Last Three States: Day Six

11/05/2011 - After the lousiest continental breakfast of the trip, we left the Jackson Quality Inn at about 10:00am. We took a quick jog on I-20 and then exited the Interstate onto MS-25. Then, in another of my strokes of good luck when it comes to choosing motorcycling routes, we ended up on the Natchez Trace Parkway. The Natchez Trace Parkway is a national scenic road that runs between Natchez, MS and Nashville, TN.

It is a beautiful road and even better because it was showing it's full fall colors. We rode 310 of it's 444 miles in the perfect fall weather. We came to a point where we had to make a decision, get off of the parkway, follow Google's directions, and stop before dark or continue on Natchez Trace until we got to Nashville. We were enjoying Natchez Trace so much that we decided to stay on it. As soon as the sun started to set we began seeing deer on the side of the road. By the time it was all said and done and we reached Nashville we had encountered 53 deer. I made a game out of counting deer as soon as I saw the first one. I figured that would help me stay alert and on the lookout and it served me well. The last few that we saw were the scariest because the ran right across the roadway and were no further than three feet from my front fender. Truly terrifying. We pulled over at the first gas station after the Parkway so that we could decompress and I could catch my breath.

The interstate was about 5 miles from the end of NTP so we went to hop on that with the intent of getting off at the first exit with a hotel. We weren't on the highway too long before we found an exit with a Super 8 hotel. As we pulled into the hotel parking lot we encountered what would be our first and last motorcycle malfunction of the trip. All of the bolts but one that held Kevin's front fender to his Concours had fallen out, so the left side of the fender had started dragging on the front wheel. Fortunately the fender was plastic so it just melted under the friction. Had it been metal I shudder to think of what the consequences may have been. At any rate Kevin removed the fender, put it in Tim and Dan's car and that was that. We got our room, and then headed to Red Robin for dinner if you can call a meal at 10:30 dinner.

With our arrival in Nashville, we had about 400 miles left to get home. I was pretty confident that we'd get home on Saturday.