Yazoo Tap Room

On Division Street in Nashville, I found the Yazoo Brewery. It is always strange to me that Yazoo beer comes from Nashville. I have raced several crits and left a few pounds of ass flesh on the downtown streets of Yazoo City, MS back in the day. It turns out that the owner of Yazoo is from Mississippi and moved to Nashville. He quit his real job and started brewing beer, much to a lot of peoples pleasure.

It is not a large building and all of the Yazoo comes from the one location. The best part to me is the tap room. It is a very basic, cement floor, wooden table, metal exposed beams, section of the warehouse that is used to serve Yazoo beer right out of the taps. No thumping music, no flat screens, no hot wings, no low cut bleach blonds flirting for a tip........Just man and beer. (and a few women).

They have eight taps in the wall and a cement bar. Brian will sale you a sampler for $6 so you can try everything from the rough, bitter and ever changing "Hop Project" to the Ultra smooth "Fall Fest".

My favorite of all is the growler. They are giant glass jugs with the painted ,not paper, Yazoo logo on the front. These are "to go "only. They are only $11 when you buy the first one and then you can bring it back and have it refilled for $7. What a deal! This is a must for any beer lover!

It would be great to have a tap room like this at the brewer in Bham....but from what I understand, the minority has ,once again, decided that it is immoral and therefore illegal to serve beer at the same location where beer is made to be distributed. Sweet Home Alabama.

For the lawyers:some images were borrowed for this post. No livers were harmed in the making of this blog.

Nashville

The company that I work for is always amazing to me. They are in many ways on the cutting edge of every technology (spare me the comments) and in other ways are stuck in the past. Every facility I go to is almost a carbon copy of the previous. Old toll maps on the walls, wood grain electric pencil sharpeners, harvest gold cloth swivel chairs, Bell Blue walls. They all have miles of poorly designed mazes of narrow hallways interrupted by an occasional room with some display of a system that looks like it came straight out of the bowels of the USS Alabama. It really is an unique family of odd people, all different, but disturbingly the same..... Including myself.

I am in a system design school that is, as usual, over my head. As I listen to the instructor talk about Copper fed slics and protect carrier lines, my mind quickly drifts off to the mountain bike trail on top of Double Oak Mountain. In my fantasy it is Fall and the leaves cover all but the narrow strip of dirt that makes it's gradual climb up to the crest. The top is always a great place to slow a little and catch a glimpse of the Vulcan over on the opposing Red Mountain. ..........Suddenly I am startled by "Mr. C! Did you get all of that info on the alternate mark inversion with binary 8 "0" substitution?" Uuuuuuuh............

When I was in my twenties, travel with the company always seemed exciting. Now it's just time away from the family and friends. Marriott's "weak" Artisan blend coffee is a far cry from the bold rosetta masked macchiato that I had last weekend in Cahaba Heights. It's sobering to realize how spoiled one can become.

Anyway, Nashville has a great downtown and lots of good food. All of the dives and pubs are to many to try to cover in two weeks. It's a pretty good reward for being here though. It looks like they have recovered pretty well from the floods. Opry Mills is still trashed, but down town looks good.

There is a good German beer hall

and a neat Irish pub with 30 foot tables that seat 20, live Irish music and Guinness on tap.

"Im a lumber jack and I'm ok"

just kidding.....

I guess I will be home by the time you read this. Nashville.....Been there, done that.

Hanceville Loop...scenic serenity

A late evening ride with the BF , P and Master. BF and P's tires were still laced with the smell of the hot melting tar of Mount Mitchell. The Masters reeked of Miller lite, which he had used the night before to buffer his pain from his Saturday dirt assault on Skyball with B. Although other options were discussed, P chose the Hanceville loop. The Hanceville loop is delightfully predictable and scattered with drying golden soy bean fields, leaning barns and the occasional crazy dog. I am always perplexed by the bicycle and everything else graveyard just before the hard left turn going out and always love the gradual climb of Hopewell rd. coming home.

The master "The Twilight Champion"

BF evidently sucked the air right out of my back tire. I found myself left alone with my first flat on the Proton wheels. It was an easy change and I was back in the garage before the first PPR was opened. Sometimes a ride like this is exactly what you need to put a weekend, that you mostly wish had never happened, behind you.

Things you find in the Trimble Super Saver

Seems to go ''hand in hand'' with my number 2 reader Richard Morningwood.

Farwell Fignon

Goodbye to one of my Tour favorites.

Sorry Lemond doped his way past you in the 89' Paris TT.

This is just a cool Blog I found. I will put it as a link, if I ever figure it out.

http://italiancyclingjournal.blogspot.com/?expref=next-blog

Mystery of Goat Island

Since I have moved to the area, I have been intrigued by the giant Island in the North East corner of Smith Lake. Every one calls this place "Goat Island". It comes by it's name honestly because of a rogue band of goats that live on the island.

On occasion, when we feel like trespassing, we like to point the old Julie B in that direction and check it out. I don't really know how big the Island is, but it is quite large, maybe 30 acres? Rock cliffs start high and submerge deep into the crystal clear water and are visible up to 15' below the surface before fading into the lakes abyss. The island is umbrellaed by a canopy of large trees that cast so much shade that there is almost no undergrowth.

Evidently this was a mountain top at some point that sat high above Ryan creek before Alabama power made the dam and flooded the valley which is now the lake bottom . It is said that the lake is 350' plus at some points.

The most interesting thing to me ,other than the goats, is the giant old wooden house. The old house has cedar siding and has obviously been standing much longer than the lake. It's tin roof is rusty and the windows have succumbed to vandals. Keeping the old house company is a 50's model truck with "Tucker house moving" hand painted on the door. Some have told me that although the house is older than the lake, the Tuckers continued to live on the island after the lake was complete and had a barge to take the truck to the main land. I can just see an old timer wearing boots with no laces and grasping a shotgun on the front porch ,refusing to leave, as the lake makes a steady rise. Straight out of an "Waltons episode" huh?

Anyway, it's a peaceful place with killer views from any direction. It would be cool to see it made into a wildlife refuge or a managed boaters campground someday. Until then, I guess it will just remain a playground for goats, raccoons, vandals and little explorers.