On the road to Marquette

Everyone arrived at our house about 7:50. It took us a few minutes to load up the chase truck's bed with all of our luggage. Ended up strapping the scooter on to the bed of the trailer. We obviously don't travel light! Most of the day went very well. We enjoyed the beautiful drive through the mountains around Asheville, travellimg a few miles on Interstate 26. The cars did pretty well, but a couple began to run a little warm. The grades are long and steep. We made it around Asheville without incident and continued on the Cherokee Highway. Really beautiful country side. We were faced with a short detour about 20 miles from Greenville, Tennessee. The detour took us up windy back roads without too much traffic. About 15 miles from Greenville, I experienced a flat tire. Thankfully, it happened where there was an actual area we could pull off the road. Most of the road we had been driving on was cut through the rock of the mountain. I must have run over something, because there was a slash across most of the treads. We had a time getting the spare out of the fender. The paint had adhered to the whitewall! The spare had plenty of air in it, but we had to let most of it out to get it unstuck from the well in the fender! Good thing we had put a portable compressor in the trunk! So, the tire was installed, refilled with air and we were back on our way! I will be looking for a new tire in Marquette! We stopped at a scenic overlook and we noticed that a couple of the cars were a bit steamy. We had just climbed a very steep and long grade. Good thing we had water! We enjoyed the scenery for a few minutes, letting the cars cool off. Then we were back on the road headed for our stop for the night, Middlesborough, Kentucky. We checked into the hotel about 7 p.m., and immediately went for supper. We will be back on the road tomorrow morning - hopefully about 8.