Trans America trail - in sections

jonesw3

Adventurer
Alabama Overland ( our small group) and Overlanding USA will be starting the Trans America trail this Friday , sept 4th. We will being doing they trail in sections. The first of many short trips should cover all of Tennessee and Mississippi. I will do my best to keep everyone updated. We will be doing the trip in a 04 Tundra Dc , 2014 4Runner, and a couple of dual sports. This trip wouldn't be possible without the support from our sponsors/ partners ,
Mountain Khakis, Southeast Overland, outdoorx4 , and GoWash.

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jonesw3

Adventurer
1/3 of our team is already on the road headed to North Ga. The rest of us are leaving out around 3pm today. We can't wait.
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jonesw3

Adventurer
It has been a very busy week. I will try get some pictures posted this weekend.


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Hughbetcha

New member
jonesw3, looks fun from the begining. can't wait to see more pix and hear more about this trail. I havn't seen much about this trail, it will be interesting to see it. Thanks for posting!
 

jonesw3

Adventurer
Day 1 ( This is my very amateur write up of the trip. Once the video and " good photos" are ready. I will post them)


Not too much to report. We didn't get on the road until around 4pm. I did manage to get a short time lapse video of the drive in to the camp site at Lake Conasauga, Ga
https://vimeo.com/139231475




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jonesw3

Adventurer
Day 2
We woke up to great weather. We were eager to hit the road and packed up camp rather quickly.
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This was taken at a scenic overlook on the way down the mountain not far from the camp site.
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Warning, all my pictures were taken with my iPhone so don't be too critical. Once my buddy gets the pictures edited from his good camera I will post those as well.

We picked up the trail near Tellico Plains, TN.
I was trying to drive, navigate, and take pictures. So naturally I was able to take very many pictures at all.
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Just to lighten the mood...
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We pasted a lot of corn and soybean fields.
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jonesw3

Adventurer
We were making a lot better time than expected and made it to our camp site around 3pm. We stayed at Tims Ford State Park. It was a very nice and very crowded since it was a Holiday Weekend. Since we arrived ahead of schedule we decided to make the short drive over to Lynchburg, TN and visit the Jack Daniels distillery.
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It too was very crowded but worth it. I highly recommend visiting it if you get the chance.


We headed back to the camp site just before dark to set up.

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Dinner night two consisted of a chicken taco/ fajita dish that turned out to be very good.
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jonesw3

Adventurer
Day 3
We all had a rough time getting up and going this morning. The camp ground was pretty noisy all night. We ate a quick breakfast, packed up and hit the road.
So far, we haven't hit any dirt yet. It has been all paved roads.

We made a few pit stops for fuel and to stretch our legs.
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Shortly after, we finally hit some dirt!!!
https://vimeo.com/139235003


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jonesw3

Adventurer
The dirt sections were short but fun and had great views of the rolling hills of TN.
We came up on a beautiful farm with a very old house and decided to stop for lunch.
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jonesw3

Adventurer
After lunch we finally found the water crossings everyone kept talking about. There were probably around 9 or 10 total that afternoon. Most were just a small trickling stream only a a few inches deep. One was a rather larger creek that was around 2 to 2 1/2ft deep.
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Crossing the TN river
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jonesw3

Adventurer
Our plan was to stay at Pickwick State Park for night 3. Unfortunately they were booked up. We needed up having to bypass a short section on the trail in order to make it to Big Hill pond state park about 40 miles out of the way.
It worked out great. The park had primitive sites only so there were only 3 other sites that were occupied. It felt more remote than the previous nights. I noticed a noise coming from my front end when we pulled up to the site. After close inspection we found that the cotter pin that holds the pin in place that holds the brake pad in place had fallen out. We ended up having to strip some electrical wire to use as a temporary cotter pin until we could get to a parts store the next day.



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jonesw3

Adventurer
Dinner that night was a quick and easy recipe that contained smoked sausage, green beans, mushrooms and potatoes.
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jonesw3

Adventurer
Day 4 - The Final day of this trip

We woke up early and had a great breakfast. Then packed up and hit the road. It was long before we crossed into Mississippi.
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We stop in Corinth MS so I could fix my brake pad issue.
After that, we rode a short while longer on the trail before we had to make the long trip back home.
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We are hopefully going pick up where we left off sometime in January.

Here is a little teaser video for you.
https://vimeo.com/139238209


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