Chattanooga, TN

5^th – 11^th Oct – Tim’s Ford Lake

Cotton

We travelled further east, passing fields of cotton. Arriving at Tim’s Ford Lake State Park, nr Winchester, staying at Fairview Devil’s Step campground.

Alison & JD were the same height

This place just happened to be a half hour from Jack Daniels Distillery so on Tuesday (7^th) we did the ‘Sampling Tour’.
The Tour started at the burners, where they burn maple tree wood into small pieces of charcoal through which the famous ‘brew’ is filtered to give it its unique taste.  The barrels the whiskey is matured in have charred interiors too which further ads to the distinct flavour.  Further into the tour we entered the filter room containing the huge vats of dripping whiskey and charcoal and the aroma was quite intoxicating.  All Jack Daniels whiskey is made here using the iron-free water from a local spring that filters through the limestone hills.  Jack Daniels died before the Prohibition years when he kicked his large metal safe, broke his toe, and got gangrene.  Unlike the distillery we visited in Kentucky, Jack Daniels distillery was closed during the Prohibition Years of 1920-33.  However unlike the Kentucky Bourbon, at least these samples of Whiskey were palatable!

Tim’s Ford Lake

All week the weather alternated between hot/humid or thunder/lightning.  We took the kayak out on the lake on 3 of the days.  On the Friday (10^th) we got caught in one of the thunderstorms.  We had just found a nice little spot on the shoreline for lunch when the thunder started.  So we took cover under the trees.  It rained incessantly for 1½ hours.  Even sitting under the kayak we got drenched.

Heritage Day

Saturday was Heritage Day at the State Park.  There was Clog dancing, blue grass music, craftsmen and a small re-enactment which involved a very loud cannon.  Alison had a go at throwing a spear using an Atlatl.  This was a carrier for the spear giving more leverage to the throw and was used by the Cherokee and Chickasaw prior to European settlement.  In the evening we were going to sit by the campfire with our neighbours Vikki and Ernest, but the rain meant we all had to sit under the RV awning and watch the fire from a short distance.

12^th – 14^th Oct – Chattanooga

Our next campsite was not far, just over an hour’s drive down the I-24, and was sited on the Tennessee River, which is 652 miles long and eventually travels through Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky to join the Mississippi river (via the Ohio River).

 

 The weather was cloudy and stormy on the Monday when we drove to the city of Chattanooga on the Tennessee/Georgia border.  Our first visit was Ruby Falls on Lookout Mountain.  It was Columbus Day in USA (ie a holiday) and the rest of the world was also visiting the Falls! 

 

 

 

 

 

Ruby Falls

The tour guides coped well with the crowds but we had to do a lot of standing around on the underground tour, as we waited for previous tours to come back along the one-way path through the caves.  We were treated to a music and light show when we finally reached the 145ft high Ruby Falls waterfall which is 1120ft below the surface of the mountain.

 

 

Chattanooga below

By the time we came back out onto the surface the cloud had lifted and we could see the city and the twisty bends of the Tennessee River below. We then continued up the mountain to Point Park which commemorated the Civil War ‘Battle for Chattanooga’ of November 1863.  Over a two day period Confederate Soldiers held the top of the mountain against Union Troops but eventually had to retreat back down the mountain into Georgia.  Chattanooga was a key railroad point from the north, carrying supplies down to this southern region which Sherman used as a base for his march to Atlanta.

Chattanooga Choo-Choo

We drove back down the mountain to see the ‘Chattanooga Choo-Choo’ (of course).  A hotel has been created at the railway station using train carriages for rooms. 




The “Choo-Choo” got the nickname when the first passenger train set off from Cincinnati to Chattanooga in March 1880.  Both Glen Miller and the Andrew Sisters contributed to making the tune famous in the 1940s.

Tennessee

2^nd Oct – Memphis, TN

We head south west towards Memphis in Tennessee but end up in Arkansas as the campsite we choose is in West Memphis just across the Mississippi River.  Three states meet here; Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi.  When we arrived it was sunny, hot and humid.  Within an hour of arriving the clouds had built up and we had a thunderstorm with a Tornado Watch warning with more thunderstorms through the night.

3^rd Oct – Graceland's

Back of Elvis's house

The storms had cleared the air and it was a lovely fresh morning as we drove back over the Mississippi to visit Graceland’s, the place Elvis Presley called home for 20 years.  The house and gardens are on one side of the road; everything else such as parking, ticket sales, car museum, aircraft, shops etc on the other side.

 

We had to queue 30 minutes for the minibus to take us across the road and up the 100yds drive way to the house.  Every visitor is issued with an iPad and headphones to aid their tour. 

The iPad had 360 degree views of each room and everyone listened intently to their own audio so there was almost complete silence as we walked around.  We joined a continuous line of people through the downstairs and basement rooms which are open to the public. 

 

Outside in the gardens it was less crowded.  Then another queue for the mini bus back across the road.  If they had built an underpass to cross the road and let us walk we could have saved ourselves nearly an hour.

 

 

Elvis’s first record (That’s Alright Mama) was released 60 years ago in 1954 and it is amazing that nearly 40 years after his death so many people are still visiting this place (us included). 

Isaac Hayes Gold plated Caddy

After lunch we headed to ‘Soulsville’ the Stax Soul Music Museum, which sits on the site of the former Stax recording studios and learnt what an important part this company played in developing some of the Soul singers of the 60s such as Otis Reading, Wilson Picket and Isaac Hayes.

 

 

The Beatles considered recording here during their visit to USA in 1964 but fans got hold of the news which made it impractical.  In a city with racial segregation at the time the company prided themselves in being inter-racial in their operations.  During the night of the riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King in Memphis in April 1968, the recording studios escaped unscathed despite heavy looting in the vicinity. 

 

Despite the success of the 60s the owner lost everything, including his home, when the company folded in the mid-70s.

We then headed to Beale Street for a visit to the Rock n Soul Music Museum which is associated with the Smithsonian Institute.  This covered the history of the development of music in Memphis with particular emphasis on the 50s, 60s & 70s and Rock & Roll as well as Soul Music.  With such ‘big names’ recording in the city in those years the place must have been “really rockin’”. 

We spent a couple of hours along the busy bar-lined street were live music was being performed in several places.

4^th Oct – Shiloh National Battlefield

The drive from Memphis to the campsite near Savannah didn’t take long so that left time to visit the Shiloh National Battlefield in the afternoon. 

The 50 minute orientation film explained this early battle of the American Civil War. During the two day battle on 6/7 April 1862, 3200 soldiers died and more died from their wounds later. Over 23,000 in all either died, were wounded or classed as missing. During the first day the Confederates captured 2100 Union soldiers and managed to push General Ulysses Grant back to the landing point on the Tennessee River where he had arrived with troops.  More Union troops arrived overnight and they were able to push the Confederates back by the end of the following day.  It then placed the Union in a position of strength to later capture the town of Corinth, in Mississippi, which was the crossroads for the train lines from north/south and east/west.

We drove around the battlefield area which had numerous commemorative plaques and statues to the fallen.

Notable survivors of Shiloh included, J W Powell, who went on to become a renowned explorer of the Wild West, rafting down the Grand Canyon; L Wallace who later wrote the novel Ben Hur; and H Stanley who afterwards travelled to Africa and found Livingstone.

 

 

 

 Tomorrow we move on to visit the Jack Daniels Distillery.