Monday, June 13, 2011

Tennessee Smoky Foothills

Taking advantage of the beautiful blue skies, we took off on another adventure on Saturday (June 11, 2011).  We headed for Tennessee (our favorite riding state).  We picked up our good friends and headed for the foothills of the Smoky Mountains. 

  This is a view as we leave home on Saturday morning.  With clear skies like this, I knew we had a fun day ahead of us.  How inviting is this scene?

We have learned that sometimes you just have to share the road.

  At times during our day we were just on the edge of some type of rain storm.  Fortunately, we did not get rained on.  A little rain splatter from the road was all that we felt.
With temperatures in the 90's and a 30% chance for rain, the mountains were extremely smoky.

It just amazes me the difference in the season's scenery.  During this time of year everything is green green green!  You just wouldn't think there could be that many different shades of green.

As the temperature rises, I am always thrilled when we find roads with lots of shade!
On Hwy 111 there is a beautiful scenic overlook of the valley near Dunlap, TN.  Our restaurant of choice for Saturday, The Cookie Jar, is in this valley.

On our way home, Tim snaked his way through this awesome valley by Woodbury TN.  This is one of those roads that is a must ride for all motorcycles!

I had to add a picture of a wheat field.  It must be the crop of choice this year because there are so many wheat fields.  They seem to be about a month ahead of Nebraska's harvest, since they are beginning to combine now. 
We spent 14 hours riding 499 miles on this day trip.  Hot - tired - exhausted would describe us as we dropped off our friends and headed back to Kentucky.  We had just made it home, put the Harley in the garage, let Lola out and brought in the mail, when a flash of lightning brought on a very windy thunderstorm.  How fortunate we were to make it home and inside before the skies opened up and the winds took off. 

1 comment:

Hilary said...

I cannot say enough how I would LOVE to go riding through here and photograph the scenery. It looks so beautiful! I may prefer a car since I'm a bit of a pansy with the bike (plus, I have lots of camera gear, kids, picnic blanket and basket, husband, toys, dvd player, two luggages and a box of "distractions" for kids). Do they make motorcycles that large? :) Oh yeah, and carseats.