Why so tired? My last night on Julia ended early with the alarm to get up and go visit my friend Mark. I woke up before then, stuck to my sleeping bag due to Knoxville humidity. Last night, Zach insisted on taking me out for beers. I was into it, so seven of us piled into the Road Dog truck and drove to a few spots before we found a late night bar that served food down in Old Town. Stef also turned 23 at midnight Monday morning, so we bellied up to the bar, sucked down car bombs (shots of Jameson in stout beer), and played songs on the juke during a few pool games. Time flew as usual so I crashed after 2 AM, with Zach playing a mellow song on his iPhone to sooth me into my last night on the road with the Sustainable Living Roadshow. This weekend flew by, a blur of Tennessee memories.
Friday night, I biked away from the Roadshow set up to attend Knoxville’s Critical Mass bike ride. It meets up at the Sunsphere around 5:30, so I showed up a bit early. I saw Sam, our UT contact for the SLR event, and his girlfriend head over to the Sunsphere. I asked a rider if it was free to go up and he said it was. So I ran and caught up with Sam. He turned 21 on Friday and was already a bit drunk. He and his girlfriend were headed to the bar up the tower, so I went up and checked out the view. Not to impressive, but fun to do. Back down, I handed out flyers to the Massers. Everyone seemed to know about the UT SLR event and was excited that we were here. No one knew that it was San Francisco’s Critical Mass 16th birthday, so I spread the SF history and cheer to all the Knoxville folks.
Continue reading “Off the Bus and Over the Mountains”