On the road: pt.I

It's been almost a week since I've been back home in Belgium, and still no blogpost on our epic roadtrip through Tennessee and Georgia. Scandalous, non? So let's get to it!

Two mondays ago, Kobe and I hopped into a tiny red chevy and hit the road. They say all roads lead to Rome, and apparently they actually do, but we decided to skip that exit and keep heading north.

Fireworks. Apparently a big business in the Georgia-Tennessee-Alabama border area.
The landscape of Tennessee is gorgeous to drive through. I'm sure the picture says it all.
Teehee. Although I've been seeing these all over Atlanta for 3 monhts, it's still funny.
Our first destinations comes into view!
As whisky lovers, we had to tour the Jack Daniel's distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee (population: 350).
Piles of fresh wood are burnt to charcoal, which is used to mellow the whisky.

Our tour guide was, well... impressive. (If he grew a beard he could have played Hagrid in the Harry Potter movies). And he had a Tennessee twang that even I could barely understand.
One of the things that sets Jack Daniel's apart is that all their whiskey is made with spring water that gurgles out of a cave near the distillery.
And there is the man himself... Jack on the rocks! (Yup, tour guide made that joke.)
Too bad we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the distillery buildings showing the production process. That barrell house with hundreds of oak barrels with Jack Daniel's whisky stacked a couple of metres high sure was impressive. But then again, you want to go and smell that instead of seeing it in a picture.
The visitor center still has the original bar from the bar that was located at the distillery before prohibition closed it down in 1909. Ironically, Moore county, where the distillery is located, is still a dry county to this day, meaning that at the end of the tour, you are offered some fresh lemonade instead of a sip o'jack. Bummer!
After the tour, we walked to the tiny town of Lynchburg and had lunch at the Iron Kettle, one of those delightful small town restaurants where pretty much everything is fried and there is ONE meatless item on the menu (grilled cheese). You would think we're deep in the backwaters of the US now... but the couple sitting in the booth behind us were Dutch. Sigh... globalization.


We also walked the short distance to the corner of Church Rd and Cemetery Rd, where, appropriately, Lynchburg cemetery is located. If a cemetery could ever be cute, that this one surely is.


And here's where the famous man, Jack himself, is buried. Legend has it that he died from the complications of an infected broken toe after he kicked his safe one day when it wouldn't open.
After stocking up on some Jack Daniel's merch in the hardware store (which, let's admit it, is more a Jack Daniel's souvenir store than a hardware store), we hit the road again. Destination: Nashville.
The skyline of Nashville as we approach it on the highway.
We get to Nashville late in the afternoon, and take a walk in historic downtown. Time seems to have stood still in some places.
Live music bars line the narrow Printer's Alley.

Broadway, the main street of downtown Nashville, is the heart of Music City USA. There are honky tonk music bars, famous guitar stores...
... and (presumably) famous people (if you know anything about country, that is - we soon learn that knowing Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash does not a thorough knowledge of country make).

You can just walk in and out of bars where artists are playing, and stick around if you like the music.

We ended up setlling for a garden burger and sweet potatoe fries in a little bar with live western swing music, that also appears to double as a cowboy boot shop.

And that was day 1 of our road trip! And now I'm exhausted... (dang you unimaginably slow computer!). Stay tuned pictures of the rest of our trip!