deCycles Southeast America 2014
Journal Entry
Day 18 ... Tuesday, July 8

Start: Gatlinburg, TN

End: Gatlinburg, TN

Distance: 0-miles, rest day.

Terrain: N/A

Climate: Low 80s.  Sunny, T-storms in late afternoon.

There was no wakeup today.  But why would anyone want to sleep while visiting a beautiful  town like this?  Gatlinburg is the gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and is a tourist trap.  It can be a great place to waste money.  It can be a lot of fun.  We'll see what they do.  Most of the riders browsed the town.  Some went to Pigeon Forge.  A few were shuttled into the national park to see Cades Cove.  There we saw a black bear and her cubs up close.  It is the closest I've ever been to a black bear as you can see in the photos for this day.  

There was a lot of junk food eating today.  Any warnings about the risks of substandard food have been totally disregarded.  It is an addiction too strong to overcome.  It is everywhere and they just think Norm and Cricket are weird.  Their packages from home are full of junk.  And junk performance is what we see out on the road the next day.  It's so simple yet so difficult to change.  I attended a diabetic conference this past winter and the strong predictions are that by 2020, half of the U.S. population will be diagnosed diabetics.  These kids are working on it.  OK, enough of that.  

We had our Secret Pals Event tonight at a hotel pavilion across the street from our overnight location.  Each rider has a secret pal that they present a gift or inspirational message or song.  This group is a creative bunch.  It's always fun to see they relate to each other in this event.  

Lights were out at 11:00pm.  Some of the adults are still up getting things done.  We are back on the road tomorrow to Rocky Top, TN ... formally known as Lake CIty.  They publicly changed their name last week.  It is one of the poorest cities in the nation and we hope to share the energy of deCycles to help them see a better day.  Little things can turn into big things.  ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddvasd

Oops ... you know what all those ddddddd's mean?  I fell asleep while composing this message.  I've been burning the oil later every night cranking out these journals while being half asleep.  There's no time to proof what I wrote.  Forgive me if I seem garbled.

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