Two for the Road

We left Memphis early on a quiet Monday morning heading east to Nashville. We stopped here for a spot of lunch and a quick walk down Broadway Street, the entertainment epicentre of the city. Popping into a bar called Honky Tonk Central, we listened to some live country music and enjoyed some Nashville hot chicken – the local delicacy. While our travelling has certainly made me increase my spice tolerance, the chicken salad I ordered was off the charts, and even after trying to neutralise the fire with liberal amounts of creamy ranch dressing, I had to take half the portion to go.

After a short walk to burn off the burn, we got back in the car to head south to Chattanooga. This town, perhaps a little off the standard road trip agenda, had been specially selected several months ago for us to rendezvous with our friends Gwyn and Meg. Why? Well mainly because we’d all heard the famous Chattanooga Choo Choo song¹ and decided to see what the place was all about. We’d done little research about the town so didn’t really know what to expect, but (probably influenced by the old timey tune) we thought it would be a tiny town with a steam train, looking like it had barely escaped the industrial revolution. How wrong we were!

After collecting our friends from the tiny airport, we headed to one of several breweries in the local area to sample the local suds and catch up.

The next day, we went for a long walk around the town, in search of the famous choo choo, which we quickly discovered in the form of a big sign on top of the old rail terminal referenced in the song. It’s now a hotel and restaurant complex.

The town centre felt modern and more affluent than we imagined, full of independent restaurants and small businesses. We wandered to the sunny banks of the Tennessee River which runs through the centre of town, and were rewarded with sights of industrial bridges and public art.

Following a quick stop in the local whiskey distillery on the way to the car, we headed to an iconic BBQ spot a little north of the downtown area: Off the Grill by Chef Q. Here we indulged in several types of BBQ meat including brisket, rib tips and pulled pork, with some classic accompaniments like mac and cheese, collard greens and cornbread. We also tried their three house made BBQ sauces: original, hot and blackberry (which was my personal favourite). Armed with leftovers for dinner, we headed home.

That night, we went to another local watering hole with pool tables and a trivia night. Our pool skills were pretty good, but we were firmly mid-table in the trivia. At least Gwyn got to spin the wheel for a drinks deal for the whole bar to enjoy during the quiz!

The next morning, after just about managing to squeeze our luggage into the car, we set off into Georgia to visit the Blue Ridge mountains. We’re staying in a beautiful log cabin style home on the top of a hill, with incredible vistas. We’ve enjoyed visiting a local orchard to try some fiercely average fruit wine and slightly better hard cider. And of course we had to buy a homemade cherry pie! We also visited a local vineyard for some barely drinkable wine – I think we’ve been spoiled by the bacchanalian delights of our time in New Zealand and Argentina.

There has also been some incredible nature spotting at the cabin, as the forests around us teem with birds, chipmunks and insect life. We’re told there’s a large bear population, but we haven’t been lucky (or perhaps unlucky) to encounter one yet – although the local town has many images of the creatures to remind you they’re not far away!

Tomorrow we’ll leave our lovely friends (and the unseen bears) behind to continue south into Florida for the last leg of our US road trip.

1. Written for a 1941 movie Sun Valley Seranade, this jazz standard was the first ever certified gold record, achieving 1.2 million sales. Here’s a clip if you’re interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2aj0zhXlLA&list=RDV2aj0zhXlLA&start_radio=1 ↩︎