Are you still in Memphis? Lived down there several years ago and I'd definitely be wary of doing too much riding during rush hour there. I lived near Collierville and drove ~14mi to the area adjacent to Graceland, either you're on the highway w/ the crazies or on Winchester w/ the crazies. Right now I have bike paths (or lightly traveled residential areas) for pretty much the entire stretch, I do have 7mi or so where I'm on a medium-traffic rural highway but drivers here are very much aware of bikers. Traffic lights are relatively few and I probably don't spend more than 3-4mins at a complete stop each way.

I told you that's just one part of the reason I was in a job w/ no guaranteed future employment (when asked about whether my position was becoming permanent I got a very vague response), and was on schedule to possible have to learn an extremely archaic programming language to take on a project they were bidding on. New job is closer to family (50min vs 4hrs), old friends and it's also a much, much more bike friendly area. Negative is that it rains here daily during the winter in Oregon, but some BF Pearl Izumi raingear and I've been coming dry to work regardless of the weather.