Meg's & Lon's Magnificent Adventure

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Nashville Tennessee

What is the first thing we noticed the further we drove south? HMMM

Two things really.

1. The number of radio stations whose song programming became ALL Country was astounding.

2. The accent of the people we met was becoming far more pronounced.

We headed outside North Carolina and headed south to Nashville to meet up with Kate and her husband Dan. Stopping for fuel, Elona exited the service station returned to the car in a bubble of excited jubilation. When I enquired to the reason for her state of being - she dissolved into a fit of giggles and repeated what the attendant had said in her very best country drawl, "How y'all doin' today?". Very cute.

Elona typing

The first thing I noticed was crossing the border into Nashville and would you believe Keith Urban came on the radio and I was just a bubble of giggles - Nashville...Keith...Nashville and Meg's at the time was asleep in the car so I just sat and smiled and thought of Dianna from work - she'd get the bubble of excitement for sure!!!!

The drive was pretty good - lots and lots of trucks and you know what? Keeping up with traffic is basically doing 130km/hr - thank god Meg's didn't sleep all the way - she likes to let me know how many k's over I'm doing!!

We arrived at Kate and Dan's to be greeted by the most gorgeous puppy 'Tully' who was very confused at these odd girls knowing her name and being very excited to see her. It's always nice when Gwen (our navigation system) actually gets us to the correct destination - it doesn't always happen. Kate and Dan are the most beautiful and welcoming people. They are both paediatricians and we shared some lovely stories and of course the usual laughs about accents - for us it was the way people here say Nissan: Knee Son (rhymes with bon) and Kate is now going to call McDonalds Maccas - she thought that was brilliant. But we could go on forever so lets just say the whole Tennessee accent overall is just fabulous!! The night had some added excitement as there was a tornado warning and a fabulous siren that warns everybody: Dan kept an eye on the news and said if the siren goes off in the night and the house starts to shake head to the bathroom - all good!! Seriously nothing wakes me up so I let Meg know that she was in charge of dragging me to the bathroom if anything bad happens. The night went smoothly and the wonderful Kate and Dan invited us to stay another night if we wanted which was really nice.

Kate and Dan headed off in the morning and we did a load of washing (thank god - we were down to our last bits and pieces). Kate said we had Linda (her Mum) to thank as she suggested the whole washing thing being the well travelled lady that she is!! So after this we decided to head into town - not being High Season it was fairly quiet but both Meg's and I realised that we are not very country knowledgable as we didn't recognise many names at the Hall of Fame or many at the museum or shops. But still overall a great experience with a few people on the streets playing their guitars for money apparently these are called 'Honkytonks'. We did have fabulous hot chocolate in a shop that was used in the movie The Coal Miner with Tommy Lee Jones (when he didn't have any grey in his hair!!) It apparently was the pawn shop but now an ice creamery place. We also bought a Jack Daniel's lollypop that was hell strong - like seriously I don't think you could drive after one!! We did find a Margaritaville though - which I didn't expect to see until New Orleans but wonderful surprise - so this is where we had lunch and where we listened to Jimmy Buffett - good experience for Megs!! More to come...'The weather is here I wish you were beautiful!' It's a Jimmy Buffett thing guys sorry!

We didn't have a very late night as we wanted to have a good sleep and head to Memphis in the morning but we did have left over food from Margaritaville for dinner as they still serve way too much food everywhere!!!!!!

These are the deadly Jack Daniels Lollypops

This is Jack - at the other end of the lollipop

A barrel of whiskey!!

This is one of our favourite breakfast places on the road - The Waffle House

Look what you get for $8

Yeah The Waffle House

The diner has so many people working in it but still have time to greet you

as you come through the door. They still smoke in restaurants here - so you need to ask for non smoking!!

Shock horror there is a Margaritaville in Nashville!!

Us at the bar in Margaritaville

We sometimes leave a little of Australia behind!

Nashville street

Hard Rock Cafe in Nashville

This is one of the taverns

We went to soooo many boot stores and were unable to find me a pair of boots - CRAZY

and a little disappointing

Lots of these types of places

We didn't go down and check this bar out!!

This is the hot chocolate and I delightful Goo Goo; an amazing biscuit with marshmallow,

caramel and chocolate with nuts!

Tourist tram

This is the ice creamery where we got the hot chocolates and where "The Coal Miner" movie

used this place as a pawn shop

Opry was created when the original radio station decided to call the music

a cross between opera and country ie Opry

Very country meets island wear - Margaritaville store

Yeah Jimmy Buffett!!

Live bands in almost all pubs and taverns

This is a moon pie - a little like a wagon wheel without the jam but mint flavoured

Elona testing out the moon pie

Music Hall of Fame

Asheville and the Biltmore Estate

ASHEVILLE – NORTH CAROLINA

We departed DC with the plan of a lovely drive through the Blue Ridge Parkway. This starts at Shenandoah and winds down through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and ends just before the Tennessee boarder. We had booked accommodation in Asheville (thank you Lonely Planet – after our dodgy DC pick, we felt that we needed to accept any guidance that was available to us) in North Carolina.

Leaving Washington was a little more challenging than one would expect and after a couple of loops around DuPont Circle we eventually left DC behind us and headed in the direction of Virginia.

Ice sliding off the cars and trucks and smashing on the highway did provide us with some amusement and could prove a little scary if heading straight towards our windscreen. We have noticed in our driving adventures that the speed limit is often used as a guide or should I say guestament of the actually speed. Most drivers seem only content with 20 to 30 miles over the speed lime and the air patrol (helicopters flying over with speed guns) seem fairly non-existent.

Crossing the Shenandoah River in next to no time at all, where is the turn off to the parkway? Crossing the Shenandoah again – did you see the sign??? Guess what? We just crossed the Shenandoah again!! The whole John Denver song thing can be a little annoying once you've crossed it more than twice!

We found the turn-off for the sky-line drive through the Shenandoah National Park, we are so excited, John Denver here we come.

That’s right it's winter – the sky-line drive is closed due to the ice that fell the night before. Okay next the Blue Ridge Parkway. And we were off again. Country roads take me home ....la la la la la

Time was passing quickly at this point and I still have difficulty judging distance verse time to travel. 218 on the sign post is NOT 218km (approx. 2hours) but 218 miles and therefore nearly 4 hours. We decide to push on and get to our accommodation which is at this time going to be about 3 hours later than expected. Oooops

After some fancy navigating we arrive and the Pinecrest B and B is in darkness. We ring the doorbell and pray that they will allow us to check-in at this late hour. Waiting Waiting Waiting Waiting – do we ring the doorbell again? Oh crap how uncomfortable would it be to sleep in the car do you think????? Hhhhhhmmmm??

No wait, someone is coming. Apologising profusely we checked in and were shown our room. OMG – see the photos - is all we can say. The room was very cosy and after a long day, the room was exactly what we needed.

Breakfast was at 9am and we were greeted to a wonderfully set table and met the other guests who were staying at Pinecrest. Four others in all, we had a leisurely many course breakfast where the six of us chatted away for the next two hours. The result of breakfast was our plans had changed completely!

Blue Ridge Parkway was closed for the most part with only a few miles here and there open for travel. Kate; one of the ladies staying at Pinecrest invited us to stay with her and her husband in Nashville - our next stop. Such a wonderful invitation that we graciously accepted. We decided to book in for another night and investigate the local surrounds of Asheville.

Asheville is known for being a hippie hideaway. We visited the local art galleries, took a quick drive (20 mins all up) on the Blue Ridge Parkway, had lunch at the 'Early Girl' and tasted real "fried green tomatoes" FABULOUS!!

One of the marvellous things about travelling is the interesting people you meet. Kate and her mum Linda took us down to the Biltmore Estate the following day, after breakfast. We spent an amazing few hours touring the ground and visiting the vineyard, enjoying a fabulous lunch and then we set off to meet Kate in Nashville.

Photos