Welcome to the 2014 adventure of a lifetime with us. I’m sure we will provide you with plenty of entertaining stories on the crazy things that we encounter while on this 3 week trip. I first want to preface a few things in this post before we REALLY get into the heart of what this trip is all about.
1. On several occasions throughout this trip you will see me in either the “Power Ranger” motorcycle suit, Mom jeans, or both at the same time. I apologize in advance for both of these, as they are just awful both independently and together, but due to the nature of the amount of space I have to pack and necessary riding gear, my attempts at any sort of fashion or sense of style during this trip have pretty much gone out the window. I’ll explain the Mom jeans situation in a later post.
2. Hair/Makeup-As noted above, doing my hair or putting on makeup is pretty much not going to happen. Even if I wanted to, putting on/off a helmet several times per day plus sweating profusely doesn’t really lead one to have nice looking hair or makeup anyway. I’ve settled on the fact that our pictures from this trip will be like a reality show when someone is looking at them.
3. I have embraced the granny shoes, the Sketcher Go-Walks. I freaking love these little shoes, despite the fact that I look like a 80 year old mall walker wearing them they are so darn comfortable. If I mess these up during the trip, you can almost bet I will be purchasing another pair when I return.
So, let’s get started on what’s happened so far…. brace yourself, this is going to be an eventful 3 weeks with us.
Friday, August 22, 2014-This involved us leaving only an hour and half after our scheduled departure time. Better than previous trips, so I feel like we are improving slightly on this item. But, before we even got out of our neighborhood I realized my purse was not with me. Now, let me say this about this little, and I mean little ass purse I have to carry while on this trip. You can’t fit anything in this thing. I don’t understand how women do life without a large purse. Needless to say, I wasn’t used to carrying this child-sized purse, that I sat it on the back of the motorcycle and we drove off. By the end of the neighborhood I noticed it was gone, so we turned back around and found it around the corner laying on the ground. Glad I noticed this early on. We loaded up the motorcycle and headed east on I-40 to Memphis, TN. A few things I experienced on this 9 hour (yeah it takes longer on a motorcycle than a car to do absolutely EVERYTHING) ride. 1.We stopped in Henryetta for dinner at a little cafe, the food was pretty close to awful, but it was just the first meal of the trip, so my patience was pretty tolerant. 2. Somewhere in Arkansas, there is a smell that resembles something close to death. It’s still a mystery to me what it was, but it hits you hard when you are going through there. I was enjoying the scent of the pines and hints of honeysuckle, when out of nowhere this death smell appeared. Someone should really take care of that soon before someone of higher authority notices. We finally made it to Memphis around 2:30 am and settled in for the night, or at least for a few hours.
Saturday, August 23, 2014-We got up and headed to the National Civil Rights Museum. We have been here before, but it was the one thing we hadn’t had a chance to do when we were here. It is a really nice museum and I would highly encourage going to it if you find yourself out this way. It made me want to ask our readers, how has the Civil Rights movement in America impacted your life? We had to take in some BBQ while in Memphis (is there even any other kind of food here?), so we headed into Corky’s (as recommended by my aunt and uncle) and left fat and happy. We settled into our riding position (Matt with plenty of space, our massive amount of luggage, and my tiny riding space) and set off to Pigeon Forge, TN, city of Dolly Parton. 9 hours later we arrived. I’m just going to mention it’s hot here, and like 100% humidity. And for that reason alone, we settled into our little cabin at the KOA because quite frankly, Matt and I are just not able to function without air conditioning unless it’s extremely cool and very low humidity. A quick nights rest set us up for a day at the Great Smokey Mountain National Park.
