Plan for the day was to reach Charlotte. The tracking path above doesn’t include the portion between Nashville and Cookeville because I probably forgot to start the app or begin tracking. If I leave the app on, it ends sucking all my battery in less than a day, so I use to switch it off when I reach my daily destination, but sometimes I forget to switch it back on in the next morning.
Anyways. The distance to ride was around 400 miles (500 km) and Google informs it’s close to a 6 hours’ ride. It probably took me more time than that since I frequently stop for either refueling, drinking a coffee or eating a sandwich, based on the mood of the moment (or the bike’s 🙂 ). As usual for these long rides, I don’t take a lot of pictures or any at all, unless I stop and visit some place, but time seldom allows that. So just a helmet cam picture for that ride, and another picture showing the number 1203, that seem to be following me all the time, for instance I’ll look for the time and it will be 12:03, at another moment, I’ll check some mileage and it will show 120.3 etc… this has been happening quite frequently this year, for some reason I can’t explain. Then I was following a truck and saw that sign, understanding later (when it occurred again with other trucks) that 1203 must be the code for flammable products.
So I came close to Charlotte at sunset, due to the new timezone change (now Eastern), and opted for a cheap motel before reaching the city, the Budget Inn. The neighborhood looked slightly sketchy and some guests seemed to look at my bike with curiosity – maybe just because it was not so frequent to see a heavily loaded bike around – and I felt a bit worried: would I find my bike the next day, or even simply entire? And even more worrying was the fact my room was on the back of the motel, with the bike parked in front of it. So I had to trust the Spot tracker, which I always leave on the bike, that it would warn me in time in case someone was moving the bike around – or maybe just touching it…
I thought I’d visit Charlotte the next day, since it was already night and I was a bit tired by riding the whole day.
