With June temperatures topping 100-degrees, we are going to spend the summer hunting for cool places to escape. Wednesday, July 4th, we had just such a place in mind. Old Walland Highway , located in Blount County at the base of the Great Smoky Mountains foothills, is a favorite of local bicyclists and runners. Aside from relatively flat terrain (as flat as it gets in these parts), this nine mile stretch of two lane road provides beautiful scenery, lots of shade and pockets of cool air drifting off the Little River. Nice destination on a hot summer day!
I had a long bicycle ride on tap, well, long for me. I think John considered it a warm up to his long weekend ride and a chance to encourage his wife in his favorite sport. We got the bikes packed and left the house about 8:45 AM. Our drive was a quick 35 minutes along the country back roads in South Knox County. While Old Walland Highway is a multi-use road (motorists, motorcyclists, bicyclists and runners), it was clear by the large number of cars with bike racks parked in the parking areas, bicyclists ruled!
View from the parking lot at the beginning of the road
Getting ready to ride! We look cool and collected here. At the end of the ride we were a hot, sweaty mess!
For as long as I have been cycling this road, summer means the 1st mile + is acres deep in corn. We have always assumed the family that owned the acreage would continue to farm and every July we could ride through their maze. Then, a couple of years ago, we noticed large earth moving equipment in the back of the property. A few months after that discovery, we found buildings going up. So sad, so we didn’t go back for a while.
Then the next year we discovered the owners had sold the property to the University of Tennessee for an agricultural farm. Nice! To the delight of all, the corn will likely continue to line the 1st mile or so of Old Walland Highway in the future.
One side of the corn maze
Old bridge that once connected Highway 321 to Old Walland Highway. It has long since been replaced with a modern new bridge. Luckily this little piece of history still stands.
Star etched into the concrete of the old bridge
The bridge is now a shaded footpath
Little River from the abandoned bridge
The turnaround point on the Townsend end of Old Walland Road was once the only bridge, a one lane bridge that could accommodate one vehicle (car, motorcycle) at a time. It too has been replaced.
We stopped at the halfway point for the photographer (me) to catch my breath, the photograhee was doing fine!
When we arrived back at the car, the parking lots were still packed.
Since John changed vehicles, neither of our cars have a hitch for the bike rack so he had to devise a creative way to transport our bicycles safely.
Only a man could come up with this system of Styrofoam and seat belts. It worked well but the squeaking Styrofoam almost drove us crazy.
After looking at all that corn along Old Walland Highway, we slammed on the brakes when we saw this…
Yep, 14 ears of corn for $5 at RivenDell Farm.
I am never particularly good at describing rides (or runs for that matter). We pedaled and pedaled. I had moments of utter brilliance (in my mind anyway) and a few mental breakdowns. My legs felt strong, my legs felt weak. But in the end, I rode the 18-miles (my longest ride in over a year) and I overcame a bit of the fear that has recently dominated my bicycling attempts.
So now I have a goal, a plan to ride from the beginning of Old Walland Highway to the Wye at the entrance of the Great Smoky Mountains. The ride is about 40-miles out and back and I have my sights set on late September, a time that falls in between the heat of the summer and the crazy leaf peeper traffic in October. In between now and then, I have some riding to do!
