Father - Son Ride Continued - Page 2

Day 2 - Destination Dandridge TN – Are we there yet?

After a great nights sleep in a wonderful hotel arranged by our default travel agent (wife & mother), we enjoyed a full breakfast and prepared for the days riding to get to the site of the Traveling Picnic – near Dandridge TN. Our default travel agent had found us a nice place after we put her on the case the day previous. When we left home yesterday morning we did not have room reservations. I wanted to see how we would fare traveling and was not sure of how far we would go before the little bike would wear Ryan out completely. During the course of the afternoon, I was confident we would make Paducah, so at a rest stop I called “she who must be obeyed” and asked her to find us a place to stay that night in Paducah. Once she found one and made reservation, she texted me the name and address, and I put it into the gps as our destination. This system worked well a few more times, as we traveled the south and I thought it was genius, as it involved her in the travel, and informed her of our where-about.

 



Paducah KY Riverfront



The morning air was cool, yet the rising sun held an intensity that foreshadowed the heat of the coming day. Knowing we had a lot of miles to pound today, with a concrete end point I made the decision to stay off the interstate as much as possible in an attempt to take it easy on Ryan and his machine. Riding my Goldwing I could run down the interstate all day and finish refreshed, but the CX 500 was not so luxurious a ride. Before leaving Paducah, I followed the signs to the riverfront and we rode through the flood control gates to the waters edge. Just another picture opportunity and hopefully a good start to what would end up being a long day on the bikes.  We had a brief rest, made a few pictures, and discussed our travel options for the day. I told Ryan we would need to beat it down the interstate highway to Clarksville, where we could pick up highway 70 which we could follow for a large portion of the day. He agreed that a quick run down the I-system would be okay as long as we would not spend the entire day doing so.

 

With that agreement, we left Paducah and headed east toward Tennessee and the Traveling Picnic. Paducah to Clarksville is just over 100 miles on Interstate 24 with Nashville another 50 miles beyond. I knew he wouldn’t want to go the entire distance on the highway so Clarksville was our target as we lit up the engines and started making some serious miles.  Those I miles passed quickly as we motored along and soon we arrived at our exit.

The plan was to cut through Clarksville, and find one of the smaller highways that led to Nashville – what I didn’t know was that Clarksville has a huge Army garrison stationed here at Fort Campbell.  Home to much of the Army Airborne Division the place was a madhouse of traffic, stoplights, and road construction.  As we rode into town next to the Army base I was impressed by the sheer size of it. It was a large community unto itself behind the walls and wire and every inch of it was impeccably clean, neat and organized; - military efficiency in its highest form!  The organized chaos that surrounded this facility was our undoing as the traffic crawled along at a snails pace, and the GPS fought hard to reconcile our path as we found closed roads, detours and relabeled road names. We wandered around in Clarksville for far too long and once even had to make a circle just to get back to a place the GPS knew , albeit a place where we were still lost.  Finally the GPS and I agreed that making our way south east was somewhat toward our destination and we found a boulevard that was going in the same general direction. As we exited the city I knew we had wasted an inordinate amount of time slow riding in the city that swallowed an Army base, and was feeling the pressure to get moving ASAP!. I spoke to Ryan about jumping back on the Interstate for the quick run of about 50 more miles so we could get to Nashville for lunch.  Remarkably, he was more than enthusiastic about it as the constant stop & go riding in the chaos had worn him out, and he was looking forward to lunch.



Caney Fork Restaurant



Pulled Pork, mashed potatoes, fries

Nashville happened to be the place where we needed to re-fuel, as well as find lunch and we found a place near hat we thought was going to be our lunch restaurant. After filling our fuel tanks we only had to continue 3 miles down the road to the place we had chosen to eat, however when we arrived it was something other than what the GPS believed it to be. As neither one of us is a Chinese food fan we had to find a different place and happened upon a great meal at Caney Fork. We enjoyed a nice lunch of pulled pork and mashed potatoes all washed down by several glasses of sweet tea. It had been an unexpectedly difficult morning, we still had a long way to go (another 250 miles), and the unspoken vibe was disquieting. We both knew that this travel day was not going as well as we had hoped for and our only choice was to keep going – we had to arrive at Dandridge Tennessee tonight! 



We took our time eating lunch, and had extra tea, before we tackled our next task - We had promised Ryan’s girlfriend to get her a souvenir from Nashville (she is a country music fan) and he wanted to find her a nice t-shirt.  Good fortune intervened and helped direct our day a little at this moment. As we stepped outside and looked around, I noticed we were across the street from the Grand Old Opryland hotel and resort. Surely they would have souvenir t-shirts!?!  We mounted our bikes and rode through the resort parking lots toward what appeared to be the main entrance. Once I made the left turn down the 1-way drive I realized that we had entered the Valet parking drop-off for the resort hotel, and yet it was too late to go back. We waited until the valet master had serviced the car in front of us and I spoke with him about our situation. As I explained our desire to go in, buy a t-shirt, and leave as quickly as we could he grinned and offered us a solution. Just beyond the valet stand was a 20-minute temporary parking area. He allowed us to park there as long as we agreed to be quick about our business and move on from the reserved spots. Of course, we readily accepted this generous offer as it allowed us to park our bikes less than 50 yards from the front entry door and close to the main shopping pavilion within the resort.

The Grand Old Opryland Resort complex is huge and the friendly staff was waiting inside to help guests in any way they could, so we took advantage by asking for directions to the nearest t-shirt selling shop. The directions took us straight through the heart of the complex, which turned out to be a cavernous atrium with gardens, and water features everywhere all traversed by a complex of bridges and pathways.  What a lucky thing to have been in the area and to stop in and experience this place. We soon found the shop, and after deliberating choices for a while, Ryan was able to choose a nice “Nashville” shirt and we were once again walking through the atrium, out to the bikes and waving good-bye to our valet benefactor.

Leaving Nashville is where things really got off track. My plan was to find US highway 70 and follow that all the way to Knoxville a distance of about 200 miles.  On the map it looked like 70 paralleled the interstate most of the way, however with the preferred driving conditions of being a bit slower and less trafficked.  What I didn’t realize was that there are 3 Highway 70’s coming out of Nashville! Highway 70N, Highway 70 and Highway 70S all running roughly the same direction but taking different tracks to get you there. We bounced around from highway to highway as I tried to sort out this conundrum and finally we settled in on regular Highway 70 for a nice leisurely cruise toward Knoxville and the Traveling Picnic beyond.  It was very early afternoon at this point and the afternoon sun was working on us a bit, but we had water and sports drink to quench our thirst, and full bellies and gas tanks to keep us going.

Highway 70 eastbound is a nice country road. There is a small town, often not much more than several-clustered house and a gas station, every 30 to 40 miles with plenty of places to stop and have a rest if needed. The traffic was almost non-existent and it was just us riding along through hilly terrain with long sweeping corners and smooth surfaces – easy riding for the next 4-5 hours.  We rolled along, observed rural Tennessee homes, farms and fields, and slowed for every town along the way, Watertown, Smithville and Sparta all passed under our tires with only a brief rest at a wonderful sports facility near the far edge of Sparta. Under shade we rested, and had a bit of water while we sorted out the rest of our ride.  From here, we only had another 150 or so miles, but looking at the time it was apparent it was going to be dark before we got in to the place we were to stay for the next 3 days. – No matter really as we had all night to get there with no time constraints of any kind other than getting off the road for the day eventually.