Third Time's the Charm Trip: Two Techie Tourists Take Time To Travel To Tennessee

Then we were walking in Memphis, we were walking with our feet ten feet off of Beale…Walking in Memphis, but do we really feel the way they feel…

Not the real lyrics, but you get the point!

Beale Street

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When we arrived in the Memphis area, we stayed at an RV Park right on the Mississippi River in West Memphis, Arkansas. It was a simple, rustic, but cool, in its own way, RV park. Being right on the Mississippi River, this campground floods every spring, some years the flooding is deeper than others. This is why the park is so simple. Before the spring floods, they move many of their buildings (which are on wheels) to higher ground. It was a convenient place to stay and only a fifteen minute drive to get across the river to Memphis, Tennessee. They also had huge grassy, open areas where we could take the dogs for a walk and throw the Frisbee.

Pete, Simon and Rosey along the

Mississippi River

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Campground Building Showing Flood Water Level

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One of the places we visited in Memphis was the Cotton Museum. Cotton had been king in Tennessee long before Elvis became the king! In honor of this cash crop, a cotton museum was opened in 2006 in the building that had been the Memphis Cotton Exchange. Exhibits told the history of this crop beginning with the slave trade and how people hand-picked the cotton, cleaned the seeds from the fibers and then spun the fibers into yarn that could then be woven into cloth. The museum exhibits also explained how technology changed how the cotton was picked, cleaned and spun in later years.

There were videos we watched of individuals who once worked at the Cotton Exchange. They explained their job and how the buying and selling of cotton took place at the exchange.

Cotton Museum Display of Pricing Board

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Cotton Gin and Cotton Bale

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We spent time roaming along Beale Street. We ended up having lunch at the Hard Rock Café on Beale Street. It is in a building that used to be a clothing store named Lansky’s where Elvis bought his clothing. The story we were told was that when Elvis was a teenager, he would window shop at Lansky’s all the time and the owner would ask Elvis when he was going to come into the store and actually buy something. When Elvis began singing he needed some new clothes and the owner of Lansky’s gave Elvis a line of credit to buy clothes for his performances. Elvis became one of Lansky’s best customers along with musicians like Roy Orbison and Issac Hayes. Lansky’s now has stores in a couple of different locations in Memphis. There is a great interview online with the owner of Lansky’s that tells this story in detail. Go to: http://www.classicbands.com/LanskyInterview.html

Elvis Statue at Visitor's Center

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We didn’t realize that Gibson had a guitar factory in Nashville. When we found out they had a factory tour, we decided to go on one. We viewed workers (called Luthiers) binding layers of wood together, molding the shapes of the body of the guitar, fitting the neck to the guitar, painting and lacquering them, buffing them to a glossy finish, and finally tuning the guitars. Any finished guitar that does not meet Gibson’s stringent requirements is destroyed; they are not sold as seconds or at a discounted price. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take any pictures during the tour.

Gibson Factory Tours have been showcased on the Travel Channel’s “Made in

America

” series. If you go to: http://www.gibson.com/Gibson/Gibson-Tours.aspx you can watch videos of their factory tours.

Bigger Than Life Guitars on Display

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Gibson Guitar Showroom

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We took a 90 minute bus tour of Memphis called the Backbeat Memphis Mojo Tour. Our guide, who was also a musician, not only gave us information about the history of blues, soul and rock and roll, but played a guitar and had us join her in singing tunes most of us were familiar with from our younger years. We drove by numerous recording studios and parks where people like Elvis, B.B. King, and Johnny Cash performed before they became famous. Our guide was incredibly knowledgeable and had lots of stories to tell about how the churches and gospel music had an impact on the music in Memphis. We drove by some of the old hangouts where bootleggers sold their moonshine and performers entertained with their music. Lots of current musicians still come to Memphis to record their music at these recording studios.

Tour Guide on Backbeat Memphis MojoTour

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B.B. King Statue at Visitor's Center

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We left Memphis and drove on to Nashville. We had hoped to dine at one of the Neely’s BBQ restaurants, but found out that all of them had closed. I looked into Segway tours for Tennessee and found one in Nashville, so I went online and booked a tour for us. We spent two and a half hours riding around Nashville on Segways taking in the sights of the city. What a great way to see so much up close! We would never be able to see things so well if we were on a bus or in a car and we would never be able to cover so much of the city on foot in two and a half hours.

Segway Tour Nashville

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Redneck Fall Decoration at a Plumbing Company

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From Nashville, we traveled to the Gatlinburg area. We drove through Pigeon Forge which is a huge tourist area. There were lots of carnival type rides, arcades, t-shirt and souvenir shops, restaurants, bars, and hotels. Not our kind of place but obviously the kind of place a lot of other people visit.

One thing that really stood out about this whole area of Tennessee was how much everyone decorates their businesses and homes for the fall season. I have never seen so many beautiful, big fall displays.

Bear Fall Display

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Farmer Fall Display

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In Gatlinburg, we went up to the top of their space needle to get a 360° view of the city. Again, there were lots of tourist places similar to Pigeon Forge but on a slightly smaller scale. The 41^st Gatlinburg Craftsmen’s Fair was taking place while we were in town so we browsed through over 180 booths watching people performing their craft as well as looking through their displays of items for sale. Craftspeople from all over the

U.S.

travel to Gatlinburg for this crafts fair. Many of the crafts were of the same caliber you would find at the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen’s Fair in Sunapee. We bought a couple pieces of art that we thought were reminiscent of the area to hang up at home and remind us of our travels.

View of Gatlinburg from the Space Needle

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Gatlinburg Space Needle

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On another day, we packed up the pups in the car and headed into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It is one of the national parks I have wanted to visit for a number of years but for whatever reason, we never seemed to get there. So now here we were and we drove for hours on the winding roads taking in the beautiful fall colors of the leaves. The one thing about this area that really surprised Pete and me was the autumn colors of the leaves. When we lived in Virginia many, many years ago, I hated fall because the leaves just faded to brown with virtually no color at all. I thought the whole southeast was like that but boy were we mistaken. Both of us were homesick for our autumn colors and here they were in Tennessee! Our drive that day reminded us so much of driving up in the White Mountains and along the Kancamagus Highway in the fall.

Autumn in the Great Smoky Mountains

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Great Smoky Mountains

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The next day, we left Gatlinburg to travel to Asheville, NC. We decided to take a route that went right through and over the Great Smoky Mountains. We even found a beautiful place to pull off the road with the motor home that was by a bubbling stream where we were able to take a break from driving and make a cup of tea. While we were sipping our tea, we saw a horse and wagon on the other side of the stream with people taking a ride through the woods on a dirt road. We had one of the most scenic drives of our trip that day. The weather and the foliage couldn’t have been more perfect.