NASHVILLE SUMMARY

DRIVE OUT • NASHVILLE & BACK

Day 1 - We left early and drove almost 6 hours to Dodge City (Kansas). Everything was closed (on a Sunday, which one might think would be a touristy day, but no) so we decided to walk around the old town... although there wasn't one. The only historic stuff was locked away behind a large fence that charged admission (but it was closed for the day too). So, as the saying goes, we simply got the hell outta Dodge. We arrived at Oklahoma City for the evening, where we stayed in our own, cute Air BnB apartment.

Day 2 - We started the day by taking a tour of the Oklahoma state capitol building where we learned about Sequoyah, who created the first written language for the Cherokee. We also visited the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, which told the story of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995, claiming the lives of 168 people. We made brief stops at the St. Joseph’s Cathedral (with its lovely stained glass windows), the USS Oklahoma Anchor Memorial, the old milk bottle grocery along Route 66, and Bricktown (with its canal).

Day 3 - On our way out of town, we stopped at the Arcadia Round Barn. In Ponca City, we took a tour of the spectacular E.W. Marland Mansion. After the general tour, we lucked into a private tour of some of the old back rooms and hallways, where the illegal whisky was kept and transported during prohibition. Our first stop in Tulsa was the Sherwin Miller Museum of Jewish Art, which had an impressive exhibit on the holocaust as well as lots of traditional cultural artifacts. Next was a visit to the Gathering Place. We had great fun exploring the playground... climbing towers and crossing rope bridges. We then stopped by the Center of the Universe. This spot gave all sounds an erie, hollow echo. Buck Atom's Cosmic Curios was home to one of the giant muffler men, revamped to look like an astronaut. We followed that up with the massive Golden Driller Statue at the Tulsa Expo Center. Our Air BnB was a room in a house with the owner, who also had an actress friend staying there.

Day 4 - We entered into Arkansas and did some hiking around the amazing rocks at Devil's Den State Park. We had planned to do a scenic drive but Robert wasn't feeling well. So we simply headed to our Air BnB in Little Rock. Again, it was a room in a house with the owners. It's nice when we have access to a kitchen to make our own meals.

Day 5 - We visited a replica of the oval office and the cabinet room in the William J Clinton Presidential Center. The Old State House Museum was absolutely packed with history! We even got to be a part of it... by placing our faces into old newspaper articles. Next we toured the Arkansas state capitol. It wasn't as ornate as Oklahoma's, but we did get to go into the treasury and hold $600,000! From the galleries, we also got to watch both the senate and the house of representatives in session. The Old Mill was a replica of water-powered grist mill of the 1800s. The mill and gardens were gorgeous! On our way to see the Burns Park Covered Bridge, however, we were informed the whole area was closed due to a recent tornado! We drove through one of the damaged neighborhoods where people we still cleaning up the debris. Our final site of the day was the Murray Lock and Big Dam Bridge, longest pedestrian-and-bicycle bridge in America.

Day 6 - In the morning, we took a tour of the SS Razorback submarine at the Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum. There was also a historic tugboat and great museum. At the Central High School National Historic Site, we learned all about the Little Rock Nine. This was a group of nine black students who attempted to attend an all-white high school after racial segregation of public schools had been ruled unconstitutional.

Day 7 - We drove to Memphis and toured the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel. The exhibits were quite extensive, even including a bus one could walk though depicting the Rosa Parks ordeal. We also got to see the actual spot where Martin Luther King was shot and eventually died. Across the street was the apartment building (now also part of the museum) from where the shot came. It was a short walk to Beale Street. We then did a slew of short stops in the area... a Bass Pro shop (inside a giant pyramid), the Mississippi River, Sun City Recording Studio and Elvis' first house he bought. One final stop was the Crystal Shrine Grotto. This is the only man-made crystal cave in the world and it was indeed impressive... filled with crystals, colored lights and Christian scenes. We crossed over into Mississippi for our Air BnB, where we stayed in a house that the owner rented out.

Day 8 - We spent Easter morning with Elvis at Graceland. We didn't do the pricey tour but instead visited the free meditation garden, where the tombstones of Elvis and his family were located (although his and his mother's actual bodies had been moved elsewhere). We drove past Hillcrest High School to gaze upon their giant viking statue, then began the long drive to Chattanooga... through Mississippi, Alabama & Georgia, and into the eastern time zone (unfortunately there was no place to stop so I was unable to get all the signs!). We took a break and strolled around the charming town of Tuscumbia (birthplace of Hellen Keller, which was closed). We spent a bit of time at the Chattanooga National Cemetery (with headstones back to 1864, the Civil War) and then wandered around a trainyard at the Tennessee Valley Railroad and Museum (also closed). Our Air BnB was a room in an absolutely fabulous house with the owners. We even enjoyed the hot tub!

Day 9 - We started out the day with a tour of Ruby Falls on Lookout Mountain. We were led through a cave to a large cavern with a massive waterfall in it! Colored lights enabled us to see it in the otherwise pitch black. On the other side of the mountain was Rock City. This was a fun park... with swing bridges, caves, slot canyons and even a fariytale land built in the 1920s. We loitered about Coolidge Park with its antique carousel then headed over to the Southern Belle for our riverboat ride. The weather was perfect and there was great live music. We ended up talking with the captain and his crew for quite a while.

Day 10 - It was about a 3 hour drive to Pigeon Forge. Along the way, we stopped in the towns of Sweetwater and Maryville to walk around. We completed the drive on the scenic Foothills Parkway along the Smoky Mountains. Pigeon Forge was like Las Vegas... all sorts of extravagant entertainment buildings. Throw an antique car show on top of that and you can image what a mess the city was. We did manage to explore the less hectic Old Mill district for a bit. After cruising around, we left for Gatlinburg. Unfortunately it wasn't much better. Our Air BnB was a rundown motel. It was so bad, that instead of staying the 3 nights we had planned, we checked out the next morning and simply restructured our travel schedule.

Day 11 - We spent the day roaming Great Smoky Mountain National Park. (They are 'smoky' because the conifer trees release water vapor through their needles along with terpenes, a chemical that creates a smoke-like haze or mist. There was also, however, a nearby fire). We hiked up to the Clingman's Dome overlook and stood on the Appalachian trail (or as a ranger joked... we walked the entire width of it). We crossed over into North Carolina and visited the Oconaluftee visitor center and Mountain Farm Museum, as well as the old Mingus grist mill. We entered into the Cherokee Indian Reservation to hike up to Mingo Falls. We drove back over the mountains for a hike up to Laurel Falls. We ended our mountain visit with a stop at Elkmont, a 1920s vacation town which was cleared out when this area became a national park. We were allowed to walk through all the empty houses. We drove to Knoxville where our Air BnB was our own apartment.

Day 12 - We went for a morning walk down to the Knoxville Convention Center and World's Fair Park, where we saw the Sun Sphere and the world's largest Rubik's Cube. We headed out to the Ijams Nature Center, which had a lovely, elevated boardwalk along the river. In the old downtown, we ambled down Gay Street with its historic buildings and iconic Tennessee sign. The clouds were closing in but we still got in an elevator ride to the top of the Sun Sphere.

Day 13 - We began the day with a tour of the Historic Westwood Knoxville, a house built in 1880. We followed that up with a visit to the Mabry-Hazen House from 1858. It was interesting to compare the similarities (both had a special table for rolling biscuits) and differences (pre- vs post-Civil War; slaves vs no slaves). We had to deal with bouts of rain, but eventually the weather cleared enough to let us wander around the James White Fort (from 1786) and the Old Gray Cemetery (from 1850). Our Air BnB was a room in a spectacular, large house in the countryside.

Day 14 - We visited the Historic Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary (established in 1896) and took a tour which was led by a former inmate and a former guard. We were told all sorts of gruesome (unfortunately true) stories. We had a few interesting stops along the way to our next site, including a cafe in Wartburg (filled with all sorts of memorabilia from the past), a crashed plane, and one of the gates to Oak Ridge, location of the Manhattan Project. The Museum of the Appalachia was a massive area filled with countless old barns, sheds, houses, artifacts, tools, and so forth. Before the sun set, we got to wander through Baxter Gardens (with flowers, statues, a giant sundial, fountains, tall hedge maze and even racy carvings from the Kama Sutra!). It's open only one month per year so we just happened to luck out!