Actual Ride: I have now finished 500 miles of my 700 mile bicycle journey. Most of you know by now that I am pretending to ride from the Foundation for PM&R office in the Chicago area all the way to the site of the American Academy of PM&R meeting in Atlanta. (See Virtual Ride comments below). Actually I am riding around my hometown, The Villages, FL. It is a beautiful time of year here…the temperature during the day is now in the 70’s rather than the 80’s. There is a lot of territory to explore and many miles of multipurpose paved trails…which are used by golf carts, bicycles, runners, walkers, skaters, etc. A new section of The Villages just opened. It will eventually house 40,000 more people…to add to the 80,000 we have now. The Villages is already the world’s largest over-55 community. I now have slightly less than 200 miles to go, and I am looking forward to finishing the ride before the Academy’s annual meeting that will occur in Atlanta, November 15-18.

Virtual Ride:  I left Greenbrier, Tennessee and rode down route 41 right through Nashville and continued down to Murfreesboro, Tennessee. This is the fastest growing town in Tennessee and is a southern suburb of Nashville. I took some time to go visit one of its tourist attractions…the world’s largest cedar bucket. The “World's Largest Cedar Bucket” is a 1,556 imperial gallons (7,070 l) red cedar bucket. The bucket is approximately 6 feet (1.8 m) tall, has a 6 feet (1.8 m) diameter at its base and 9 feet (2.7 m) at its top. The bucket was built in 1887 by the Tennessee Red Cedar Woodenworks Company in Murfreesboro. It was displayed at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. It is now displayed at Cannonsburgh Village in Murfreesboro. The main reason you need to see it is because if it is occasionally asked about in trivia questions.

Murfreesboro was recently the site of some religious controversy due to the building of a new 12,000 square feet mosque. Some in the area did not welcome the mosque and even torched the construction equipment. But a federal court recently squashed all attempts to prevent the building of the mosque, which serves Mosley families in the area. It opened a few months ago.

Next on my trip down Route 41 is Chattanooga, and then my first contact with the state of Georgia. Stay tuned!