From Arkansas to Missouri to Tennessee - from the Ozarks to the Great Smoky mountains. Follow my motorcycle roadtrip through three states - and find out, why my ride through the Great Smoky Mountains was quite different than I expected. I started my day of riding at Barkshed Camp. The campground is situated along North Sylamore Creek - you can ride a loop and follow small dirt roads all the way to Gunner Pool Recreation Area or Steele Falls. I was heading to the third recreation area on North Sylamore Creek creek though. Blanchard Springs is most famous for its extensive cave system - but due to covid I was not able to take a tour. The springs are worth a visit anyways though. There is a stone trail that takes visitors deep into the woods to see where the Blanchard Spring spills out of the cave. On the way I as well visited Mirror Lake . The water is a deep turquoise due to mineral deposits from the nearby springs and caves. The lake is stocked with rainbow trout - and there was quite an amount of people enjoying the beautiful views while fishing. After enjoying my breakfast at Drifters Cafe in Cave City I started to ride on bigger roads, crossed into the state Missouri and took a bridge over Mississippi river, that is as well the natural border to my next state of the USA, to Tennessee. Before finally heading to the Great Smoky Mountains I stayed a night at the idyllic Green Frog Farm. Green Frog Farm has the mission to Restore West Tennessee History. Dr. John Freeman collects and restores historic log cabins and buildings - and opened the Green Frog Farm with his family. Today there are more than 20 structures that range from a moonshine shed, old school building and church to a cotton gin built in 1910. The next day I decided against visiting Nashville, and rode straight to the Great Smoky Mountains. But unfortunately my ride through the Great Smokey mountains and to Cades Cove Loop turned out quite different than expected because of an unforseen incident. Tune in to find out what happend - and to join the turbulent ride through Arkansas, Missouri & Tennessee. // A roadtrip that dreams are made of: join my journey through the United States of America. From Los Angeles in California on the westcoast to Miami in Florida on the eastcoast. 9,000 kilometers, 13 states, 28 days, 1 motorcycle. // Welcome to the journey! I am Lea Rieck, a journalist and author and I want to take you with me on a motorcycle overlanding adventure to all the wild and beautiful places in the world! // Riding a Yamaha Ténéré 700. Bought the motorcycle myself from the press fleet of Yamaha USA (thank you Yamaha USA for making this possible.)
AI Generated·May contain errors
Video Summary
AI Generated
A motorcyclist journeys from Arkansas through Missouri to Tennessee, exploring natural landmarks and historic sites. While the trip features scenic forest roads and the Great Smoky Mountains, it is marred by extreme heat and a series of unfortunate encounters with Lone Star ticks, leading to medical complications and missed sightseeing opportunities.
From Arkansas to Tennessee,
from the Ozarks to the Great Smoky Mountains.
Follow my road trip through three states
and find out why my ride through the Great Smoky Mountains
was quite different than I expected.
Good morning, everyone.
It's a new day.
Actually, it was very comfortable this night,
but now it's a bit cold,
so I don't want to get up yet,
even though it's seven already.
7.30.
It was actually quite humid at night.
That's why I still have to wait a little bit
for the tent and everything to dry so I can start riding.
This was a very beautiful place.
Bark Shed Forest Camp.
I can highly recommend everyone to stay here.
And let me show you this wonderful creek here one more time.
I think I'm going to take some pictures here.
Bark Shed Camp is situated along North Syllamore Creek.
You can ride a loop and follow small dirt roads
all the way to Gunnerpool Recreation Area or Steely Falls.
I was heading to the third recreation area
on North Syllamore Creek, though.
Now I'm going to continue a little bit here
on these beautiful forest roads in the National Forest.
Blanchard Springs is most famous
for its extensive cave system,
but due to COVID, I was not able to take a tour.
The springs are worth a visit anyways, though.
There is a stone trail that takes visitors
deep into the woods to see where the Blanchard Springs
spills out of the cave.
It's a mystical place of whispering waters
and cool breezes.
Next is Mirror Lake that the springs float into.
So let's see if Mirror Lake is really like a mirror.
That stream, they dammed it up here to make a lake.
Uh-huh.
So we got a long way to walk up and down through here.
Oh yeah, yeah, I saw that.
So I hope today will be a good day.
Thank you.
We've got to try.
Mirror Lake is accessible by a boardwalk
and has nice viewing plateaus.
The water is a deep turquoise due to mineral deposits
from the nearby springs and caves.
The lake is stocked with rainbow trout
and there was quite an amount of people
enjoying the beautiful views while fishing.
So this is the everyday story of my motorcycle life.
Like always, I'm looking for some breakfast now
and somehow most towns that I came by so far
had no cafes, so I'm getting very hungry now.
I rode by the very Australian-sounding towns
Melbourne, Sage, and Sydney to Cave City
and finally found a lovely little cafe.
How does that look?
I think very good.
So now I'm continuing east and going direction Tennessee now.
I am back on some bigger roads now
and when thinking about my next destination,
I was actually considering going to Memphis or Nashville
because I heard both are great cities,
but I now decided against Memphis for sure
and want to head to the Smoky Mountains
as quick as possible to be able to ride
some nice countryside gravel roads there.
We will see, maybe I stop in Nashville,
but not decided yet.
So here's a fun fact, I'm actually in the state Missouri now
for only a few kilometers before I cross into Tennessee.
Tennessee, here I come and this is very cool.
I'm crossing the Mississippi River now with this bridge
and somehow Mississippi River, it's such a big name
and the river at the same time
is the border between Tennessee and Missouri.
So here I am, new state.
I didn't lose much time and tried to get as far as possible
but I was defeated by the temperatures
rising over 40 degrees Celsius or 104 degrees Fahrenheit.
So I decided to stop in Alamo to stock up on food
because I had spotted a very special hotel close by.
So I was just shopping here for my dinner
at a place called Alamo and a guy came by
in his pickup truck and he actually gave me $10
and I tried to refuse and not take it
because I feel like I don't need money from people,
but he insisted and he was so super cute.
So if you ever see this, thank you so much for that
and I will fill up my bike with that $10.
I'm very curious about this place.
I just booked a cabin when I stopped at the supermarket
and the cabins look pretty awesome.
Green Frog Farm has the mission
to restore West Tennessee's history.
Dr. John Freeman collects and restores
historic log cabins and buildings
and opened the Green Frog Farm with his family.
Today, there are more than 20 structures
that range from a moonshine shed,
old school building and church
to a cotton gin built in 1910.
How many seconds does it take a motorcyclist
to mess up a room completely?
It's literally like three, two, one,
go, explosion.
And now I have to unpack this here,
which is my tent, because I packed it wet in the morning.
Did I ever tell you
that I am the master of delicious sandwiches?
This one will be good too.
Saying goodbye to this lovely place
just to hit the highway again.
I was thinking about going to the city Nashville today
because it's supposed to be super nice,
but now somehow it's 7.30 a.m.
and it's already unbelievable hot.
It was 104 degrees yesterday, which is 40 degrees Celsius.
So it's just crazy hot at the moment.
And I don't feel so much like going to a city
when it's that warm.
The fastest way to cross Tennessee
is of course riding on the Interstate 40,
which as well means that I will drive by Nashville anyways
so I can decide spontaneously if I want to stay or not.
Guys, this is all I will show you of Nashville
here in this video because I just decided
to continue and head to the Smoky Mountains today,
if possible, and do more riding there
and not waste time here in the city.
Very sorry, but I heard it's a great city.
From Nashville, the fastest route
to the great Smoky Mountains follows Interstate 40
until you turn off at Maryville, a ride of about three hours.
Oh my God, I'm so happy to be back on small roads.
Temperature here is immediately much more bearable
and I'm finally back in the mountains
or heading towards the mountains.
And this area is supposed to have
some of the best motorcycle roads
of the whole United States
and I will explore those tomorrow.
So stay tuned, I'm super excited.
Little did I know that three small animals
would ruin my next day of riding completely.
So this is another episode of the unlucky things
that can happen when traveling.
I actually planned to ride the so-called Smoky Mountains 500
which is some very nice trails
and forest roads that you can ride here in this area,
mostly off-road.
And I took the day for it
so I could have even taken the bike unloaded.
But yesterday when I arrived here at the hotel,
I discovered that I had not only one and not two,
but three ticks, tick bites on my body.
One here, the second here in the back of my neck
and the third on my knee.
So I will now go to a doctor
because the tick diseases are not so easy to take.
I wish I could have started the day here saying,
and now we go to a super nice gravel road,
but that's not the case.
Now we go to a hopefully super nice doctor or hospital.
Sorry.
So this is Maryville and luckily it's big enough
so there are actually several options,
but the lady at the hotel suggested to go to family care
where she normally goes, so I will do that.
Done with the doc now and I'm not in a very good mood.
I will update you in a bit,
but first I have to find a place to do my laundry.
You probably can tell that I was pretty frustrated
at that point of the day
and waiting for my laundry didn't exactly improve my mood.
So you guys missed kind of like half my day
because I didn't feel like recording
because I'm a bit frustrated.
So I was at the doctor and he said the tick
that I was bitten is called Lone Star tick
and it's not a very nice tick to be bitten by
because it can carry several severe diseases
and cause some food allergies actually.
And he said I should take 10 days of antibiotics,
which is not that nice because it's antibiotics
that are not good if you're in the sun,
so they make your skin burn.
So I'm still thinking about what to do,
if I should just wait this out if something happens
and I maybe get lucky and get nothing
or if I should take the medicine.
I think I will decide tomorrow, but it's for sure a bummer.
I could have spent all day riding and now it's three
and everything I did was being at the doctor.
Now I decided to stop worrying about the tick bites
and go to the Cades Cove Scenic Loop instead
to have at least some riding today
and see a little bit of the Great Smoky Mountains.
The Cades Cove Loop winds for 11 miles or 18 kilometers
through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park,
a supposedly picturesque drive
with a backdrop of mountain peaks
and its lush, rolling greens.
Europeans settled the Cades Cove area
between 1818 and 1821.
Today, visitors to Cades Cove can enjoy
the largest variety of historic buildings
in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
When I arrived at the beginning of Cades Cove Loop,
the next surprise was waiting for me, though.
Today is not my day.
This is the Cades Cove Scenic Loop.
And if I zoom in, you see that it says
the road is closed Wednesdays.
And Wednesday, that's today.
And since I didn't have enough ticks yet,
I thought it's a very good idea
to go swimming here now in this little forest river.
Even if things go completely wrong,
the biggest strength and biggest courage
is still being able to see and to appreciate
the magical beauty that surrounds us all the time.
So you might wonder if I learned anything
from my tick experience, and I did.
So I bought this insect repellent with DEET in it,
which is supposed to make ticks not bite you.
In the end, I decided to not take the antibiotics
that the doctor had given me
and to wait if I would get any symptoms.
To everyone who gets bitten by ticks, don't do this.
Do what your doctor says.
Weeks later, I got sick from the bites
and I'm still not recovered yet.
Thank you for joining this turbulent ride
to Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains.
Let me know if you have any experiences
with how to prevent tick bites in the comments.
And hit the bell button and give this video a thumbs up.
The next episode will take us
to some of the best motorcycle roads
of the United States of America.
I will ride the famous Tail of the Dragon
and the Chihuahua Skyway.
If you are ready for the next adventure,
tune in next Thursday.
