Shaquille O'Neill Foot-Hills and Demonic Dogs, May 31

Woke up in the basement of a strange church at 6am. Once I remembered where I was, I thought, Ah! Yes! These guys have free food. So I ate more of their chicken noodle soup, I loaded up my bike and I hit the road at 6:50 am. I was scared that this day was going to be as hot as the last, so I wanted to get as many miles in before noon as possible.

It wasn't long until I was on yet another gravel road. Good times. Kevlar lined tires are the best because they are so tough to puncture. It made me tired that my tires didn't pop because the air was thick and everything in East Tennessee smelled like cow manure. I believed that the smell wasn't as bad when I was riding, so I had no intention of stopping. At about 8 the air started to reek! Then I passed a chicken farm. There were 10 of these huge buildings with about a few million chickens in each building. Crazy stinky stuff.

This day was really funny because I passed every type of farm animal in the world! I even saw buffalo, emu, and mini horses. These animals are all great because they are not absurdly territorial. Want to know what is super territorial? A dog. I used to think I was a dog lover. On Tuesday, May 31 I started to think I might like cats more than dogs, and I have a strong dislike for cats because of an extreme allergy. It made me sad that all of the dogs in East Tennessee hated me. They don't know how to handle someone on a bicycle. All of the dogs acted like they thought I was coming to blow up their house and chase all of the squirrels away for them. I rode about 75 miles on this day and I got chased by a dog about 75 times. If you don't like math, that's an average of 1 chase per mile!

These foothills were not huge, but when you cruise down a hill at about 25 mph and make it to the bottom, you don't immediately feel like sprinting up the next hill. This feeling changes when an unchained dog that looks like a grizzly bear comes out of nowhere and looks like it wants to eat you alive. This is when the adrenaline starts pumping and you climb that next hill like if Lance Armstrong was taking performance enhancing drugs...oh, wait...he is...so yeah, like Lance Armstrong. Then, when the dog finally peels off and the adrenaline stops pumping, you realize that you just destroyed your body with a quick sprint. For the rest of the day those foothills that didn't look so big at first start to look like enormous Shaq foot-hills. You know, he has big feet. Anyway, what is confusing to me is how poor some of these people are out in the foothills, but how many dogs they have! Pedigree, Iams, and Purina is expensive, guys. This one house I passed literally had over 100 dogs in front of it. They were all types of dogs, and man they were yappy! It was scary, but luckily these guys were fenced in. Here is a bad picture of the scene. You can probably only make out a few of the dogs. One got out.

So all of these dogs hate me. I squired my water bottle at them, yelled at them, and almost had to kick one in the head. That would have made me feel bad. I started another tactic. If I couldn't blast past them, when they ran up in front of me I would get off of my bike and walk away from it. They would approach me, I would say hello my name is Jeff Hennessy and I come in peace, and then they would roll on their belly and let me scratch them. Phew! Dogs still love me. They just hate the bike.

For some reason I think the people around here have so many loose dogs because they are excessively paranoid. They put No Tresspassing signs all over the place...maybe because they are scared of the rusted out tractor parts and the broken refrigerator on their front porch getting stolen. Like I said, they are nice people, just paranoid.

This day I got my first real heckler. This teenage guy drove past me 3 times in a busted up car yelling inappropriate things at me. This guy obviously did not take high school physics. He had no idea about the Doppler Effect. He was driving by so fast yelling things that they were entirely inaudible. I just imagined that his girlfriend who was in the car was yelling "Dang man! You look fine in that neon yellow vest!" and "Hey Boy! I haven't seen someone wear tights that well since Peter Pan!" So throughout the rest of the trip I would just laugh when I heckler passed and said something dumb. I would smile and say, "Thanks! You are beautiful as well! And I'm so happy to be sharing the road with you."

Later a guy named Dale stopped me on the side of the road. Dale was training to ride across the country and he started last week. Day 2 for Dale = slamming into a guard rail and busting himself up. Trip over. He was back to the Smokies to train for round 2. He has ridden across country a few times before. Dale was inspiring and he was also pretty funny. He recently sold his farm in Kentucky and was now essentially homeless. Not only was he a 60 year old guy about to ride across the country by himself, but when he is done he is getting deployed for his Peace Corps service. I thought that was only for young bucks like Mr. Cary Fontana. Anyway, Dale is gonna do it. Good for you, Dale. Here he is.

                                  

Remember that screw that I lost on my bike rack? Oh yeah, I didn't remember about it either. Riding down the road and BAM! Loud noise, panniers about to fall off, Jeff panics. I stopped and realized my rack was falling off. A few screws were loose and another one fell out. I was fortunate to find the screw in the road, put it back on, make the repair, and get back on the road. I almost had to bust out the duct tape, but I managed, even though one of my bungees was kinda busted up as well.

Eventually I made it to Erwin. I was feeling extra hungry and I was also feeling extra American. So I did what a hungry American does.

                      2 McDoubles, 1 McChicken, and 1 large chocolate milkshake. Yes please!

Then I rode to the Appalachian Trail Hostel, named Uncle Johnny's. Uncle Johnny had to have been Santa Claus' long lost twin brother. He was designed for the North Pole so with his long white hair and beard he was sweating pretty profusely. Uncle Johnny let me camp on his property for $10 and gave me a snickers for 40 cents. Ballin. It's fun to talk to all of the AT hikers and hear their trail names. I need a road name. I'll think of it. Anyway, everybody on the AT is either retired, a homeless hippie in their 30s, or kid in or just fresh out of college. I swam in the river by the hostel and met some of the river guides. A bunch of us took the free shuttle into town for dinner. $8 all you can eat KFC buffet? Yes please! After that meal and a purchase of some petroleum jelly vaseline (I won't get into details, but sitting on a bike saddle all day can do some damage) I was ready to roll. I talked with some cool guys from UNC Chapel Hill for a while, a retiree from New Joysee, and a couple of Boy Scout leaders from, I think they said Greenbo, Alabama.

It was still in the high 80s at about 9:30 pm but I somehow managed to fall asleep in my tent. Great fun at my first American Hostel.

The Hostel.

The best thing I learned at this hostel was how to detect and steer clear of a Meth Lab.

Sorry that's crooked. I think all of the dogs that chased me in Tennessee were Meth Labs.