miles although we didn't count!

A view from the Dragons Tail, rather a misty shot as we actually had rain that day. It was lovely warm rain!
From the scrape marks on the road and the odd memorial on some of the bends it is clear that sometimes the Dragon gets the better of some of the less fortunate riders who try to tame it!





Hardly a motel really, just some rooms on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere! The owner told us to expect more bikers to turn up late at night but it was just us and some very vocal crickets (a bit spooky actually).





















The joy of hand washing your underwear in shower gel!









From the Smokys we headed into Nashville (Yee-ha). We did all the tourist stuff and visited the Country Music Hall of Fame and RCA studio B (Elvis recorded half of his records here) and many country artists recorded here from the 1950's onwards. This was the studio and piano that Elvis used to record 'Are You Lonesome Tonight'. Supposedly this piano was one of the few things that Elvis could not buy as the Studio refused all his offers to buy it. Even though it is no longer a working studio it had a real atmosphere and was great to visit.





The Ryman Auditorium is a live music venue and used to be the home of the Grand Ole Opry radio show. It was moved to a bigger venue out of town but this was flooded earlier this year so the show is back at the old venue. Although we stuck out a bit in our grubby shorts and sensible sandals we went along and sat with the glamorous tanned, cowboy hatted and booted audience!





The show was fun (if rather cheesy) but like most broadcasts in the US interrupted by 'adverts from the sponsor' every few minutes!











Next stop for the McCombs is McComb in Mississippi!