A Taco-y Kind of Place

Ok, so a lot has happened in the last couple days and I've again fallen behind on my writings. Not to worry though, I'll be caught up shortly.

So in my last post in Memphis I talked about how I would really have to push it these last few days of the trip if I was going to have any time to recoup at home before going into work again. Sadly, this meant that I didn't really have the time to spend in Tennessee that I wanted to. I had been looking forward to taking a day or two to enjoy some BBQ and blues music. I even had a place picked out in Nashville called B.B. King's to listen to music. Ricky (of Lawton, OK fame) recommended it to me. Now, it didn't look like this was going to happen. My new goal was to make it back to Maryland by Friday night, giving me the weekend to rest up before I had to go back to the daily grind. In order to make that I would have to traverse all of Tennessee in just one day. Not really an easy task and there was so much that I wouldn't see. I consoled myself that it's not really that far from home and I could make a short trip some other time when I could experience all that Tennessee has to offer.

With these thoughts on my mind, I set out from Memphis, heading east on I40. That's another thing I was going to have to do; stay on the interstates for most of the time. Very sad.



The trip between Memphis and Nashville was pretty uninteresting. I did call Maryjean and set up a lunch meeting. Maryjean is one of Shaun's good friends from back in his college days (Shaun being my brother in LA in case you forgot). Maryjean now lives with her husband in Nashville. We met at what she called a "taco-y kind of place" called the Taco Co. I loved the description, it was very apt. The food turned out to be awesome. I know I've been on kind of a Mexican food kick lately but it's just so good I can't help myself. Maryjean turned out to be a very cool person and we had a good time. Naturally, I failed to take a picture. You should be used to this by now.

I continued east out of Nashville and decided to find a place somewhere ahead where I could get off the interstate and onto some back roads. I was getting so upset in I40. The traffic wasn't even all that heavy but every time a semi would pass another semi, everything would get so backed up behind the two trucks. There were only two lanes so when both of them were blocked by these big, slow trucks no one could get around. For some reason this really frustrated me. I guess for most of this trip I've been on back roads and if someone was going slow it was pretty easy for me to get around them, even on roads where it was one lane each way. Motorcycles in general tend to be able to accelerate pretty fast so passing someone isn't that big of a deal. But to have this ability suddenly hindered was very frustrating. I pulled off somewhere to get gas and check the map for a good side road to get on. When I got back on the interstate I guess I was distracted because before long I saw a sign saying that I was approaching Nashville, the city I just left. I had got back on the interstate heading west instead of east. After a awful lot of very vulgar curses, I got turned around, more anxious then ever to get off the freeway. I did this in Monterey, TN where I got on highway 62. 62 took me through some of the back woods of Tennessee. It was very pretty hill country. I kind of expected it to be more rural then it was. It was mostly farmland but all the farms seemed very well kept up. When I think of the hills of east Tennessee that isn't what I pictured. all in all though it was great to be on some winding little road again and not have to deal with semi trucks for a little while. Another kind of cool thing was that I got to go through Oak Ridge, TN, where the Oak Ridge National Laboratory is located. This is where they do a lot of nuclear research, among other things. I checked myself later to see if I was glowing from radiation exposure. Fortunately I wasn't.



Highway 62 ran me right into Knoxville where I stopped for dinner at a chinese place. Oddly, they had Pho on the menu which turned out to be really good. When I came out of the restaurant I figured I'd get as far as I could before I got too tired and then find a hotel. I got on I82 and headed northeast. Fortunately there wasn't much traffic at this point so being back on the interstate wasn't as bad as it was before. I made it as far as Bristol, VA before deciding it was time to quite for the night.

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Location:Bristol, VA