Back From a Short Vacation

Well, it’s been a while since my last blog. Work responsibilities and family life often get in the way for an amateur cyclist, but I try to march, uh, er, pedal onward.

For the Memorial Day weekend, we packed up the Fit, kitted out with a new Thule roof rack, and headed for Franklin, Tennessee where my father now lives. It turns out the cycling in and around the Franklin/Nashville area is fantastic! First of all, there is the Natchez Trace Parkway, which runs from Nashville to Natchez, Mississippi, covering 440 miles. The Trace, as it is called by the locals, features controlled traffic, rolling hills, and smooth road surfaces. There is abundant wildlife along the trace, too, including wild turkey, deer, turtles, skunks, red-tail hawks, and opossums. Last year, I saw a mama opossum carrying several young on her back as she waddled along the road side. This year, I found a box turtle that somehow ended up on his back. Fortunately, it was still in the cool of the morning - if I had found him later in the day, he certainly would have been cooked inside that shell in the heat of the day. Chalk up one good deed in the karma account.

There is also outstanding riding in the areas surrounding Franklin. I found a phenomenal website for the Harpeth Bike Club that included many maps and cue sheets. I found a great route which started at the Agriculture Expo Center, less than 2 miles from my Dad’s house. The ride was great – fantastic road surfaces with rolling, twisting rural roads and virtually no traffic. At one point I saw a sign reading “For Sale: Miniature Dachshunds.” I thought that Dachshunds were, by definition, miniature and didn’t know that an even smaller version existed. Does that make the regular Dachshunds “Great Dachshunds?” I digress… another good resource for rides in the area can be found here.

Monday came too fast and it was time to go home. I got to spend some quality time with the family and some good time on the bike. We taught our daughter to play Crazy 8’s and she flourished, immediately besting Heather and I in a best-of-7 tournament. We’re back home now and back to the grind that it our work-a-day existence. I can’t be on vacation forever, but I will always have a bike to help me escape the reality.