Fri 09 Aug 2024
Randy and Jazz decided to accompany me on my visit to Belfast, he on his Goldwing, and she on her Harley. We arrived at the designated spot, which was the intersection of 5 roads: Old Belfast, Belfast Framington, Old Fishing Ford and Liberty Valley Roads, obviously the old intersection that was Belfast.
Prominent at the intersection was a building labelled “Belfast Depot”. This apparently was the old railway depot; the railway has now been replaced by the 5th road, the Fayetteville Highway, bisecting the intersection.
Andrew Jackson, 7th President, whose parents left Carickfergus in 1765, passed through on the Old Fishing Ford Road with his pioneers en route to Nashville, where he played a prominent role in the establishment of the state of Tennesse in 1790.
What else was there? Well there were two old buildings in a poor state of repair, one of which had been the general store; a cemetery where the graves dated back to the early 1800s; two churches (of course); and a post office, which, although first opened in 1836, was clearly of modern construction, but which was notable for having been dedicated by Norn Iron’s very own President Bill Clinton.
One othe notable fact is that in 1952 a moderate tornado swept through the town, killing 3 and injuring 166 people. As of 2022,this is the most injuries caused by a moderate (F1/EF1) tornado in the United States.
The next step on the Tennessee tour was the town of Lynchburg, which is home to the Jack Daniels Distillery. This was interesting, but I decided not to take a tour since, being on my bike, I wouldn’t be able to sample the whiskey (with an “e”) at the end. Also nearby, just outside the town of Shelbyville, is the Nearest Green Distillery. Uncle Nearest is known as the godfather of Tennessee Whiskey, and is the man who taught a young Jack Daniels how to make whiskey.
One thing I wanted to do was try to eliminate the squeal that had started after I changed the brake pads. This should have been a straightforward affair, but … On trying to replace the wheel, the ropey threads on the studs at the bottom of the lower fork legs refused to hold the nuts tight. This had surfaced before, in Greencastle, but by cleaning the threads of both nuts and studs, I had managed to get all tightened.
This time I had no luck and so decided to replace the studs with the ones I had bought earlier. Easier said than done; the studs wouldn’t budge! Luckily Randy had a friend, Kevin, who worked on aircraft. He had a thing called an induction heater, which apparently, is the tool to get stuck fasteners loose. We went to borrow it an came away with several other tools which Kevin’s assured us would assist in the process. We also came away with something (some Jamieson Black Barrel) to celebrate our success, having sampled a little of Kevin’s substantial whiskey collection. The job was then postponed till next day.
Saturday 10 Aug: Next day, Saturday, we went to a breakfast in support of Veterans of Foreign Wars, a monthly affair. Now it was time get to work on the bike. Randy got the magic tool out and it was like a miracle! You wrap this coil around the offending stud, turn it on for 2-3 seconds and then using a stud remover, simply unscrew it. Easy as pie!
By this time some friends had appeared, Jim form the breakfast and Kevin himself. It was quite an affair as I proceeded with the oil change, which was quite straightforward. Later that evening as things were winding up some more friends from breakfast, Tim and Marge came for a beer.
Sunday 11 Aug: We had decided to go to the world’s one and only Bell Buckle this morning for some ice cream and mud pie. The latter is a local “delicacy” consisting of to soft biscuits with and sweet filling; and believe me it is sweet. Thee is nothing remarkable about it, but it is amazing what a good marketing campaign can do.
Bell Buckle itself is a tiny affair which has become a favourite local Sunday destination. We put our names down for lunch, but when informed that the wait was about an hour, decided to just have ice cream instead.
Randy decided we then had to go to visit a local beauty spot; only an hour away he said. Two and a bit hours later, we were stopped about 1 mile sort of our destination because the road was closed due to an earlier motorcycle accident. So we went home.
I was cooking dinner this night, so for me it was supermarket and then kitchen. This was followed by preparation for my early departure in the morning.
Belfast-2-Belfast-By-Bike 