America 2017

Sadly Nashville has been a bit of a disappointment. Firstly, the hotel we’re staying at is rather Fawlty Towers ish. While it is very close to downtown Nashville it’s also showing signs of its age and overuse plus the staff don’t quite treat you as valued customers – rather just another group of tourists passing through. Andy nearly threw a major paddy last night when he discovered his mattress was covered with a plastic waterproof cover – that rustled. I thought it showed the hotel cared and didn’t want all its guests to share leaking body fluids with each other. In the end we removed it, laughed, and had a good nights sleep. After breakfast we went downtown in the hotel shuttle: well we did after listening to the reception staff discussing the fact it wasn’t running because it was low on gas and they weren’t going to use there own money to gas it. In the end one of them got it and took us downtown. We then decided to tour the city centre in a free shuttle bus. However as it was coming towards us it hit some road signs and the very flustered driver said she couldn’t carry on until her boss had seen the damage. Later another shuttle turned up and we toured round. Not a lot to see we concluded. After a second breakfast in a pleasant little cafe the heavens opened so we went to the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum – which was interesting. Then to a bar with a live group playing before going back to the hotel. Tonight we have, hopefully, found a nice German restaurant nearby. And tomorrow we’ll visit the Grand Ole Opry House which is nearly ten miles from the city centre. 

Today we rode through Tennessee to Nashville via the Jack Daniels distillery. A number of things became clear: A) Tennessee is a very pretty state – for a long way we rode adjacent to the Tennessee river and through lush countryside on empty roads. Gorgeous. B) Americans are odd drivers, they just don’t overtake you outside of cities. We rode slowly to enjoy the scenery and queues of one or three cars would slowly build up behind us regardless of all the opportunities to overtake. Odd? C) for every ten people in the ‘bible states’ there must be a church, chapel or whatever. If there is a God s/he must spend a lot of time in America!  D) the Americans are good at doing tourist attractions – our ‘dry’ tour of the Jack Daniels distillery was silky smooth as have been the other tours we’ve been on. E) Nashville is unreal! It’s downtown centre is just heaving with hen and stag parties, family holidaymakers and couples clearly having a weekend away. It’s also very expensive. This evening we went in a club or two with live music – tomorrow we’ll visit some of the iconic venues.

Today we completed a leisurely ride to Chattanooga. During the ride we ate at a traditional American (Mexican) working man’s cafe (see picture) and stopped at a deep south petrol station where Forrest Gump served us. Actually neither of these actions was based on cost – we’re just very keen to experience real America vs all its chain restaurants and hotels. Generally however we observed that Georgia’s landscape wasn’t earth shattering though its natives (those we met) were very friendly. 

Andy suggested a hotel downtown in Chattanooga – a town he had never heard of – but one that is highly rated as a tourist destination. This amazed me and was rapidly accepted. After booking in we went for a walk to the riverfront where a major C & W festival is taking place. We then found a brilliant restaurant where we had a shared dish of ribs cooked with four different glazes. Superb. In the evening we went to see Toby Keith at the ‘Riverbend’ festival. We were able to sit in an adjacent park to the stage where we had a clear view – and you could hear for miles around. Andy was sulking a bit as he couldn’t get his phone to connect to the hotel wifi and he isn’t a great lover of C &W music: But what the hell, you can’t have everything! 

This morning we went to the Boone Hall plantation. It was quite funny to see all the American tourists drooling over ‘antiques’ from 1750 to 1900. I observed to the guide that these items were considered relatively contemporary where I come from and he retorted about the British returning to Charleston – Mr Boone was English. The plantation was however a bit of a con. The house had been rebuilt a hundred years ago after the old one more or less fell apart and the land (which we toured) was greatly diminished and no traditional crops were grown there anymore. You even doubted the slave homes (see picture below) were original. But it had to be done. We then pedalled on into Georgia, through the suburbs of Augusta (bet the rich golfers don’t see the areas we did) and onto a small town called Washington where we’re staying the night. Haven’t decided where we’ll go tomorrow. 

Had an interesting moment en route when we were desperate for something to eat and drink. After riding into the first small town we’d come across for miles we rode around till we found this cafe. On entering it was like somebody had just thrown some cooking utensils, fridges and one table into two undecorated rooms. However once in we were committed so ordered a burger and a chilli dog – they were cooked in front of us and we’re very nice (and cheap) 

This morning we rode a leisurely 85 odd miles to Charleston. We rode a single lane freeway – mile after mile of straight road with little traffic. Small American hamlets just straddle the road and most of the properties we passed had plenty of land but were quite run down. The urban sprawl of Charleston started about 20 miles from the sea and wasn’t very attractive. Ultimately we arrived at Mt. Pleasant which is full of ‘affordable’ hotels and very much ‘tourist area’ – and we booked into a hotel. The afternoon was spent visiting the USS Yorktown – a WW2 aircraft carrier that’s been turned into a tourist attrition along with a retired Destroyer, Submarine etc etc. As interesting as it was you can only take so much of Americans flying the flag so we then dissappeared off to find a nice Greek restaurant. (As an aside, we agreed that one reason everything in America is bigger than elsewhere may be linked to the sizes its citizens – I’m sure many weighing scales are often showing south of 150 kg.) Tomorrow we intend to cross from our side of the Cooper river to that of the historic old town by river ferry and spend the day seeing the sights – including the slave market!