COVINGTON TO DYERSBURG

May 5 Tuesday
40 miles - nice short day after a big ride yesterday!

Rusty got a TN road map today. He likes to compare the MRT route we are riding with the state road maps. The ride yesterday could have been 37 miles on a state HWY instead of the meandering 67 miles we rode. I'll admit it wouldn't have been as gorgeous and we wouldn't have made so many "new friends".

Today we did a route off the state road map and road on HWY 51 and great road with light to moderate traffic and fantastic shoulders as wide as another lane ! (approx 10 ft) We did miss a ride through the Kudzu jungle that the MRT would have taken us but we've been noticing the Kudzu all along and have some pictures. Sometimes a person just has to pick between the "gorgeous" and the "practical". Wait! Did I say that? :-)

Because we changed our route we were able to go to Henning TN, and visit the Alex Haley Museum of his boyhood home where he lived for eight years with his grandmother. His grandparents own the local saw mill and were well-to-do. His grandfather built the home and it was very fine home for the time and the area. Even so as we went through it we were impressed with how humble it was. Alex's mother and father were well educated and college professors and always wanted Alex to get an education. He stopped attending school after high school and joined the Coast Guard where he served for 20 years. Even after his novel Roots was such a big success his father was still disappointed. Alex's mother died when he was 10 years old. With all the history of poverty and illiteracy in the South it was a glimmer of sunshine to learn about Alex Haley's family and ancestors.

When we were ready to ride out this morning Rusty noticed he had a really soft rear tire. sigh. Of course it's the rear! That's the one that is the biggest hassle to change. He decided to pump it up and see how it held. It did pretty well as we only had to pump it up two or three times along the 40 miles ride. But when we got in Rusty decided to change it. We had asked the bike service that got our bikes ready in Baton Rouge to give us spare tubes for our bikes. We assumed that we had the right sizes. Well, we didn't. That's pretty frustrating. But instead of patching the old one (which was pretty dumb and lazy as we look back) we went ahead and put one of the new ones in. Looked good. Hope it works on the road!