After the craziness of Las Vegas we decided that what we really needed was to sit in a tent somewhere quiet for a while......so we picked up a hire car in Knoxville and headed for the Great Smoky Mountains on the Tennessee/North Carolina border. John obviously knows this area pretty well having hiked through the Smokies during the early part of his Appalachian Trail hike. We drove through beautiful scenery to Clingman's Dome, the highest point on the Appalachian Trail. We hiked up the short hill, passing obese Americans having a series of coronaries, and up the observation tower. It was a beautiful sunny day and we had far-reaching views across the mountains, a slight contrast with John's AT hike when he could only see around 3 foot in front of his face!
We hiked a small portion of the AT before heading back to the car and driving to Gatlinburg. This small town is the gateway to the Smokies and has the dubious honor of having Dollywood, Dolly Parton's theme park, a few miles down the road (anyone who read John's AT journal may remember this place!). In order to keep the ying and yang of the universe in order, John decided that Sarah should see this "interesting" place before we went out into the wilderness of the mountains. We found a cheap motel and had dinner at the "Texas Roadhouse" serving huge portions of pretty unhealthy, fried food....you know the stuff that is delicious at the time but leaves you feeling like you have consumed an entire slab of butter. Anyway, after dinner we took a stroll through the neon-lit, gimmick-laden streets marvelling at how people could be that fat and still manage to transport themselves along the sidewalk. It was a relief to get back to the motel.
The next day, armed with a map, tent, some food and a bear rope (and after dropping a random AT thru-hiker from Florida back at the trailhead), we set off into the mountains. We had a gorgeous hike through woodland alive with spring flowers and surprised ourselves by managing almost 10 miles before we set up camp in a secluded grove by a river.
During our hike, Sarah had seen rock-bears, log-bears and dark-coloured-bush-bears at every corner but we had not actually seen a real bear. The camp had a bear wire up in the trees from which we could hang our food so we didn't need to worry about finding a low-hanging branch from which to throw our bear-rope (a lot easier, according to John!). We even managed to get a fire going to keep warm while we ate dinner.... though it could not really be described as a blazing inferno and if we are honest Ray Mears would have been pretty disappointed by our attempt! As far as we know, no bears entered camp that night.......(though Sarah insisted on company when she needed to leave the tent in the middle of the night.... half asleep though, John was not really any added security from free-roaming nocturnal bears).
We enjoyed another 10 mile hike the next day to get back to our car and we drove through Gatlinburg on our way across Tennessee (it should be noted that despite restoring our spiritual well-being the 20 mile round trip hike had caused some serious aches and pains to our out of condition bodies that would linger for several days). However, we only got about 3 miles out of Gatlinburg (close to Dollywood you'll be interested to know) when we got caught in a massive, slow-moving traffic jam. Turns out there was a hot-rod show on and we got caught up in a parade with many souped-up old and new American cars. Someone even commentated on what a nice exhaust we had on our Cheverolet Sonic.......(a car that is essentially as similar to an American "muscle car" as a VW Polo!). Whilst this did slow our progress somewhat, we did some see some very fine examples of hillbilly/redneck transport and some of the many pick-up trucks were even adorned with the Confederate flag (there is a good chance some of these guys do not actually agree that the South lost a few years back during the American Civil War).
We had thought that we would probably head to Nashville but instead we located the small town of Lynchburg in Southern Tennessee and headed there as it was enroute to Memphis.....to anyone who is not familiar.....this is the home of Jack Daniel's Tennessee bourbon and we wanted to tour the distillery.
The tour of the distillery was excellent and Ron, our white bearded, dungaree wearing very southern tour guide was both funny and knowledgable. It was a very proud moment for the only two Brits on the tour (us), when Ron informed us that the Uk was their number one export destination! Unfortunately, the tour was marred slightly when the tour ended and we entered the Jack Daniel's hospitality room to be served...... lemonade!! What idiot would set up a distillery in a dry county! Feeling somewhat cheated we left and drove to Savannah TN to stay for the night on our way to Memphis.
We were meeting a friend of Sarah's in Mephis so we found a hotel in the centre of the city (opposite the Memphis Redbirds baseball stadium). We had the afternoon to ourselves so we headed down to the Mississippi (a large rather brown sluggish river rather reminiscent of the Mekong!) for a walk along the river. Afterwards we visited the National Civil Rights Museum, housed in the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968.
In the evening we met with Matt and Bryony (some English friends that Sarah knew from ICR). We had a couple of drinks then onto a Southern restaurant for dinner before heading back to their flat for some serious cocktails. On our walk back to the hotel we wandered down Beale Street, which is famous for its bars and music. We picked one at random and were treated to some fine blues music from some guys who looked and sounded like they had been playing all their lives. Sarah ordered two badass beers which cost $14 and were the size of buckets!By the time we finished these the music had stopped and everyone was going home.
The next day, slightly hung-over, we headed over the border into Arkansas and down the Mississippi delta. We thought we had seen poor rural areas in Tennessee but Arkansas REALLY is poor, especially in this farming area of the delta. We took a slight detour to Helena, the home of the Delta Blues. The town was once a thriving hub of blues music but is now sadly quiet and rather run down. However they do have a really interesting cultural centre which is home to the broadcasting studio for the King Biscuit radio show (a very famous and long running radio show showcasing the best in local blues music). It is named after its sponsor the "King Biscuit Flour". The cultural centre also had an exhibition on the provision of medical care to poor delta communities and it was both fascinating and shocking that the supposedly most powerful nation on earth still has such abject poverty in some of its rural areas... in fact it reminded us somewhat of Laos!
We left the home of the delta blues both enlightened.... and armed with a genuine (made in China) delta blues harmonica... which we both have been attempting to play on a long road trip.
