Hattiesburg MS – Maggie Valley NC
July 10, 2018
(~959 miles)

Today is stadium day and my route would have me zigzagging northwest before the run across Tennessee to the checkpoint. I was up with about 30 minutes remaining to maximize my rest bonus at eight hours, time enough to grab a half cup of coffee and breakfast sandwich from the hotel, get ice for the thermos, and get everything packed up on the bike. I got my receipt from the nearby station and headed south a few miles on I-59 to nab the local bonus, a marker about a famous bare-knuckle boxing match. I passed another rally rider on his way out from this roadside bonus.

It was here, unfortunately, that my trusty Hammy-stick met its demise, with the smallest telescoping section pulling right out. Guess I’ll need to replace it with a sturdier model, but from here on out I guess I’ll have to dismount the bike for my bonus photos.

It was about 200 miles northeast more or less directly to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. As I cruised through the city streets in light morning traffic, I spotted the unmistakable LED lights of another rally rider behind me. Based on the bike and suit color, I suspected it was Jim Owen, whom I knew had been out to Houston over the past couple days. Damn, he gets around! I wondered how many of the other high-point edge bonuses he’d been able to get on his push west. Probably a lot of them. We pulled in front of the stadium, dismounted and gave each other a wave.

As mentioned, I’d decided to skip three southern Alabama bonuses, but had somehow left the third one on my route sheet and I was still turned to it (unwittingly) in the book. So once again I wandered around looking for a plaque that wasn’t there, like an idiot. In front of Jim Owen, no less, who walked directly over the correct statue to get his photo. Not embarrassing at all.

At least watching him made me think twice, so I quickly suspected my mistake and ran back to the bike to read the correct instructions. Yup, I’m at a stadium not a courthouse, so maybe the bonus should be football related? Here’s the coach statue.

I quickly finished up and got moving again, eager to put the faux pas behind me. US-82 helped with that and took me WNW back into Mississippi. Not a lot happening around Starkville in the summertime. The state university was easily accessible from the highway and I found the bulldog sculpture with no problems. Cute little guy. Three stadiums to go.

Stopped to take on fuel on the way back out to the highway, then hopped on US-45 ALT north to US-278 to skirt by Tupelo and west to Oxford. I found my way easily into the well manicured grounds of Ole Miss and up to the sports complex area. This was my first “provide an answer” bonus, though I took a photo as well. Former player Chucky Mullins was paralyzed by a bad hit in 1989 and his philosophy of life, as stated by the plaque is “NEVER QUIT!”  And I was sure to record it exactly as written, quotation marks, all caps, and exclamation point.

I left Oxford north on MS-7 to pick up I-22 in Holly Springs, then I-269 into Tennessee which turned into TN-385, still a fast divided highway that loops the far eastern edge of the Memphis area. I-40 began taking me on my drive eastward across the state. I was doing well on time and detoured through the picturesque downtown of Brownsville to get a picture of Billy Tripp’s Mindfield sculpture.

Another short detour off I-40 led me into Jackson to the Rock-A-Billy Hall of Fame for a shot of this mural (apologies for the blurriness).

Next up: Nashville. At rush hour. I’d already resigned myself to the timing and there just wasn’t anything for it at this point. I was going to have to grin and bear it and just hope Waze could pull off some miracles. My original plan was a quick in-and-out to Vanderbilt Stadium from I-440. As I exited onto local roads, however, I could see the rush hour backup up ahead.

I picked my way through the jammed city streets to the university, located the William Frist Family Gate at a busy intersection with no shoulders or parking. I pulled a classic rally move, riding the bike up a cutout just onto the sidewalk at the busy corner where the bonus was. Pedestrians stared, but nobody bothered me while I did the necessary. There was plenty of room for us all.

Now I knew I’d be facing gridlock back on I-440, so I begged Waze to help me and allowed it to lead me east through the city, wending around the university and through blocked city streets to rejoin I-40 once more. I made liberal use of the breakdown lane (low speed, but moving) to sneak my way through the jammed up merge areas and was going past the airport about 30 minutes later – not too bad for a major city at rush hour I thought, though certainly not what I’d call fun!

One stadium to go, but I had time for one more 200-point detour in Sparta TN, a marker to musician Lester Flatt.

Took on fuel and made my way back out to I-40 for the next 100 miles to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. It was twilight as I snapped my final bonus photo of the day from a nearby hillside.

I finished up and continued down the hill to circle round the stadium on my route and came face to face with another rally rider. No, it can’t be…Jim Owen again! I knew he had headed east from the stadium in Tuscaloosa this morning while I went northwest. Somehow our completely different routes joined us together at another stadium bonus at the end of the day. He swung around behind me and we found our way back out to the interstate.

Though we appeared to be travelling at the same speed range, I moved aside to follow him and tried to keep back a bit so as not to blind him with my LEDs. We more or less rode the final 100 miles to Maggie Valley in tandem like that. We were tearing things up on the long fast sweepers of I-40 going through the Smokey Mountains in the darkness. I was no longer feeling any sleepiness but simply sheer joy of riding.

That remains one of the highlights of the trip for me, following Jim’s lights to set up and engage the curves at the speeds they were meant for on two wheels, passing all the trucks and other slower traffic as we focused on our mission and the midnight deadline, which now appeared easily within reach. That stretch of I-40 is easily my favorite interstate, and just a plain good road period at that speed.

We left the interstate on US-276 and just a few miles from the checkpoint, I pulled in to a gas station to fill up for tomorrow while Jim continued on. I wasn’t sure if Maggie Valley would have stations open this time of night. The pump seemed to be having trouble and was the absolute slowest torturous flow of fuel I’ve ever seen. Literally took five minutes for just a couple gallons. Finally, a woman came out of the store to toss out some garbage and I asked if the pumps were always this slow.

“Oh, you need to just let go the handle for 30 seconds, hon.”

“Let go?” I did so.

“Yeah, give it some time for that pressure to build up”

Magic! I thanked her for saving me the next 10 minutes or so, finished up, and rode the final miles to the hotel, which I somehow overshot in the dark, of course. I made a U-turn and then turned down a wrong street, thinking it the entrance of the lot. Grrrr. I finally pulled in the lot and up to John to check myself in at 23:00 on the dot – a full hour to spare! I found a parking spot in the crowded lot and hustled to get myself inside to prep for scoring.

Butt Lite had the entire hotel booked, so the restaurant area was ours as well. They had some delicious fried chicken and fixins still warming for us late arrivals. I filled a plate and grabbed a table to spread out and do paperwork.

I saw Jim and went over to thank him for the great leading on the ride in from Knoxville, and then got busy on my prep, tearing into the chicken every minute or so. It was a fairly quiet and restful atmosphere, broken slightly as riders came in from the scoring room next door or trickled in last-minute from the road. I felt a sense of connection to every one of them – we’d all been riding our hearts out for the past three days straight and had this brief interlude to assess and rest ourselves for the final half.

I got things in order, completed the scoring sheet with the day’s bonuses, and ensured I had my receipts and SD card. I basically carry all my bags to scoring with me along with my jacket, to ensure that I have everything rally related with me. I chatted a bit with Lisa about the cow path in MO/AR during my short wait to be scored and then was ushered in where I met my scorer, Dave.

Dave went through the process meticulously, ensuring everything was accounted for, while I joked and gazed around in amazement that I was sitting there. I wasn’t able to see the photos as he reviewed them so when he mentioned something about one of the locations, I usually didn’t know what he was referring to at first. It was cool to be reminded about how many places I’d just been in three days and had already forgotten.

Dave congratulated me for turning in a clean leg including the combo, nothing denied and nothing left on the table. I wouldn’t know how the points stacked up til morning, but I’d collected 12,538 of them across 38 bonus locations, riding 3034 miles for the leg. I felt this was probably a decent performance and hoped for a top-15 standing.

I proceeded to check in to the hotel and get myself into bed as quickly as possible for some rest. I’d earned the right to get the Leg 2 rally pack at 06:00 and wanted to be ready to route. I turned in around 01:30, my head still spinning from the excitement of being at the checkpoint and wondering what the second leg would bring.

Leg 1 Bonuses (in order):
SPT, ARL, SKY, IND, WSO, FRG, BOO, SMO, BDM, MDC, LYN, BVR, SAK, 14F, HON, MLR, WSP, CEN, MUS, INT, BUR, COL, BEA, FRK, SLS, DID, RS1, KNK, SAL, SMS, SOM, BTM, RAB, SVB, FLT, STN, SEC, CHK