It was a long 32 hours from when we left Perth to when we landed in St Louis, and despite all the warnings about immigration and customs getting into the states, we went through very quickly end efficiently.
When we had left the US it was late summer, we hadn't given any thought to what it would look like in early spring, none of the trees had any leaves, making it look like Australia does after a bushfire, not very pretty. The upside is that we will see it all change and we have already seen the leaves coming back.
While we were in St Louis our friend Clyde took us around and showed us the Cahokia Mounds, the remains of a very old Indian settlement that once had a population of 10,000 to 20,000 people, he also showed us the city park that is bigger than Central Park. While we were in St Louis we had between 100 and 150mm of rain complete with tornado warning, a first for us! We hoped it wasn't a sign of things to come. After spending nearly a week in St Louis getting the bike ready and waiting for a break in the weather, we finally got on the road on Sunday the sixth of April. The morning was cool and clear and we were headed for Nashville. We stayed close to the mighty Mississippi River and had lunch on her banks. We spent the night in a place that was imaginatively called, Land Between the Lakes, no prizes for guessing where it was. We had a lovely spot over looking the lake and when we went to bed it was cool and clear, but by daybreak we had a full on thunderstorm and a mighty down pour that had water running under the tent. It did clear though and we left in light showers. In Nashville we called in on Tom and Prudence, the people who make our wonderful Kermit Chairs. They showed us a few sights around the area and took us to the Loveless Cafe, a great place often visited by famous people, including us! Tom is a biker and suggested some roads we needed to take on our way to Deal's Gap and beyond. We stayed out one more night on our way to Deal's Gap and then we had a room there. Deal's Gap is at the start, or end of a famous motorcyclists road here in the US, a friend in Toronto had told us about it, it's called The Tail of The Dragon, 318 curves in 11 miles. So the next morning we took on The Dragon! There is a company that takes photos of everyone that does the Dragon and I will put some up for you. Now there are claims that The Dragon is the best road in the world, well I can say now that it is unique, and most certainly a lot of fun and well worth doing, but for us, we'll put it up there in the top three that we have ridden. From The Dragon we headed through the Smokey Mountains National Park and down into Georgia to route 60 and Two Wheels of Suches, a motorcycle camp that is being renovated by Bill. Bill told us of some roads in the area that we "had to ride", they also turned out to be a LOT of fun. We are now in Orlando and visited the Kennedy Space Centre yesterday, we spent eight hours there, but could have spent longer. There was meant to be a launch while we were there which would have been the cream on the cake, but it was cancelled with about 45 minutes to spare. We will now have a couple of days off the bike to do washing and some maintenance before heading west.