One day of trail riding is in the books

Well not really in the books, cuz we didn't reach our camp site until
just before dark and thus had no time to write in our journals. We are
camped behind the police station in Sparta, Tennessee after our
request to camp in the city park was denied. However, the officer did
say we could stay in a grassy yard behind the station and use their
water hose as needed which is great. We covered approx 180 miles of
trail today from Jellico to Sparta and have already become pretty good
at navigating using the roll charts and gps, only got lost once and
that was for about 20 mins. The 1 mile range on the intercom helmet
units (scala rider G4) wasn't giving even a quarter mile at times
which forced me to follow Luke a bit closer than we'd have liked and
eat more dust than I am used to consuming in one day. Luke took this
picture of my dusty filthiness at a stop to check our coordinates, you
can't really see the caked dust around my eyes, but I'm sure you'll
get a chance to see plenty of that in the coming weeks. One thing we
are already appreciating about Tennessee is the shade that is provided
by all the trees, kinda makes me a bit weary of those western states
we will hit with much less trees and thus much more sun. That might
cut down on the number of miles we can do in a day but we will prolly
be super tough and weathered by then and it will be a non issue. Or we
might be super tired, weak and weary by then and it wi be a huge
issue. Oh well, we will cross that bridge when that time comes. One
day at a time until then. As for this our first day on the TAT, we are
gonna retire for the evening and be gone with the sunrise.