R and J in the USA

From the shining lights of Beale Street, to the hallowed gates of Graceland. From Hattie B’s unbelievably delicious hot chicken, to the hoppin’ music-soaked streets of Nashville. From the twists and the turns of the Tennessee River in Chattanooga all the way up through the nooks and crannies of the charms of Knoxville. From the good-time entertainment of Pigeon Forge, where the streets are lined with flashy family fun and entertainment, to the quiet trickles of twisting streams amidst the backdrop of steep rolling hills and wintered naked tree branches just a few steps behind those noisy stimulations of the main drag. From the burst of peace preserved in the bubble of the beautiful undulations of the Great Smoky Mountains, to that freshness in the air that could fill you up in an instant and, in that same instant take whatever tension might have been hiding in some nook or cranny of your body and mind and instantly dissolve it into something calm and steady. Yes, Tennessee charmed us from start to finish.

One of our last stops in the state was Gatlinburg, Tennessee, a charming tourist-friendly town that boasted beautiful mountain views and the fresh air that goes with them. Though we would have loved to be able to say we rolled in there in mid-July (this is a shout-out to any Johnny Cash fans, or any boys named Sue who might be reading), we were both excited to see Gatlinburg, even though we had less than an hour to do it and most all of that time would be taken up by Julie getting her Tennessee swim in in the Gatlinburg community center.

Yes, we were fairly intoxicated by Tennessee’s charms throughout. That is until the young gentleman at the counter asked Julie if she was 62 or retired. Julie quickly recovered from the question, as did the young man (who probably sees no difference between 35 and 70 – we remember those days long ago when even 35 seemed so old). After Julie jokingly said she was offended that he needed to check, he got right on the ball and said, “Hey, I’m just trying to save you money and there are lots of older folks who are just in really good shape.” Okay, it was a good enough save. Despite that, we still found ourselves loving Tennessee.

We considered starting off our time in Tennessee with a visit to Reelfoot Lake State Park in its most northwestern corner, Reelfoot Lake being the only natural lake in the state. Because of limited Mississippi River crossings, the stop would have added on an extra hour to our drive, even though it appeared to be on the way, so we decided to move on. So goes the trip. Every state includes all of the stops we are grateful to make, and a long list of ones we intend to hit, but don’t, or wish we could, but never even get on the itinerary to begin with. As we’ve said before, even though we prefer to see places than not see them, just getting to travel to discover what it is that is there to miss is part of the fun and the education. 

We are, once again, in a state of catching up to our itinerary day by day – which sometimes means running out of time to make certain reservations In time. By the time we realized there was an RV park right next to Graceland in Memphis, it was too late to make a reservation for the night. We found a State Park near Memphis and pulled in after hours to find a great little spot for the night. The challenges that the city of Memphis are dealing with became evident as we encountered something we had not yet encountered before in a state park – a code was needed to get in to the bathrooms. Because we were a late arrival and wouldn’t be able to register until the morning, we did not have that code. Luckily, though the campground was mostly empty, a few slots down was a lovely family from Arkansas hanging out outside their RV. After a lovely chat about travel and life on the road, they were generous enough to share the bathroom code with us. 

Our next destination was Graceland. We had a mixture of feelings heading into the iconic home. It was neat to go up through the gates of Graceland and get to see Elvis’ house, but it also felt strange. Julie said to Ryan, “I feel like the world just wanted to consume every little piece of this man and his family. Isn’t there anything that’s left just for them?” This feeling was enhanced when we learned that, this being Lisa Marie Presley’s childhood home, when she would come to Memphis, this is where she would stay. Her family would leave when Graceland was opened for tourists and then they would come back and live there when it was closed. It’s hard to imagine what that would be like – if even your home and personal sanctuary was something that was food to feed the insatiable hungers of the public. Despite the fact that this was on our mind the whole time, we were still there as tourists and doing all that very consuming. And we’d be lying if we didn’t fully admit that it was really neat to be there! So, in the end, we’ll just offer up gratitude that  such a thing was made available to us. 

The walls in front of the property are covered with the names of those who have made the pilgrimage and folks are welcomed to sign their names, so we took part. 

Our next stop was the Lorraine Motel, the site of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, which is now the National Civil Rights Museum.

What to say about such a stop? The history of civil rights in America is grueling, disheartening, disgusting, beautiful, and inspiring all wrapped up into one. It is a powerful and somber moment to stand in the place where Martin Luther King Jr. took his last breath, where his breath was taken from him.

As far as museums go, it was really wonderfully done. We were both feeling more tired than we wanted to feel coming into it. We have found, on this trip, our brains are like sponges, both in the fact that we love to just absorb as much information and experience as we can – but also, in the sense that there is a point of saturation at which point, no matter what we might want, there is just no more absorption that can happen. We were already tired at the beginning of this day and Julie had hoped to have a whole morning just for the Civil Rights Museum, knowing there would be so much to take in. However, having lost a day already coming into Tennessee, we had to cram all of Memphis into one day. Julie wanted to read every single word, but the limits of time and her brain’s saturation point had us leaving the museum feeling there was so much more to absorb. But that is par for the course on this trip. We left educated and enriched for the experience and all that we did manage to learn in our time there.

We needed to get to Nashville for the next day in order to be able to see the capitol, since it wouldn’t be open on the weekend. We spent the night at a Love’s Travel Center and began to wonder why we hadn’t done that more often. With super clean bathrooms, laundry and shower facilities and a shop with snacks and gas all right there, it turned out to be a great spot for the night.

In the morning, we headed over to Johnsonville State Historic Park.

We originally picked the park just to be able to enjoy having a morning in the van overlooking some water, which we hadn’t gotten do in a while. It felt so good to set up when we arrived and got a chance to enjoy what is easily one of our favorite parts of the trip – a good place to park with fresh air and a nice view. Nothing quite like it. We didn’t realize, when selecting it, that we were also picking an important Civil War site and piece of American history, despite the fact that the name of the park efforted to make that clear. You can read a little bit more about that in our People Along the Way section. 

After a lovely and productive morning, we headed to the state capital, which also happens to be in the country music capital of the world – good old Nashville, Tennessee.

We enjoyed a tour of the Tennessee Capitol building and then made our way to the hopping scene of Broadway where the lights are flashing, the streets are bustling and the music is pouring out of every open window.

Julie had stopped here the year before during her musical writing trip and had one destination top of mind – Hattie B’s Hot Chicken. We stood in the long and slow-moving line to get a taste and when that chicken arrived in front of us, there was some definite involuntary salivating going on. Julie declared it the best chicken she’s ever had and Ryan wasn’t putting up too many fights against such a claim.

With our bellies full, we walked the streets and, after many states where it just didn’t fit the timing, Julie finally got to go shopping for boots. We spent the night enjoying some quiet street parking outside of Centennial Park where we got a decent view of Nashville’s Parthenon. 

For those of you who might remember that one of Julie’s goals was to swim, bike, and run in every state, you may have noticed very little mention of biking in a while. That is because Julie’s bike stopped taking air in the front tire about ten states prior and though Julie went for a short, flat-tired bike ride in a few states to try to keep up with her checklist, after a while, she just couldn’t do that to her poor bike anymore. And, the thing on this trip is, even the smallest of errands or tasks can take days or weeks to get to, unless they are made into a top priority and then become a cause for displacing entire itinerary stops. While Julie was willing to make the commitment to make sure to end up someplace swimmable in each state, after a couple of states went by where it just wasn’t convenient to get the bike taken care of. Julie started to allow states to go by without ever hopping on the bike. When this trip is done, Nevada, Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri will all have unchecked boxes under “biked in”. However, there just happened to be a bike shop next to the coffee shop Ryan spent the morning in next to Centennial Park in Nashville. And just like that, after no more than 30 minutes, Julie had a new tube, a new tire, a new air pump, an oiled chain and some adjusted brakes and a bike that she could finally hop on once again. She grabbed a short but invigorating bike ride back to the van. Let the biking games resume!

Julie spent the afternoon at the Tennessee State Museum while Ryan toured monuments at the bicentennial park just outside of the museum. 

After much information was crammed into heads, it was time to head to Chattanooga where we would be doing our 5K in the morning. But, of course, not before swinging back towards Broadway to get another taste of Hattie B’s before we, sadly, had to leave her place in our past.

We had discussed stopping by the Jack Daniel’s Distillery on the way to Chattanooga for a tour. Ryan had done it before and said it was worth doing, but when we looked at the time, it was clear it would have to go on our list of missed destinations. Since neither of us drink, we felt okay missing it, even though it would have been a neat cultural experience. 

We enjoyed the convenience of a night in a Walmart parking lot and a little restocking before heading over to the Tennessee Riverside Park where we ran the Couple Shuffle 5K in the fresh Tennessee morning air. You can read about that in our 5K section. 

We learned through the course of our time and education in Tennessee that the state was the sight of the second most civil war battles, second only to Virginia. We learned a bit about the Battle of Chattanooga while there. 

We enjoyed roaming through the lovely downtown area and enjoyed the atmosphere and the weather alike. We stopped by a sculpture park and found ourselves having developed a greater appreciation for public art over the course of the trip.

We knew the Chattanooga Choo Choo was part of the town’s  claim to fame (we saw a sign for it, but didn’t have time to follow it), but we were struck to learn Chattanooga was at the center of two other significant origin stories. Chattanooga is the home of the Medal of Honor and we learned more about it at the National Medal of Honor Museum. It is also the home of the tow truck! We learned more about the latter at the International Tow Truck and Recovery Museum and Memorial.

When we saw there was a tow truck museum nearby, we felt we just had to go. Our attitude heading in was one of excitement and playful eagerness, thinking we were about to see the fun of a super niche piece of the world and the enjoyment of seeing people who are super into something that most people never think about – like the Barbed Wire Museum that we were so excited to see in Kansas that was, unfortunately, closed when we rolled up. We were a little bit right, but it was so much more than that. Our experience at the International Tow Truck and Recovery Museum and Memorial was was among the most impactful and surprising visits of the trip. You can read more about it in our People Along the Way section. 

We basically moved through Tennessee like a pinball getting bounced from one northern or southern border to the other while we moved through the state from West to East. We had seen the flats of Western Tennessee, the plateaus of central and know it was time to head to the mountains of East Tennessee. 

We headed back up north and over to the east a bit more to hit our next stop – Knoxville.

We loved roaming around Knoxville and we stumbled upon the Eastern Tennessee History Museum while doing so as well as a small park filled with more public sculpture.

Julie popped into the history museum while Ryan continued to wonder around the streets of Knoxville, another charming Tennessee town where learning and delight occurred, before it was time to head just a touch south over to the thrills and amusements of Pigeon Forge. 

No matter what part of Tennessee you are in, there is music there to greet you. We’d seen Elvis and W.C. Handy over there in Memphis, the heart of country music in Nashville, and now we were headed into Dolly’s world. We were bummed that Dollywood was closed for the winter until March, but knew we would still get to enjoy the rolling hills where she found her music. 

Pigeon Forge was a slightly more in season version of Branson – with some of the buildings and attractions being exact replicas of what we’d seen in Missouri’s entertainment hot spot.

And then there were the Pigeon Forge special spots, like Dollywood, Island Theme Park, and shows like the Lumberjack Feud, the Dolly Stampede, and the Hatfield and McCoy Feud. The latter was the only one of them showing on that Monday night, so we headed on over to watch the fight.

It was an all you can eat dinner and theater experience. We did our best, but couldn’t eat all that much. Though the show itself was a little cheesy and over the top for our particular tastes, we would still say it was absolutely worth it and was a fun night out.

Julie was especially excited to don her new Nashville skirt and boots.

Even though we found the jokes a bit on the cheesy side and the script of the show a little wanting for the type of pure unbridled entertainment and ear to ear grins that we’d enjoyed in our Branson Jubilee, the dancing was out-of-this-world phenomenal and worth the price of admission all on its own. 

Funnily, while we were waiting in line to pick up our tickets, we heard the two groups in front of us chatting. One said, “I actually am a Hatfield. Those are my ancestors.” The couple responded to them, “Our last name is McCoy!” Luckily, the feuding seemed to long be water under the bridge and not even a distant memory for these descendants that only carried the names, but we found it a pretty fun thing to overhear on our way in. 

We enjoyed our RV spot for the night tucked away under some trees and right along a little creek that reminded us of our little corner of the world back home. 

We enjoyed our time there so much we could hardly pull ourselves away to hit the road again, but, after one more stop to be made in Gatlinburg for Julie to swim, we would soon be disappearing into the Great Smoky National Park and not emerging again until we were in what would be our state #40, North Carolina. 

Much like birthdays, we found ourselves more than happy to linger in number 39. But, like age and everything else, time had other plans for us and we once again found ourselves with a soft spot for a place that we were simply passing through. Many thanks to Tennessee for good times had by all and we are fairly sure we will be seeing you again sometime soon.