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Minnesota

Traveling: The Retirement Ride

It’s hard to believe.  Rich has finally retired from the Navy after 29 years active duty and one year “delayed entry”, for a total of 30 years career.  No more alarm clocks ringing at 4.15am. No more white t-shirts in the wash.  No more 24/7 being “beholden to Uncle Sam”.  It is still rather surreal and I’m sure I won’t feel the full impact until he has been home 24/7 for at least a month once we return from our bike trip.

And that’s what this post is about – our Harley trip from Jacksonville, FL, through Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois and Wisconsin until we get to north Minnesota where we will spend four days with good friends from Jacksonville in their summer home.  Between Illinois and Wisconsin we will be stopping in Zion for lunch with some old friends from Naples, Italy. We will then swing down through North and South Dakota into Missouri where we will spend a couple of days with some more friends from our time in Naples, Italy. 

After that we will head over to Louisville, KY, passing through Illinois (again) and even touching a tip of Indiana.  we will spend three days with Rich’s family in Louisville, taking in a few hours at the State Fair and enjoying a Bar-B-Q with the family.  We will then head south east to Asheville, NC for two days before going a little further east to spend two days in Fayetteville with LeeAnn, yet another friend from our Naples, Italy experience.  At this point we will point Harley straight down I-95 south for the home leg.

Today is Tuesday 16 August.  We left home yesterday morning about 9am and covered three hundred and eighty three miles, reaching our first night-over in Marietta, GA at about 4.30pm.  We had an excellent day of smooth riding.  There were no traffic problems, the weather was glorious, and we got to enjoy a lot of God’s creation along the way. Because we ate a light lunch at Subway just north of Macon, GA, we were very happy to see an old favorite, Cracker Barrel right on the door step of our hotel.  We enjoyed a great dinner there before retiring early for a good night’s sleep.

This morning saw us on the road by 9am.  It was perfect riding weather: slightly overcast yet warm and not a drop of humidity in the airSmile.  As we made our way through the mountains of northern Georgia and then on into Tennessee, we really enjoyed cool-warm weather with balmy breezes.  Lunch time found us in Joelton, TN where we found a superb Mexican restaurant called Mazatlan.  If you’re ever in the area try it.  The food is really good and the service was excellent.

We arrived at our little B&B called “Escape” in Paducah, KY at about 4pm and we’re just relaxing down and chilling out before heading out somewhere to get some dinner.  There’s a hot tub with our names on it in a room adjoining our bedroomSmile. Hopefully along the road I will get to share not only about our ride, but will also be able to catch up on some other news that I simply have not had the time to right about in the past few weeks.  Happy summer, happy trails!

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