Hooters in Johnson City

May 8th, 2004

By Phil Smith

     It was a beautiful day for riding.  It started foggy but a bright sun burned it off early.  Kim and I rode down from Wallins KY to meet the others at the McDonalds off of Exit 407 (next to the Smokies Stadium).  Ron Hooten, a first time rider with Country Roads was there when we arrived about 9:50.  He said he was expecting a friend of his, Terry Hall and some neighbors of his.  Dan Harvey and Sandy Bible were next to show up and in a few moments Jim and Linda Hickey pulled up.  Jim and Linda turned out to be the neighbors that was supposed to be with Terry.  They had all been waiting at the Straw Plains exit.  Oh well, what’s a day without a little confusion?  Terry pulled up a few minutes later and we headed off to the next meeting point. 

   Dan Harvey led us along the back roads out to 11E and around the 160 bypass to 25E and over to the Ryan’s in front of Wal-Mart in Morristown.  Dan led this leg because I was not familiar with all the back roads in that area.  We circled the parking lot at Ryan’s but there was no one else waiting there so we headed on towards Johnson City on 11E.  We must have passed at least a hundred other bikes along the road, and about as many yard sales, most headed for the open house at Colbochs, the bikes that is, not the yard sales.  We rode through Bulls Gap and Mosheim before stopping for gas in Greenville.

   After a short break he saddled up and rode on into Johnson City and found our way over to Hooters where we were joined by Dan Robinette.  We enjoyed our wings, buffalo shrimp and fried dill pickle chips along with some good conversation.

   From Hooters, Dan Robinette led us over to Smith Brother’s Harley Davidson where we looked at and lusted after a few sweet new rides.  But it was too nice outside to spend much time looking around inside so we loaded up and started back.   Dan Robinette headed back home to change the oil in his rest of his bikes and we started back towards Sevierville.  We decided to use Dan’s GPS unit to lead us back along a different route but it soon put us back on 11E so we just headed back the way we came.   The ride ended for with a stop at Colbochs, after all it was open house.