Day 11

By the way, I know that I could turn the pictures upright, but it makes them so small. You'll just have to turn your head. And if you click on the pictures you can enlarge them and see more detail.

My bicycling companion has had a malfunction of the bearings on the front bike wheel, so we had to change our route this morning. On our way out of the campground we stopped to look over the historical stuff from Merriweather Lewis. He's the "Lewis" part of the "Lewis & Clark" corps of discovery team that went from St. Louis all the way out through Montana to the Pacific Ocean around 1805, to explore what was out there. In October 1809 he was staying at a wayside Inn here along the Natchez Trace and he died of gunshot wounds at the Inn. Some say he shot himself, some say he was shot. At any rate, this is where he died. See pictures. The old building is a recreation of what he Inn looked like when Lewis stayed there. We seen wild turkeys along the road 3 times this morning. The road was hilly and winding. In the "road" picture, if you look waaaaaay out there you can see the road we just rode before we climbed the hill I was looking back from. When we were a few miles north of there we angled off to the east for a very hilly 27-mile ride to the town of Columbia, Tennessee, which we discovered is the hometown of President James Polk! Lots of lovely old mansions and plantation-style houses with columns. Lots of traffic, too, making it hard to stop and take pictures. This one I did get shows a captain's walk type deal on the roof...something I'd like to have on our roof! Oh well! Lots of apple trees and tulip trees in bloom. We went to a bike shop in the downtown square by the courthouse and notified them that a package containing the needed bearings part would be arriving there Fed-Ex tomorrow. Then we went off our own ways for the afternoon. Most of my afternoon involved shade and rest! I did wander to a McDonalds for a Filet of fish and a hot fudge sundae. Miles today: 42.7; sunny and 86 degrees.