Sweetwater Farms aka. The Cheese Run

Saturday, April 5, 2014, wife has lunch date with friend, temps high 40s to start with 60 for high, somewhat overcast but looking up.  What should I do?  Oh, well, since it's this way, I guess it's a good day for a ride.  Sent biker friend Paul an email to confirm ride is still on, and yes it is.  Will meet up at the deli at local Food City Grocery for the morning special.  I got there a little early and then Paul showed up.  I had already started eating breakfast then two of Paul's friends arrived, Richard and Rhonda.  Now there will be four bikes which makes for a small but nice group to hit the back roads.  Since this ride was going to take us through some great farm country we wanted to check the group out on fence jumping just in case they got into a curve a little to hot.  So shortly after we left Food City we checked every one out on how well they could handle their bike.                                                                                                                          

Seems no one had any difficulty with the fence jumping issue so off we went, heading to Philadelphia, TN and the Sweetwater Farms.  This is a huge dairy farm on the outskirts of Philadelphia which is about an hour's ride south of Seymour.  At this farm, they make about a hundred different varieties of cheese but I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

We never take a direct route as that would be very un-biker to a us locals.  You most always take about a hundred turns on various smaller roads to get to where you wanted.  It's sort of like going around the block to get across the street.  Anyone can just go the most direct route which is faster but a lot more boring.  And who wants boring.  Turn here, ride a mile or two, turn there, go another 100 ft. and then turn again.  Oh, and every once in a while you get to a straight section where you can crank it up a bit.

You will notice a lot of churches in the pictures of the rides I go on.  Yep, we're in the midst of the Bible Belt and there's plenty of churches and plenty of cemeteries for everyone.  Seems the churches and banks try to out do each other in how many can be erected.  So far the churches are leading the pack.  But that's not all bad either, as some are quaint little country churches, some are old stone buildings and some are quite large in size.  There's numbers of churches in this area that date over 100 years old.  Some even older.  One not too far from my house goes back to 1800s.  My neighborhood goes back to the late 1700s so I guess where there's people, there's churches.

As you can see the road has narrowed somewhat.  It is no longer two lanes well marked.  It is now considered a lane and a half with zero markings to separate the lanes.  Makes it really interesting when you meet another vehicle, like a large truck or tractor.
                                                                                                                                                                             












And on some of these you can hear the banjo's playing.  That's when you get another grip on the seat and crank the throttle up some more, while praying not to have a flat or engine trouble.  Can't get that scene from "Deliverance" out of my head.  That's the reason I carry a pistol with me, so that if that's about to happen I can shoot myself.

 

If you look at the two pics above you can see the Redbud Trees in bloom.  Spring is slowly coming to the mountains, reason, the Dogwood Trees are now starting to bloom.  In another week it is going to be almost as beautiful in East Tennessee as it is in the Fall of the year.  Lots of Daffodils, Flowering Crabapple, Cherry both bush and weeping every where.  My blueberry trees are blooming as I write along with several other plants in the yard.

 

And there are also a lot of barns.  Being farm land and back years ago most of them had dairy cattle or at least enough for their own use.  With the winters it took large barns to hold the animals and their winter feed.  Some are really huge.  It is a shame to see some of these old barns weather beaten and falling down from disrepair.  If I was a younger man I'd go into business tearing them down for the lumber for re-use.  There's thousands of board feet of lumber in these barns and they are constructed of hardwood, mostly Maple or Poplar.

Great sites along the roads such as this tumbling stream alongside the road and this beautiful old house which is up for sale.  Seems to be ever changing landscape, another good reason to ride a bike.

We finally got back to a regular highway, actually with lane markings and all of a sudden Paul's left turn signal came on.  I had tried to contact him several times but couldn't (using CB Radio).  I knew he wasn't running out of gas as we'd only been on the road for about an hour and a half.  It was one of those named brand service station/convenience store places.  We all parked and started getting off our bikes and I mentioned to him about not being able to contact him.  He said it was  probably his radio and it was.  Somehow he had changed the channel so all of the calling I did went out into the stratosphere.  He said it was time to stretch his legs and get some coffee.

The place was larger than it looked as it had a deli inside with a number of seating tables arranged like flipping jacks into the air.  You girls know what I mean.  No definite pattern, just there.  Paul immediately announced that he was buying coffee for all of us.  I knew something was up because he can squeeze a nickel until chips fall out.  Then I saw the sign by the coffee urn, $00.05 per cup.  He gave them $00.50 for the four of us and said that was a 100% tip.

We passed some great cattle and horse farms along the way to and from Sweetwater Farm.  The scenery was full of Redbud trees, the sky was blue and the weather just right (meaning no fog, rain, nor below freezing).  While at the dairy we sampled enough cheese that it will take two 500 count firecrackers to get me going again.  Smoked cheese, mild cheddar, sharp, extra sharp, habanero, yellow cheese, white cheese, and on and on and on.  Next time I go I'm going to have to lower my character level and get a man bag so I can bring along a bottle of water and some crackers.  Heck, I'll just make it my lunch break.

I purchased several types of cheese to bring back to the house, scored at least two Atta Boys in doing so.  Had to ride back leaning to the opposite side since I had so much cheese in the left bag.  Also ate a two scoop cup of ice cream, one flavor was strawberry cheesecake and the other was blueberry pie.  Excellent.  Paul thought since he bought coffee someone would kick in the two dollars and buy his ice cream.  Wrong.

Left the house at 7:30 a.m. and returned at 1:45.  Only 119 miles but we had a great ride.  So for you that read this scrabble, check around your area for some place to go that is off the beaten path but fun to visit.  And Ride Safe.