2 posts tagged “tennessee”

Managed to leave reasonably early in the morning and took some back roads towards Memphis. Mostly on Highway 70A/76. Some of it would have been really nice but the weather had turned and in the rain, it wasn’t really that nice. Also a reason why I didn’t really stop to take photos because it was simply too wet. I had a BBQ salad lunch at a random diner called Chow Wagon near Milan and continued on to Memphis where I arrived around 5. I had a great view from my hotel window  to the Pyramid and the bridge over the Mississippi.

Unlike Nashville, Memphis seemed rather desolate and run-down to me. There are obviously rich suburbs and the business district in Downtown is lush but the poor areas are right next door.

Walked around a bit, found that Beale Street was in easy walking distance from my hotel, walked back to drop off my camera and headed out again.

Beale Street is rather cool indeed, lots of bars and clubs, many of which offer live music and unlike Bourbon St. in New Orleans it isn’t as touristy and seedy (no strip clubs and the like). I had dinner at B.B. King’s Blues Club and listened to two bands who played a mix of classic Rythmn&Blues and Soul. Very good. The rest of the evening I spent at the Rum Boogie Café where “Blues Healer” played all kinds of Memphis/Chicago and other Blues classics. In the bar next door Dr. “Feelgood” Potts played Howlin’ wolf/John Lee Hooker style classic electric blues. The cool thing is that the two bars have an interconnecting door so you can just switch back and forth. Very groovy.

I was rather tired so called it a night around midnight and walked back which was fine but I didn’t really feel safe because I was accosted several times by panhandlers as they are called here. I just ignored them and I got nothing worse than a few bad words but it’s still a bit disconcerting. Still, nothing happened and I had a good night's sleep.

The route:

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Took a variety of nice and scenic back roads, weaving my way West, North through parts of the Cumberland gap and West again until I arrived at Lynchburg around 5:30 (or 4:30? Was there a time zone change? All the clocks here are an hour earlier),

The drive was pleasant, I was just a bit unlucky with the weather as it was rather grey and either rained for a while so there wasn’t much in terms of nice photo opportunities. I was also unlucky in the way that there would have been some things I’d loved to have taken photos of but there was no way of stopping.

 There were some seriously bendy roads with a few actual hairpins through the beautiful Cumberland area which would have been cool in a manual car but driving a car that has different ideas of when and how to shift, even when set to lower gears, was a bit disconcerting as I didn’t really feel in control. I’m also used to cars responding to the throttle a lot more quickly, i.e. slow down when you release the throttle and accelerate nicely when you step on it. The kickdown sort of works but still not as well as I’d like. As a result, a car with twice the engine size of mine feels extremely sluggish. On top of that, it guzzles petrol like there’s no tomorrow, I used half a tank getting here. At least petrol is cheaper (a full tank cost me 30 bucks) but it’s still something I rather wouldn’t spend too much money on. Damn this wasteful society!

Was feeling rather tired so stopped at the Lynchburg Country Inn, wandered around a bit and then worked on photos and things.