Travel day from Lexington, Ken-TUCK-kee to Knoxville via the really really long ass route. Normally a three hour ride that I stretched out into a 6.5 hour haul that included one complete loop of the area by accident but that I enjoyed nonetheless.
I headed southeast to see the Red River Gorge, which is a huge climbing destination for...climbers. And there is a natural bridge there, or several, as well. I didn't see any of them because (1) it was raining and cold again which was no surprise at this point, and also because (2) there were signs everywhere about black bears and all the shit you had to do to not get attacked by one.
The mountains were gorgeous. The leaves were still on the trees and I stopped maybe 10 times or so to take some pics and listen to not much at all except the wind in the trees and the river somewhere in the distance.
I drove pretty hard, but it would have been more fun if the roads weren't wet and full of leaves. And also there was no guard rail on this particular road, and there were fall-offs of hundreds of feet straight into the gorge.
The sun came back into my life around 6:30PM, while I was still on the road. For most of the drive I was picking up the camera and shooting crap while not looking. I like the results. Except that for the ten shots I like, I also got about 90 of the interior of my car.
I made it to Tennessee all safe and sound. But Inga, my car, not so much. She needs a serious bath. I'm gonna get to that tomorrow.
