Conclusion

I had a great time and meet many new friends and interesting people. I want to thank my wife Danamarie and the kids for allowing me to do this bicycle tour. I want to thank Sametta and Bill for being such great hosts when I arrived into Nashville where they picked me up from the bus station, feed me dinner and breakfast. My only issues I had were broken spokes and a leaky tent. I need seal one of the seams on the tent and it looks like I need to rebuild my wheels with new rims and spokes. After some research I would like to purchase Mavic A719 rims and some double butted spokes.

As far as transportation using Greyhound, I feel I got a great deal from Atlanta to Nashville and the ride was fine getting to Nashville. The ride back to Atlanta was not enjoyable, if I kept to my original plans and made it to New Orleans, and take the train it would have been an enjoyable trip back home. I don't think I would take a Greyhound again if the trip is more than 5 hours.

George had an issue while heading back up the Natchez Trace Parkway and had lots of rain with some snow. His iPod Touch received some water damage and was not able to retrieve any of his photos from the device. He ended up taking most of the pictures of the trip, and I decided not to use my phone to take the same pictures he was taking. So always try to keep your electronics as dry as possible, I use those Silica pouches you get in new electronics and put the electronics in zip lock bags.

I learned many more things about touring while on this tour, what I can say every tour is different and every tour I always learn something new in becoming more efficient cyclist. Here is what I picked up on this trip:
1. No more cotton products(takes long to dry out), user tech material that wicks moisture and can dry fast, also wool works great, but my skin is sensitive to wool.
2. Need to purchase bike sandals(when it gets cold you can wear heavy duty wool socks)
3. When using electronics keep your USB connectors as clean as possible(I had dirt in my phone connector and it stopped changing).
4. Take pictures with your device even if someone else is using another device taking the same picture of the same group or individual, sure it may take extra time but at least you know you will have a backup.
5. Make sure your bike can handle the stress loads of touring, although I have a touring bike, the wheels were not built for touring, I have read other people's touring blogs who have the same touring bike as I have and they all had the same issues with breaking spokes. Even though I had issues on my last tour breaking spokes thinking it was due too rough roads in Michigan. Before the tour I researched the NTP and bike tourist  mentioned that it was smooth road in which it was, so I thought I should not have any spoke issues, in which it was not the case. Yes, it would be nice to have a Surly LHT or some other high end touring bike, but that will have to wait.
6. Here is a great guide on attempting to meet all of your expectations and guidelines while on tour.