Going Hashtag-Nowhere usually means West.

I always seen to head west on the bike. Usually without much of a plan, just load the bike up with my camping gear, clothes, tools and oil and head west. Most times the first stop is Marathon, Texas where I camp out at The Marathon Motel for a few days, ride around Big Bend and eventually head north and then ramble all over the big deserts.

But I never head east of Austin.

I was planning on doing another short couple-week ride west and got a wild hair, and this time, I figured I’d ride to Nashville. See my sister and daughter and see what the East is like.

And I guess if I’m heading SOMEWHERE, it’s not really going Nowhere. Semantics. 

But sorry East. West wins.

Not that there isn’t plenty to see riding east of Austin; it’s just that, for the most part, you can’t see it.

Trees.

Ya see, when you ride west you leave the twisted oaks and get into big deserts. Big mountains. Big views. Big skies. Vast vistas that you can see for a million miles in any direction. Majestic mountains and cliffs and rocks and stuff.

But when you head east, you have trees. A line of trees on each side of the road. Huge, tall, skinny trees. Mostly pines and who knows what else is there, but it’s big trees.

My plan on riding to Nashville from Austin was to maybe make it to Natchez, MS in one day, then hop on the Natchez Trace all the way to Nashville.

Plans rarely work on motorcycles or sailboats.

I made it to Pineville, LA, that first day and ended up camping in a run-down “RV Park.” I was running out of daylight and I was pretty sure there were deer and pigs lurking in that line of trees waiting to leap out in front of me. I set up my tent between some decrepit travel trailers that stopped traveling years ago. I stuffed in my earplugs to drown the logging trucks and was up at the crack of dawn to get on the foggy road.

That was lined with a wall of trees on both sides.

I made it to Natchez, had a great breakfast at Queenie's place, and she told me how the one time she rode on a motorcycle and prayed to Jesus the whole time.

I woulda liked to sit on a porch with Queenie and drink bourbon and lemonade for an afternoon.

She told me how to get on The Trace and I did. It was just down the road a piece.

It’s beautiful. Some sort of National Park kinda thing that’s over 400 miles long and no commercial anything, just a wall of trees on both sides and some fields and historic markets and more trees and more trees and more trees and it’s all limited to 50 mph.

Wonderful for a little Sunday afternoon putt. 

But I was actually going somewhere. 

After a couple of hours, I was done. I jumped ship in Jackson with that Johnny Cash song in my head and got on the interstate and blasted almost 13 hours and over 600 miles to Nashville and my sister’s place. 

And what did I see? Trees. A couple of cities. A lot of big trucks. And trees. Endless walls of tree. And sometimes big rolling hills of what used to be trees, that had all been cut down for wood or paper. Decimated fields that looked like war zones.

 So trees. Trucks. Some cool little towns. Lots of churches, junk yards, trailers, more churches and auto shops and junk yards and run-down dying towns and more trees.

Don’t get me wrong, I love trees. And I’m sure the churches make people happy and junked cars gotta go somewhere but for me, going Hashtag Nowhere means west.

I’ll take those views that never end that don’t get a lot of rain and that huge blue sky that reminds me just how insignificant I am and we all are.

Go West. That’s where Nowhere is and it’s worth the ride.

#motorcycles #GretaGoesNowhere