The Ring of Fire, A Ride Around Nashville

I’m on Highway 41A getting ready to drop into the Nashville Basin.   Johnny Cash is coming out of my Batwing Fairing it is a sunny 85 spring day in May.   I’m on my motorcycle life could not get any better.

Riding past the Canola Oil fields it smells like I’m driving thru a flower bouquet.  It’s off to another adventure.

It’ another ride with my son, he finished his first year of grad school, it was time for a celebratory ride.  So I’m headed to his house in East Nashville from there we head down to old highway 70.   There was a fight with traffic the first 15 miles, but once we left metro Nashville it was smooth sailing.  We rode by the Confederate Cemetery in Nashville which was a very somber site.  When we get to Lebanon we turn north on Tennessee 141.  This is a much better road with just enough turns and twist; my son’s 919 Sportbike is loving this.  

Once we get to Hartsville we stop for lunch at Dillehay’s Café for a meat and 2 sides for $6.50.  It is downtown near the courthouse, this is quintessential Tennessee small town.   We both had the meatloaf which was pretty good.   Fueled up we hop back on the bikes and take a left headed east on Highway 25.  We are now headed to Gallatin on the Ring of Fire Trail.   We only are riding this trail for a short while today but it was good discovering it.  There is a return trip her, I can’t wait to ride the whole thing, it will gnaw on me like an unmade bed.  

Once we reached Gallatin, another downtown I must get back to, Thomas and I had decided during lunch we would split up here.  He headed back to Nashville on Highway 31E and I continue on Highway 25 back to Clarksville.   I make a stop in Cross Plains at the Piggly Wiggly to pick up pork chops to throw on the grill once I get home. 

It was a quick trip but worth it in the mission to discover the hidden byways of Tennessee.  The more roads that I ride, the more I discover that I need to ride.   There are a lot of trips out there that are in the back of my mind wanting to make it onto the road.    It is just a matter of time and good weather.