City: Knoxville, TN
Distance travelled: 309 miles
Total distance: 15,554 miles
Theatre: Historic Tennessee Theatre

Knoxville is a cool town.  It feels like a smaller but equally as lively version of nearby Nashville.  It helped that it felt like spring was arriving!  The trees were blossoming and we had some lovely weather.

I did a lot of exploring over the couple of days we were there, also, it was my birthday so I treated myself and got away from downtown to spend most of the day in a nearby nature reserve.  I decided to walk from the hotel but kind of underestimated how long it would take me to get there or how awkward the trek would be.  Most of the route before I got to the park was on roads. Like a lot of other places in America where were not very many sidewalks and i had to walk through a quarter of a mile stretch of roadworks!

I finally got off the road and onto one of many of the greenways.  I walked along side a river until there was a sign saying that the trail was closed! Apparently some recent rain had caused a small landslide, but, rather than putting the sign at the entrance of the trail when you could take an alternative route, they put the sign half a mile along, meaning i had to turn back and then walk an extra 2 miles around a nearby school.

Anyhow, I made it to the nature reserve and enjoyed wakling the trails, sitting and listening to the birds and reading my book.  It was a nice break away from the craziness of the tour.

While I was there I stumbled upon a cool print shop.  I stopped to buy some cards and post cards and got chatting to Laura who makes the most incredible cards, postcards and posters under her ‘Camp Nevernice‘ title.  It turns out that she used to live in Nashville and we had several good mutual friends.  It also transpired that we shared a enjoyment of sending postcards and letters!  She turned me onto the vintage stamps you can buy which are so colourful and interesting and also much cheaper than brand new ones! Anyhow, I hung out for a while and she showed me her press in action.