Wait. It's 300 Miles FROM Nashville TO Nashville?!?
Our visits to our primary destinations, Deal's Gap, Chattanooga, and Nashville, were complete. Now began our journey homeward.
I am not sure if you know much about Illinois and Indiana, but most of the roads there are flat and straight, usually not well paved, and often windy. Sure, we'd have a little more of Tennessee and Kentucky to ride through, but we were not looking forward to 500 miles of mostly interstate boredom over the remaining two days of our trip. As an alternative, we planned a 600 mile route that would first take us through The Hoosier National Forest and Brown County State Park to Nashville, Indiana and then, the following day, home by a somewhat more direct route.
Out of Nashville (Tennessee) we went, heading out on US31E, but only after I took a wrong turn (shut up, Mickey) that allowed us the opportunity to see a bit more of downtown Nashville than was previously planned. US31E to US25W neither of which took us particularly E or W, but rather more N toward Kentucky, where we would pick up US231 at Bowling Green. All nice roads. We came to love the US highways because they were fast (enough), but still took us through some interesting small towns.
Weather was a little chilly, but rain wasn't a worry. We ate a light breakfast at the hotel in Nashville so we weren't getting hungry until just outside of Morgantown, KY. As the lead rider, it was going to be my decision where we would stop to eat and that's a lot of responsibility! We try not to stop at chain restaurants as we like to pick up some of the 'local flavor'. Still, many of these towns didn't have a cute little roadside cafe in them; mostly just McDonald's and Hardee's. Then I spotted a cute little cottage-looking building with a couple of those "OPEN" flags hanging off it and I thought "Perfect" and started to extend my left arm to signal a turn. NOPE. It was a satellite TV and cellular phone store.
Not too far up the way, in the heart of Morgantown, I finally did find a place. Quite a place. I mean...how can you NOT stop at a joint called....
I don't recall what everyone ate, but Laura had the fried chicken livers (gotta love a place with THAT on the menu!) and I had what they called The Chuckwagon, which turns out to be a chicken-fried hamburger and was delicious. Although, I think you could chicken-fry a shoe and it would be delicious.
Shortly after Morgantown, we turned north off of 231. We did 69 for the next 45 minutes or so until we crossed the Ohio River into Indiana. We were supposed to take 66 (The Ohio River Scenic Byway) into Hoosier national Forest, but the road was closed, probably due to flooding, so IN37 was the detour. We eventually reconnected to 66, took it to IN135 and took that into Nashville, IN for our stay at the Brown County Inn. The roads we took through Hoosier Forest and Brown State Park were absolutely beautiful: rolling farmland, streams, forests. You should plan a visit to the area. We are going to try to get back there this fall.
We did get a little lost somewhere along the way (shut up, again, Mickey). While trying to get our bearings, a gentlemen came out from his front porch, walked over and said in a voice that, to me, sounded like Strother Martin in Cool Hand Luke "What you'll want to do is take this road up to the stop sign. Turn right. Head down to the next stop sign and turn left and you'll be right where you want to be." He did not tell us, though, that the first stop sign was about 6 miles away and would take us down progressively narrower roads until I was not the only one that thought that were were about to be victims of some sort of Criminal Minds-like serial murder--I was waiting for a guy in overalls to pull his truck into our path, hop out and reach into the bed to get his chainsaw. His directions were right on, though, and we got back on our way to Brown County Inn.
[We were in a little bit of a hurry, due in part to the detour, some issues with finding a gas station, and taking "Strother's Route" (still shut up, Mickey). Therefore, I didn't take any pictures of this leg of our trip. Some of the others may have, though, and I will add them to this thread if I obtain any]
We arrived at Brown County Inn about an hour before the dining room would close. Arriving at 8:00pm turned out to be perfect timing and I kept my promise to Laura not to make her ride on unfamiliar back roads in the dark.
The Inn turned out to be the perfect stopping place for us. No one wanted to ride someplace else to eat and they have a very nice dining room. They also have a bar that had a young man playing guitar and singing which made our night-cap very pleasant. The Inn is rustic and comfortable and walking distance to a row of small shops (although we got there too late and were leaving too early to take advantage of this last part). It is, I want to reiterate, a great motorcycle destination.
The only picture I have of the Inn. The dining room. The people in the picture are not us. They are a group of professional anglers in the area for a fishing competition.
After an after dinner cocktail, we headed down the corridor to our rooms. The next day, our last day, was to be a long one.... (to be continued...)
lol
