Details about the Tuesday lunch ride during STAR are now ready...
Catered by Buddy's B-B-Q from Knoxville, the menu is:
HICKORY-SMOKED PULLED PORK BAR-B-Q
BAR-B-Q SAUCE ON THE SIDE
PULLED CHICKEN
BAKED BEANS
POTATO SALAD
POTATO CHIPS
HAMBURGER BUNS
ICED TEA - SWEET & UNSWEET
LEMONADE
WATER
With both pulled pork and pulled chicken, I'm hoping that most everyone will find something to their liking.
The location is a county park a couple of counties from Knoxville...the Roane County Park just west of Kingston. (The original plan was to go to the Smoky Mtn National Park, but they've instituted a parking fee for anyone stopping for more than 15 minutes...collectively, that would have cost us near or more than $1,000.) It's a nice place right on Watts Bar Lake with a large, relatively flat paved parking lot right next to the pavilion....plenty of space for us. You "could" get there by riding 32 miles with 27 of them being interstate, but that's not what you're expecting. "Backroads Roger" White has put together a lunch route that meanders all the way over to the Cumberland Plateau (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumberland_Plateau) and back....good stuff. Wikipedia says the Plateau is part of the Appalachian Mountains. Knoxville lies between the Plateau and the main part of the mountain chain.