a country boy breakfast and singletrack for lunch

Memorial Day weekend, ahh what a good time. Originally our weekend was supposed to begin Fri afternoon with us hitting the road to Chattanooga with the ECO in tow and the bikes on the roof but a slight change in plans kept us at home till Sat morning. Really this was a good thing as both Melinda and I were exhausted from the the work week.
Sat morning we hit the road early and met up with Abby & Andy and tore up some Cracker Barrel. We seem to get several CB gift cards every year so when we go, we go big. Country Boy breakfasts for all my friends. In the parking lot we saw a set up similar to ours but not quite as cool.

I dig the little camper but they're missing a few things: dogs, bikes, and a little shower for Melinda.

We also saw this really sweet Rat Rod, if your not familiar with the Rat Rod style google it and take a look around. I was jealous of this guy's ride.

Once we were finished gorging ourselves on all things hillbilly we loosened our belt buckles and got back on the road to Chatt. We attempted to get in at the local campground but being Memorial Day weekend everything was booked and I'm kinda glad we didn't as I'm sure it would have been a circus. Thankfully Abby's sister Leslie and her husband let us crash in their backyard and turn it into our our little mini campground for the weekend. The one cool thing about this campground was, it was free and they're house backed up to a small brewery, The Moccasin Bend Brewery, which of course we had to visit.

Never having been on a brewery tour I can't really rate how well it was but for a small brewery that I had never heard of run by a couple of guys who seem to take they're beer drinking seriously, it was pretty fun and interesting.

We sampled everything they had on tap which was around 8 or 9 beers plus the tour for only $8.
The brewery wasn't much to look at but the beer was good and that was the most important part.

Our original plan was to hit Raccoon Mountain for a ride first thing but it wasn't hard to sway us into the brewery tour. Although the ladies decided to pass on riding Andy and I were determined to get a few miles of singletrack in no matter what. We came to ride and that's just what we did.

I've been dreaming of Raccoon Mountain ever since we had last visited and I wasn't about to pass up a chance to get to ride it again. Unfortunately I forgot the camera and I'm still without a Hero cam so no pics or videos. Father's Day is coming up, soooo..... maybe I'll have a new cam by then, hint hint.

Just as anticipated Raccoon was awesome, we were a bit short on time and with a few beers in our systems we only rode half of the trail system which was still longer than a ride at our local trailhead so I was satisfied for the moment. We took a bit different route than last time and included the lower part of Chunky which held up to it's name. The upper section of Chunky is really geared towards the guys with no fear and more travel than I have in both my mountain bikes combined. The Mamasita like to go fast but stay closer to the ground.
With a Memorial Day style cookout on the agenda we finished up the ride with enough singletrack to shake a stick at and headed back to the backyard campground for the evenings festivities.

I'm gonna have to save some for tomorrow as there is too much to tell in one post and I have a lot of unpacking and cleaning to do. We didn't get in last night until after midnight and the bikes are still on the truck. Next on tap, Tanasi!