July 10 2017. If you are following along, Day 1 ended late and we were exhausted. Day 2 had to be better and it was. We started our day a little late -around 9 am but that was because we had to remove all of our gear from the bikes the night before for fear of theft in Chatsworth GA.

Not long after departing Chatsworth we ran into this sign. Does anyone know what that means?

We pressed on and went into the mountains again but this time it was logging roads which are a bit easier to move along. We were constantly on alert for jeeps and trucks headed in the opposite direction. We have already had a couple of close calls as the trails are just wide enough for one vehicle.

We passed through a couple more small mountains winding our way towards Tennessee.

We had made it close to the Tennessee border and got a bit turned around. We spent maybe twenty minutes trying to find the route and ended up on the tracks, literally. We were paralleling the route but on the railroad tracks. Our thought was simply at the next crossing we get back on the trail. Well turns out -that wasn’t to be. We ran into a couple of good ol boys welding the railroad tracks.
Dakota and Zach.

They let us know that there was “no way to get there from here” and while we were turning around Chris managed to get really stuck in the gravel. It took Zach and Dakota to help us manhandle his bike back onto the tracks. Great guys just plugging away in the Georgia heat.

After the exhausting events of having to push and pull a fully laden dirtbike we had to find some shade and take a break. Turns out the shade we found was the turn we had missed. It runs under the railroad tracks.

After our break we were only about fifty miles from Fayetteville TN. A quick map check to be sure we could make it.

We made it to the motel in Fayetteville around 1830 and promptly loaded the bikes in the room.

Then it was shower time and crash. Tomorrow we head to Savannah TN.

Today was a real gut check. Hot, getting lost, and mentally evaluating whether we could actually get all the way across the country. The planned schedule was certainly beginning to come into question. Could we go 250 miles a day like this? We of course still had the enthusiasm to get this done. It takes at least one of the two riders to have a positive attitude to encourage the other and this duty was passed between the two of us throughout the day.