The Alabama Experience

Last night we slept in the forests of northern Alabama – the foothills of the Smokey Mountains. The air temperature is just beginning to be slightly noticeably cooler at night, the insects a little less fierce. The skies have cleared up (for now) and as Hoyle and I fiddle around the campsite cooking and prepping and doing what will become fairly routine chores in the coming days, we’re under a blue sky with a few flitting clouds and a paramount breeze.

Yesterday we spent our time eating up the miles, crossing into Alabama at last and tilting north-like towards our eventual arrival into Chattanooga today. We only cut the engine off to do a little shopping at Walmart (where we were greeted by people who speak an English we couldn’t understand) and to visit the Barber Vintage Motorsports Musuem outside of Birmingham. There we drooled over a collection of thousands of motorcycles from the dawn of the two-wheeled engine to present day beasts. Outside, on the raceway, roadbikes ran laps on the closed circuit track.

Hoyle and I(Tanner) are in good spirits as we eat eggs and toasts at the threshold to the oldest mountain range in the United States. Our rations are in good supply. Our imaginations vivid. Cedars is settling into the journey as well, as the idea of “home” slowly fades in his doggy memory banks and the old familiar sensation of the back of a vehicle replaces it.

The days move on. The adventure continues.