We took a trip to visit Jack this morning, Jack Daniel that is. We drove into Lynchburg to the distillery where Jack Daniels Old No.7 “Tennessee Sour Mash” whisky has been made since 1866. All the Jack D that is drunk throughout the world comes from this one place in Tennessee, amazing.
Lynchburg itself is a little blip on the side of the road with a few stores around the central square selling everything Jack Daniel’s except the actual whiskey. The county that Lynchburg is in, Moore County is a dry county and as such sales off alcohol are prohibited. Pretty amazing that one of the most recognizable drinks in the world can’t be bought at the place it’s made. At the distillery you can actually buy Jack in a commemorative bottle but that’s the only thing allowed, and the passing of legislation was necessary for that to happen. We saw lots of people leaving the distillery with brown paper bags; it looked like a convention of bums!
The tour of the distillery, which was free, was excellent. We got to learn about the process of whiskey making from start to finish, from the burning of the wood to create the charcoal that they use to mellow the alcohol (it is filtered through 10 feet of charcoal), to the bottling process. We actually got to see them bottling some barrels, as the single barrel whiskey they produce is hand bottled in small batches. We visited the cave where all the iron free water comes from that it used in every barrel, we got to see the mash bubbling away, and smell the stinky pre-barreled smell of Jack from the giant vats. The last stop on the tour was at one of the storage sheds where they keep the barrels of Jack for at least 4 years and sometimes longer; the smell in there was much nicer. It is possible to buy a whole barrel of Jack, if you have a spare $13,000 or so lying about. The guide told us that if we continued on to the White Rabbit Salon we would each get a glass of ‘yellow label’, was he a joker or what. Turns out the Jack Daniel’s Yellow Label is lemonade – in a dry county they couldn’t even give us a sample of Jack!
It was a cool tour, well worth doing, and after we wandered around Lynchburg for about 10 minutes – that was as long as it took. It’s amazing to see what all can be made from used Jack Daniel’s barrels.







Mike: Soo! close, yet soo! far. You can reach out and touch it but you can’t taste it!

We got up this morning and went to visit Nashville. It was about a 2-hour drive and as we passed through Columbia I broke down and let Mike talk me into having breakfast at Waffle House. He’s been wanting to go since we got back and looks longingly at every one we pass so this morning was it. It was good going down but it’s so bad for us, hash browns, eggs, biscuits and waffles – the perfect breakfast?
The first stop in Nashville was the Grand Ole Opry, which is actually just north of Nashville; we did the back stage tour which was cool. We got to see the Opry stage, and the dressing rooms that all the country stars use, as well as where they pick up their mail when they are performing there. It was interesting to see the place where so many stars have performed through the years, and it was amazing to see how the Opry recovered following the storms off last year. Looking at the area today it’s hard to believe that the water could do so much damage, but it certainly did as evidenced by the huge mall outside the Opry that is still closed and not due to be opened until next spring. The Opry was reopened in less than five months after the floods and it looks amazing. It would have been cool to see a show but there weren’t any on the day we were there. The stage was all set up for Christmas though as some holiday show was being filmed while we were there; I didn’t see anybody I recognized though. The tour was fun but I don’t know that it was worth the money as it was really short; $30.00 (after discount) is pretty steep for a half-hour tour.





After the Opry we headed into downtown Nashville and had a wander. I wasn’t that impressed with the city, it’s just another city on the Cumberland River, and was super touristy. There was a lot of karaoke going on and loads of cowboy boot stores. We went into French’s boot store where there were hundreds to choose from; they had a good deal going on too, buy one pair and get two free, trouble was we couldn’t afford the $699.00 for the first pair!
We did Nashville and headed home. I’m glad we went to visit but I much prefer the small towns to the big cities; almost all the cities we’ve visited so far have not lived up to expectation and the little towns are much cooler and more real.






Mike: They wouldn’t let me sing!

We were on the move again today, back into Tennessee, this time to stay for a few days. It wasn’t too long of a drive today so we didn’t have to leave too early; and most of the drive was on I65 so we moved along pretty good. Once we did leave the interstate we drove about 25 miles on a two-lane highway and just after we got on we picked up a sheriff. He had plenty of opportunities to go by us but he just kept trucking along behind us. Mike figured he was waiting for him to do something he shouldn’t, but he never pulled us over, just followed along behind us. Mike was so intent on keeping to the speed limit that we managed to miss our turn onto The Natchez Trace, and had to hang a u-turn. At this point the sheriff just took off past us so I figure he was just passing the time and wasn’t in any rush to be someplace else. He definitely added some minutes to our journey, having to stick to the speed limit sucks!
When we did finally get on the Natchez Trace the drive was beautiful. The Trace is a 444-mile road that runs from just south of Nashville to Natchez in Mississippi and is a National Park. It is as natural a road as you could wish to find, no signs, no bill boards, no businesses and a 50 mile an hour speed limit. There are trees on both side of the two-lane road and the leaves are just now starting to change colour and it is really tranquil and beautiful. Definitely a nicer ride than the interstate!
We were only on The Trace for about 10 miles when our turn to the campground came along. We had been warned in the campground book that there was a low bridge of 11 feet to pass under just before the entrance and although Mike had measured the trailer and told me we were less than 11 feet I didn’t really believe him. Turns out he wasn’t lying to me and we passed under the bridge without losing any part of the roof. We got checked in to the campground and then had to drive about 5 miles up and down some steep grades to find the sites. Ok, maybe five miles is an exaggeration, but the sites are a heck of a long way from the front gate. The grounds are huge with not that many sites but the park looks like it could do with a little love (kind of like most of the Thousand Trail parks); it has definitely seen better days. Anyway we got a site with full hook ups and so we can’t really ask for more, although tv and internet would be nice, and we have neither unless we traipse over to the lodge.





We got set up and then took what should have been a short drive to Hohenwald; short if Nell hadn’t got us a little lost. She took us a different way than we had come in with the intention of getting us on The Trace at a different point, trouble was she had accounted for the fact that the road she was trying to get us on was above us with no on ramps. She took us down some dead end road where we got some funny looks from pregnant, smoking teenage girls before having us turn around. Mike got us to the mail road in the end and the detour was nothing if not interesting.
Hohenwald is not a very big town and to get to it we had to take the 20, and all along it were people setting up tables and such with all kinds of things to sell. We’ve seen a lot of garage sales going on in this state, it must be their thing.

Mike: I was waiting for the harmonicas and fiddle’s to start playing we were soo! deep in the woods.

Laundry day today; I figured it would be quiet this morning so I took over almost everything washable out of the trailer. When I got there some woman was using all but one of the machines and so washing took a little longer than it should have but it’s ok. She was nice enough, if a little weird, and I found out she used to live in Mira Mesa a long time ago. She kept being '‘elpful'’with my washing which I found a bit odd, but she later told me that she’d had a head injury and had memory problems and had even had to learn to talk again; I felt a bit bad for thinking she was odd after that.
This evening Mike and I took a walk around the park. His new friend had told him that there was a lake on the grounds and over 100 more sites that the park wasn’t allowed to use because they all used well water. We walked for quite a while and never managed to find the lake.

Mike: I have new friends in every park!

We took about a 25 mile drive today into Bowling Green which is apparently a well known college town; on the way in we did drive past Western Kentucky University, or at least some of it’s buildings. It didn’t really look much like what I imagine a college town to look like, it was all perfectly manicured and well maintained, and there didn’t seem to be many students around; maybe we arrived at a time when they were all in class.
We went to Bowling Green to have a look round but also because Mike wanted to go to Harbor Freight Tools to see if he could get new batteries for his tool kit. It seems that while we were gone the batteries weren’t very impressed that they weren’t being used and now they won’t charge at all. They didn’t have what he wanted so we stopped off at Batteries Plus and the very helpful guy there put a charge on the batteries; it didn’t help though as when we got home they still wouldn’t charge on our charger. Oh well, it looks like he’s going to have to replace his tool set.
We drove around a while more and because I was so patient when Mike went in the tool shop I got to buy some new tops; it was a necessity really, as most of mine don’t fit my new bigger size body!
This afternoon after he took a nap, Mike made friends with the neighbours. He was outside pumping up the trailer tire and got talking to the folks in the next trailer over. They seemed very nice, at least I thought so from my vantage point inside the trailer, but I think Mike was happy when the ‘lady’ had to depart for the bathroom.

Mike: She was a large lady, there is no way she could use a RV toilet!

We got up this morning and drove further in to Mammoth Cave National Park so that we could do a tour of the cave. We got tickets and than waited for the ranger to come along. There was a school group waiting with us but a different ranger took them thankfully, so there were only about 50 people in our group. Before we went into the cave the ranger gave us a talk about what we could expect under the ground, and I think he scared almost everyone half to death. He kept talking about narrow and low areas that could be strenuous for some, but it turned out to be just fine. The cave which is apparently the longest in the world (over 300 miles have been explored so far and there’s more to go) was really cool, not pretty but huge. There were hardly any stalagmites or stalactites on the tour path that we took as the cave is mostly dry and they do not form without the water. We did the historical tour which while touching on the cave formation was more about the cave been explored and the tours that have been taking place there for well over 150 years. The cave was mined for salt peater (what gunpowder used to be made from) for a long period of time until it became too costly to mine it. When that happened all the equipment was just abandoned and it’s still there today. We also walked the paths that people have been walking since the first tours and saw the names that they left on the ceiling of the cave with the candle smoke.



There were lots of ups and downs on the two hour tour, and lots of mind your head. It wasn’t too bad though as the cave system is so huge, except in the spot called Fat Man’s Misery and Tall Man’s Misery. Both of these names were given to different parts of the path and are kind of self explanatory; they didn’t really cause too many problems for either of us believe it or not), although Mike was glad when he got to the end of both.






We drove through Park City this afternoon, after checking out the wild turkeys in the park, which is quite touristy for a little town. There are lots of places along the side of the road selling rocks and other things at bargain prices, as well as dinosaur world. We stopped for more Mexican food, at a different place today, although it turned out to be the same restaurant group as yesterday – at least they understood me today.



Mike: I wonder how the rangers tell people they can’t go on the tour because they’re “too fat”.

We didn’t do very much yesterday, Mike did some cooking and we walked along the lake, but that was about it. Then this morning we got out of the park earlyish and headed north across Tennessee and into Kentucky. The drive started off pretty rough, for me anyway, Mike was fine. We drove through the mountains for a little ways so it was obviously uphill and the road was narrow; at least it looked narrow from my side of the truck, and there was a long drop on my side of the car. I was good, I didn't freak out, at least not out loud, but my knuckles were white by the time we got to the top.
After the first few miles the rest of the journey was fine, a little busy driving through Nashville but otherwise an easy 4+ hour drive. Tennessee and Kentucky are a lot like Alabama, very green and pretty.
We got to the park and got checked in, and then had a little drive to the actual camp sites. The park is inside the Mammoth Cave National Park, and is not the nicest looking place we’ve ever stayed at. It’s on quite a large piece of ground but it looks run down and uncared for. We had a little disagreement about which space we were going to park in; we ended up parked between two other trailers and Mike didn’t like the space at all. We had a little disagreement but we ended up staying put.



After getting set up we took a drive into the next town over. We are staying in Park City but we ended up in Glasgow where we had dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Mike had to visit the little boys room as soon as we sat down so I was left to order drinks; we only wanted water but do you think I could get the waitress to understand what I wanted. I told her I’d wait till Mike got back and she went away but sent another person over to the table who also didn’t understand what I was asking for. Finally the manager came over and I ordered the water – why didn’t I just ask for Agua? When it came time to order my food I just pointed at the menu, I just wanted to be sure I was going to get what I wanted!

Mike: We spent 3 months in South America and you can’t order water! (agua!!!!)