06/14/08 - Epic Ride to Tennessee

I usually can’t take an entire day to ride without having to worry about getting home early for some reason, This was NOT one of them. Shawnette and Jade were gone and wouldn’t be back until late so I pretty much had the green light to do a biblical scale ride and I certainly came up with one. I posted it on the SCRC board and had about 9 or so come with me for this. The day started early in Springville in a peppering rain storm. Not the best day to start out the day and we certainly had some bail on the ride due to that. But so often my best rides started out that way. It’s almost as if the motorcycle Gods want to test you before giving you that perfect day. We rode north and after about 30 minutes we got out of the rain. We continued north for several hours until we arrived in Lynchburg Tennessee. In case you don’t know Lynchburg is the place where every drop of Jack Daniels Whiskey is made from the output of a cave spring there. We took several hours there to eat lunch and tour the distillery. The tour itself is free and is fascinating. And no, they do not give you a sample at the end. You can buy bottles of the stuff from the store at the end of the tour but it’s by no means cheap. Ironically the home of Jack Daniels resides in a dry county. When we went into the distillery it looked like the storm was about to dump on us but when we came out it was beautiful with white puffy clouds everywhere. We left Lynchburg and headed east. This is where the ride really got great. Thanks to the storms the temps were solidly in the mid 80’s. There is no direct way to get from Lynchburg to Chattanooga but the winding complex of roads the GPS took us on were simply beautiful, the best part was the last 45 minutes or so before we got there. We were riding along and realized we were on a very high mountain. We started down that mountain for what seemed like an eternity with beautiful views to our left as we wound down the snake like road. We passed through a small valley and then went straight back up a windy road to the peak of another mountain only to come right back down another windy road finally landing near the Tennessee river and following it right into Chattanooga. We arrived in the middle of a street festival with music, live bands, and lots of boat traffic. We ate dinner at the Big River Grill and brewing works, a great restaurant just a block from the Aquarium. We finished up the day as the sun set on I-59 heading home. We arrived home safe and sound around 9:30PM. 400 miles of one of the best trips I've had with the Southern Cruisers.