The kind of road I'm talkin' about was once the interstate of yesteryear and though often through traffic has decreased since its heyday the relatively small communities the old road served are still there. Some of these towns have withered down to a lonely post office. Others have found life's blood in the form of a touristy recreation area (lake or natural feature). There are still some based around the same industry that caused folks to congregate there in the first place. Out west there is usually a grain silo or stockyard in the middle of many a square mile of row crops or pasture, around these parts it's mines and saw mills.
I chose Highway 127 to celebrate this little God given winter respite not because it's particularly significant around these parts, as many others (231, 431) were more traveled, but because a bypassed loop of it runs right in front of my house. The most interesting things are often right in front of you.
Enough of that.
I woke to the sound of construction crews renovating the rooms around mine, showered and DID NOT shave. Brewed some motel room-gourmet coffee (not so bad), checked on the promise the Weather Channel had made to me for three warm days in January (starting to welsh already) and loaded the bike for the day's travels.
First things first - check out and go see Fall Creek Falls. The state park is crisscrossed by winding wooded roads and has a campground filtered in amongst the pine trees. I noticed a "mountainbike" path (paved) that was motorcycle prohibited, heh heh.... I rolled upon a herd of fat deer and lost a really good shot fumbling around looking for the camera. You can still see 'em though.
Fall Creek Falls is at the end of a short walk from a parking area and I imagine someone about shit himself when he stumbled upon it. Looks like the floor of the world just drops out.
I headed out of the park on TN 30 which is a really nice piece of motorcycle nirvana encompassing elevation changes with tight smooth curves banked just so. It was a little damp in spots so I had to pick my fun spots with care. I selected "third", determined it to suffice, and lost myself to the harmony of two wheels singing on pavement to the glory of an uncelebrated civil engineer. As often happens at these times, the road will show you something you didn't expect to see....
The Sequatchie Valley hove into view over the top of a rising right hand curve out of nowhere. Immediately my attention shifted to the view as I found myself rolling down the side of Walden Ridge while eyeballing an almost artificial looking scene a couple miles across to the Cumberland Plateau escarpment which looked like a 600 foot wall from where I was. The switchbacks descending the ridge began in earnest immediately. For those who don't know - Switchbacks are proof that God loves a motorcycle rider.
At the valley floor and back on US 127 McDonald's provided the morning's breakfast where an elderly couple informed me there had been no snow this year in the mountains. I told 'em we had a 1/2" snowfall so far and they seemed to reconsider their earlier statement. It seems a "snowfall" in the mountains of east Tennessee is usually significant. Since we were speaking the same language now they allowed as they might have had a couple of "dustings" so far.
The Valley provided cell phone service so I was able to check in with those who's responsibility it would be to locate my carcass in the event of some motorcycle mishap in the mountains and call up the weather forecast to refine the direction and duration of my impromptu adventure.
I had half a mind to head on into Alabama and thence to Birmingham to see the Barber Motorsports Museum by following US127 down the Saquatchie Valley through its confluence with US27. The weather God's forbade this by rushing gale force winds, horizontal rain, and tornadoes toward my geographical location. I could feel my window of opportunity closing down.
Fair enough. The glass is half full, no? I had missed a goodly portion of 127 on the way down in the dark so I took this as an opportunity to run north see and it in the daylight.
Turns out Alvin York lived just off of my street down in Pall Mall, Tn. Small world ain't it? Me and Sgt. York connected by an old wagon trail through time. What a world.
I passed a "theme" junkyard, an authorized MoonPie dealer, and some pretty spectacular scenery. I'm sure I missed alot whizzing by. For instance, There were three Ron Paul signs along the route and a plethora of "yard tractors" and I think I will use them as background to help document a future trip. Take a look:
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