Author: suej

Hello Sweet Home Alabama!

We have just the morning here in B’ham (our abbreviation as fitting the A. HAMILTON craze).  We put on the sneakers and head out for a walkabout.  We start off heading out of the downtown area to the five points section of town but find a detour to the historic district.  We are again in the civil rights area of the south.  Very interesting and moving as earlier in Memphis and Arkansas.  Birmingham was also the site of several marches and protests and the historic 4th Avenue district has markers along the various routes.   We see the Baptist church where the marches were organized and where they started.  An informative morning walk.

Plus we saw Birmingham’s sales pitch to Amazon to build HQ2 there.  We will not submit our photo as instructed…we Yankees would prefer HQ2 be in Newark please!

So next stop Macon, GA.  After the usual car reorg and stuffing, we find ourselves on an interstate and are randomly drawn south….off piste and we end up in Plains, GA.  Yes, the birthplace and current home of Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn too.

Seen along the road to Plains:

 

Plains, Georgia

We make it with a half hour to spare to closing time at the National Historic site of all things Jimmy Carter.  Glenda is sooooo happy to be getting another stamp…another unexpected stamp surprise!!!  We were short on time so, unfortunately, we did not get time to stage a photo with Glenda enjoying her stamp opportunity.  We will hopefully have a photo for you all to enjoy soon.

The National Historic Site and the park rangers are situated in the former Plains High School, which was the whole school K-11 (no 12th grade…apparently you were done with school in Georgia by 11th grade when Jimmy was a student there).

The town is literally a dot….it features, Billy’s gas station; a tiny downtown; and a couple of churches. We’re surprised that there are so many lovely homes in peanut-ville. His boyhood home is about a mile down the road from the downtown and pretty near his current compound.  Amazing…life in a small town.  We wonder about the Secret Service people who are assigned to him.  Do they also live there? Do they rotate that duty or has one guy or family been there for a long time….just curious….please let us know if anyone has answers.

Pictures of Plains:

Finally we head northeast to Macon.  Along the way there we see some more interesting sights….Mennonites or plain people are here…The Yoders seem to own most of the farms here…and a most interesting incongruity….a Yoder girl in her plain, Mennonite dress and head bonnet racing around on a ATV, kicking up dust.  Hmmmmmm…We are sorry we missed that photo op.  It was a good one.

Finally we arrive in Macon.  An amazing Antebellum town left unscathed by Civil War fighting with 5,500 buildings on the National Historic register.  We got in late and walked downtown and it really is amazing. Our B&B is a giant old house too and has hosted many celebs including one of our faves…Oprah!!!!  Gloria, at the desk when we arrived, says Oprah is soooo nice.  We are glad. http://www.1842inn.com/

Before we went downtown we had a nice chat with an older woman who used to work here.  A southerner through and through, she had stories!!  There were a lot of musicians who got their start here and/or performed here regularly and she got to see them all! Her fave?  Elvis and James Brown…and a dash of Little Richard.

We will get up at the crack…really… tomorrow to see more big houses in the daylight.

Good night!!!

 

Out at the crack of 11:00!!    We are so motivated!!  To be fair we have lots to do every morning!!

Started our day with another BIG sighting!  A whisk bike rack (please click photo and note the wearing of cowgirl boots!).

We’re goin’ to Graceland

A quick photo op en route to mark an area near where some of Susan’s relatives were from.  Here she is with Dr. William Henry Clement of Henderson, TN….on Susan’s mother’s father’s side…the southern branch!

Continuing with all things BIG..we headed to larger-than-life Elvis’s home Graceland.  Named for the original owner’s aunt Grace.

The tour involved an array of a/v equipment to be worn on our person.  Including: ipads, earphones, cameras, eyeglasses, and of course our own bags and stuff.  Only thing not required was our personal floatation device.

Glenda, as the navigatrix on the trip, had named the various places where we keep all our “equipment” the NOC (Network Operation Center).  Here is Glenda with her body NOC getting ready for the Elvis tour:

Our highlights of the tour: shag carpet everywhere including walls and ceiling; private racquetball court and game room;  14 tv’s; loads of memorabilia including Elvis’s 7th grade report card (he got high marks for courtesy and reliability, not so much for industriousness); a massive seatbelt across the double bed in his private jet; and much more!!  You gotta love Elvis!!

Memphis

When in Memphis you eat ribs and you go to Beale St for some blues.

Dancing in the park

Bye now!!

 

 

Up at the crack of 10.  We certainly like to get out and get going early!!!

Armed with suggestions from our favorite hotel bellhop, we made our way on foot to the honky tonk district down by the river.  We pass the Union Station, now a gorgeous hotel and, next to that, giant flowers.

Continuing on, shock of all shocks, we got waylaid by boot shopping.  Will we ever actually wear cowgirl boots???  Apparently we think so!!

Lunch

Such a great town for drinks, chow and music.  Lunch at Acme followed by wandering and listening to music.

Music

 

Now the exciting part of our day!!

So, we wanted to visit Glenda’s friend’s cousin’s guitar store.  A fixture in Nashville since 1962…Cotten Music Center.  We couldn’t get one of those free golf cart rides they offer here, so we set out on foot armed with google maps on our phone.  Please harken back to day whatever when Glenda could not read a map to save her life and Susan was barely better.  Off we go for our 2-mile trek to Cotten Music.  Oops.  Where are we??  We are in the industrial unknown section of Nashville, surrounded by highways and trains and factories.

We came upon a massive traffic clog caused by a freight train absolutely stopped dead on the tracks that we needed to cross to get to the store.  Ain’t nothin’ moving.  So, being the rule followers that we are, we stood and waited. And stood some more.  Finally after about 15 minutes, we asked a nice young man in his car if this happened regularly and did he think it might move any time soon.  Yes it happens often and it might take a while; he thinks they are on break.

Should we run for it climbing up onto and over the train to reach the other side?  The stress!!!  The tension!!!  The anxiety!!!  A possible rule breaking!!!  We held our breaths, crossed over that red and white do-not-cross arm…

..and clambered over the trains.   Success!!  We are free to continue through the factory-land to find the store.

Cotten Music Center,  www.cottenmusic.com,  is a boutique vintage and new guitar and more store that sells to serious musicians worldwide.  Kim, the owner, was there and graciously showed us the store and told us about the area (transitioning along with the whole area we walked through!).

Kim walked us over to a hot, trendy bar/restaurant down the street, Bastion…and who do we see is the bouncer there?  Our own very nice fellow train waiter….David!!

Small town…small world!!!

Up Next: Memphis, TN

Good morning Gatlinburg!

2 Stops before Nashville

First up the “Secret City” – Oak Ridge TN.  Site of a government built city in the middle of TN made specifically to develop the atomic bomb during WWII.  The whole place was constructed in a matter of months and grew from the first expected 12,000 inhabitants to approximately 75,000.  It was so secretive and big brother-like.  The workers couldn’t discuss their work with anyone and letters to home were censored.  All in the name of supporting the war effort.

So there is a 3-hour government run tour of the facilities (it covered 90 square miles) which we hadn’t signed up for,  but the museum offers a good look into what was happening there.  Lots of photos documenting life in Oak Ridge on the “reservation”.  They were adding 32 houses a day in 1942-1943.

Wow!!  Interesting!!

Onto a much less grim place.  Lynchburg TN, home of the Jack Daniel’s Distillery.  Ahhhh.  A tour of the distillery followed by a tasting of course.  Plus the added bonus of specialness, with Glenda being the heir of a Tennessee Squire complete with a square inch plot of land in Lynchburg on the distillery land.  We weren’t sure which inch it was. Susan got to bask in the glory of a Squire’s life….for a moment.

The buildings are a bit reminiscent of abandoned factories in the northeast with all their gray and black metal.  We seriously did not think the good stuff came through those weatherworn buildings.  But it definitely does!

The tour is super fun, the whiskey is great and the people watching beyond!!!

A quick BBQ plate at a local place in Lynchburg and on to Nashville!