Today I rode through Missouri (miz-er-AH), but only the boot heal portion.  Many of you probably don’t even know that Missouri has a boot heal.  It’s about 980 square miles worth of land that has several explanations for its existence.  The truth goes something like this – Missouri became a state in 1821. The original proposed southern border was a straight line that would have left John Hardeman Walker, an extremely wealthy land owner and quasi politician, in the Arkansas territory.  But John wanted to be part of the new state and was behind efforts to keep his vast landholdings and his political power in Missouri.  The new border was drawn and Missouri got its boot heal.  At the time, it was said of Arkansas “…full of bears and panthers and copperhead snakes, so it ain’t safe for civilized people to stay there over night even.”

I got through Arkansas without any issues, the same can’t be said for Missouri.  It was no big deal, just a little rain.  I could see the dark cloud to the south and thought I could out run it but about a mile from the Mississippi River it started raining and it didn’t stop until about two miles into Tennessee.  I thought of it as my toll for crossing the Mississippi.

The rain over the river was just a single cell with clear-ish skies around it.  The whole sky in front of me here was DARK.  I stopped and evaluated the movement of the thunder storms and thought that if I waited 15 minutes or so, I could shoot the gap.  I was so confident in my plan that i didn’t put on the rain gear.  I did take some precautions, namely electronics and my boots.  I certainly wouldn’t want to lose my GPS or heaven forbid my phone so they were secured.  The other concern was my boots.  Keeping my boots dry is almost as important as the electronics.  I only have the one pair and when they get wet – it’s not going to be good for my feet.  My plan to shoot the gap worked out perfectly.  I did get some moderate rain for about 20 miles but none of that red or pink stuff.  There is little chance I’ll be able to avoid a day or two of fully suited riding in the rain, but today it was fun to successfully dodge it.  Having a good weather radar app on my iPhone – Priceless.

I usually eschew larger cities and especially tourist activities but today I made an exception.  I’m a country music fan and Nashville is the self acclaimed Country Music Capitol of the World so I decided to go check it out.  At the recommendation of the hotel clerk, I took a cab down to Music Row – a very good decision.

Music Row is actually not a “row” but a district with hundreds of businesses related to Country, Gospel, and Contemporary Christian music.  I stayed on Broadway which is two blocks worth of bars, restaurants, and shops.  Every bar has a live band and there must be 25 of them.  You’re going to hear mostly country music but they play a little bit of everything else as well.  It is a crazy party atmosphere.  I talked to some of the security people and they said that on the weekends it is PACKED here.

And then there was THIS unique way of getting around while getting your drink on.

The performers in the bars are very talented.  Many of them are hoping to get discovered so every performance is like a job interview for them & they are really putting on a show.  Bottom line – 100% worth going to Music Row, best way I can describe it is Country Music Mardi Gras – and the cab ride back to the hotel was like Magic Mountain.  What a GREAT time.  But if you come on a weekend you’ll be paying a cover charge for every bar, and many of them are so full – it’s one in, one out.

After over 8 hours of throwing my bike around all those turns yesterday, I was ready to do a little more straight up riding today.  Even though slugging it out with the big trucks on Interstate 40 isn’t my favorite thing to do, sometimes you just gotta eat miles and there’s only one way to make that happen.  I started out rural and after I crossed the Mississippi started clicking off the miles.  A good and fun ride and a better time on Music Row.