In Memory of Warmer Summers

Cuba Landing, TN to Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area, TN

Friendly horn taps: 1

Miles 66

Total so far: 1,366

Starting the day through the abundant forests of Tennessee

Tennessee is known for their dogs.  The kind of dogs that live out here in the country and just love to chase cyclists for sport.  We’ve certainly had our share so far and today was no exception, except we had an exceptional day at keeping them at bay.  We use whistles.  Coaches and referee’s type of whistles.  Fox 40 “Sonik Blast” whistles to be exact.  They are loud and piercing.   Just what dogs respond to best.

We'd break out of the trees into these wide open spaces - very pleasing to the eye, yes?

A lot of touring cyclists use some sort of dog repellent — pepper spray, mace — things like that.  To be effective, the dog has to be pretty close, and I’m just not sold on the idea that’s a good policy.  Today we had over 15 dogs take a run at us and we stopped every one of them in their yards with a blast or two on the whistles.  We had one put the brakes on so hard while he was running out of his driveway that he may have scraped a weeks worth of pad off his paws.  I’m not sure why the whistles work — and they don’t work on all dogs all the time, but today for instance we had a 100 percent success rate at keeping the animals in their own yards, and that pretty good for a Tennessee country dog.  It keeps them from getting out in traffic too.

Note the line at the bottom of the sign -- there's probably more to that story

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Tomorrow’s ride is dedicated to Dawn Murillo

Dawn Murillo

This is my wife Dawn who was the best mother she could be to our son Nicholas.  She was hit & killed by a drunk driver on Halloween of 2010 in Moline, Illinois while trick or treating with our son Nick, age 8.  It’s been hard on all of us who knew her but really hard on our son, Nick.