Miles 4 Melanoma

We stopped for breakfast at David’s Place, a diner on the way back towards town from the motel. We headed south on State Rt 13 to Linden, where we stopped for lunch at the Rio Grande Grille. We originally planned to continue on Rt 13 all the way south, then turn west on US Rt 64 to Savannah. But, based on talking to our server, we decided to take a more direct route on Rt 128. The downside would be more hills. She also said that the only thing along the way was the don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it town of Clifton.

There were many steep hills indeed, as well as a stiff headwind, and for a while I was regretting the decision to take this route. It was very scenic though, with view across the Tennessee hills while riding along the top of a ridge. We passed a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course outside of Clifton, then stopped at a corner gas station to fill our water bottles. We assumed that would be all there was to the town, but further up the road, there was a very nice, new-looking downtown area nestled right alongside Kentucky Lake. With the waterfront, all of the docked boats, plus the cool, misty weather of the day, it reminded me of a resort town you might find somewhere along Puget Sound in the Pacific Northwest. It started raining while we were in town, so we decided to wait it out while getting a cup of coffee at Sherrell’s Gourmet Diner.

The rain only lasted 10-15 minutes, so we got on our way, but a few miles out of Clifton, the rains came again. We rode on through a pretty hard rain for probably over an hour. It finally trailed off to a sprinkle as we entered Savannah, and we were glad to have taken the shortcut through the hills, as it saved us about 25 miles of riding.

We stopped at the Sherwin-Williams store on the way into town, where we chatted a bit with Tammy Thomas, the Assistant Manager, who happens to be from Lorain, Ohio. She gave us a couple of t-shirts from the grand opening celebration of their store earlier this year, and gave us directions to the Comfort Inn motel that they had arranged for us, about a mile on the other side of town.

We rode to the hotel and got checked in, and just as we were pulling our bikes into the room, Ray noticed he had another flat tire. After getting that fixed, doing a load of laundry, and catching up on e-mail, it was time to head out for dinner. Unfortunately, it started raining again, but we decided just to buck up and walk the 3/4 mile up to Worleybird Restaurant that everyone had recommended, which is owned by local country music star Darryl Worley.

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