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Day Three: The Birthplace of Bill Clinton

As I pushed on through the night thinking I might hit 500 miles in one day, I see a sign that says "The Birthplace of Bill Clinton" in huge letters. How could I not stop there? I just knew my Mom would ask about it, perfect excuse to finally stop.

Today was weird. Started to really feel like vacation finally, and I started to enjoy the ride even though I was still pushing so hard. Started out a bit chilly moving into Nashville, but that was a quick ride. Took me awhile to find the Parthenon - there were no signs initially and Google Maps directions were all "take 70S" but the streets had real names darnit! After a couple false stops, even paying the meter at one, I finally figured things out and made it to the Parthenon.

How utterly sweet. First major goal complete! It's hard to describe my feelings seeing this. First, I know it's not the real Parthenon, and it's not even the original constructed for the fair in 1897 (it was rebuilt in the 20's I think). So technically, there's not really a huge sense of history... nonetheless, knowing it's a faithful replica of the original, it's easy to be awed. From a distance it looks like a simple little building, but as you get closer you realize its size and scope - but still, like all good greek architecture, it doesn't overwhelm. It's not ostentatious - it's appropriate.

The photos on my flickr are taken with a wide angle lense (25mm on my ultracompact), which is a little odd because they emphasize the strange ratios and angles used. One of the cool things about this type of architecture is that things like the columns are not the same width all the way up - they actually widen then narrow in an effort to have the correct ratio from many angles. Cool to see this in action in such a large scale.

Inside was pretty cool too - nice small little room, all things considered. The statue of Athena was pretty wicked, though I have to admit I didn't like the gold paint (I understand that the theoretical statue of Athena supposedly contained massive quantities of real gold).

So, after the Parthenon is was back to the road! ZOOM! I ripped into it, going far and fast. Most of the ride was on the interstate which got pretty boring, so after awhile I popped off onto some random side roads for awhile. Instead of getting me totally lost, these random roads (really, I just kinda picked random south or westbound roads) kept leading back to 40W somehow... so I figured it was a sign and got back on and kept rippin'.

Random thoughts for today:

  • My ears feel better after not having headphones jammed into them inside a helmet all day.
  • My left elbow aches (it tends to do this), annoying.
  • Stopped at a random "country buffet" that had signs for 20 miles out of, uh, Jackson? I was not impressed, and I think I made the mistake of eating like 5000 calories in half a plateful. Christina, this is how those bridezilla ladies get that large... (plus Cracker Barrel!)
  • This morning I noticed I had set the update interval on my tracking software to 51 minutes instead of 15 minutes. Hence more updates today.
Hrm, I have no idea where I'm going to go tomorrow. Think I'll chill and figure it out in the morning.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Pete, we ran your slide show on the Parthenon quite a few times this morning, and it looked great. Thanks for doing that.
I cracked up about your "country buffet." Maybe you remember the stories of the buffet we heard and saw advertised over and over as we were passing through Georgia on the way to see Keith in '94. I will never forget that place, especially the sweet tea, the cigarette smoke, and the friendly people. Matt only ate the fried chicken. I tried the turnip greens.

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