Nashville

Our last stop of the trip is Nashville. The drive took us into another state and another time zone. On the way, we were fogged in through the Smokey Mountains, and stopped off at the craziest roadside stop called Buc-ees. Their mascot is a beaver and it's a combo of truck stop that doesn't allow trucks (there are a lot of RVs though), AMPM x 100, dollar store and fast food joint! 

After we arrive in Nashville and drop our luggage, Travis walks us to Assembly Food Hall where we have many options for lunch. Since we have a hot chicken dinner tonight, I selected the falafel stand which had a great baba ganoush. 

Our afternoon will consist of driving to some whiskey tastings. The location is a former car factory that has been readapted with food places, a concert venue and the whiskey distilleries. Our tasting started at Corsair, where our guide does a quick discussion of the process and then gives us tastes of a couple of their whiskeys as well as 2 gins, a spiced rum and an absinthe. 

Our second tasting is at Nelson's Greenbriar. This place has a great family story behind it. After viewing this distilling facility and the barrel storage area (where the scent of whiskey was strong), we sat at a long table for our tastings.

The first thing we were instructed to do was swish some whiskey in our mouth to prime it for what's to come. This made such a difference to cutting the harsh alcohol taste going down. We tasted 5 different whiskeys with different properties, all explained to us as we went. We were also instructed to blend a couple of the whiskeys to taste the difference. This was my favourite tasting experience thanks to a fun family story and true education about a spirit that I am not that familiar with. 

After we return to the hotel, we have a few minutes before heading out again for a walking tour followed by the hot chicken dinner. Travis is great at telling the story of the places we go to, in this case Ryman Auditorium, Printer's Alley and the history of country music. The chicken place is Prince's in Assembly Food Hall. They have options from plain to XXL! I decided to take a risk and do light mild on chicken tenders and with fries.😁 The chicken was very good, just enough heat to give me a sense of it and the fries were delicious. Tonight is our last night together and I've come to enjoy the company of Han and Fiona and really appreciated Travis' ability to keep us on track, on time and in good spirits. 

The next morning, I've got most of the day before transferring to an airport hotel (for cost). I ran into Fiona and Han at breakfast then off to Country Music Hall of Fame. Travis has suggested the audio guide which was a good idea for me. Not being a country music fan, I would've missed out on a lot of the details. The tour is very good and while it includes people I've never heard of, they also had Taylor Swift, Shania Twain, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton and reminded me that at one time we watched Minnie Pearl on TV quite a bit! The display of gold and platinum records is impressive. 

The main facade of the building has windows made to look like piano keys 

After a very quick but delicious turkey melt and tater tots, plus a nice convo with a couple of ladies looking for a spot to sit, I ran around the corner to the Hatch Show Print tour, barely making it on time. The first stop on this tour is a room where the two young entertaining guides tell us about the letterpress printing process they do here. While the other guide tells us about the history of Hatch using examples tacked up on the walls around the room, each of us has the opportunity to finish a small letterpress poster! The variety of posters are amazing and beautiful. From this room, we are then walked to see the printing room where several staff are working different presses, many quite old. Seeing them all in operation is a treat. The final stop of the tour is the gallery, which was showing art by the guy who did Peewee's Playhouse. 

After a brief twirl around the shop, I headed to my final destination in Nashville, Ryman Auditorium. Travis had suggested this as an alternative to going to the Grand Ole Opry, which is quite a ways from center of Nashville. The Ryman is where the Opry started and is referred to as the Mother Church of country music. The hall was being set up for a Jason Isbell concert. The tour starts with a timeline of the hall, followed by a video telling the story of how it became such an important music venue, not just for country stars. 

Finally we got to go into the auditorium and get our photo taken on the stage! Extra points for having a full professional backdrop and set due to the concert! You can also record yourself singing but I did not partake to save everyone's ears. 

After that, I walked back to the hotel, surrounded by the music that poured out of every window. The hotel helped me call a cab to be taken to the airport hotel. 

Although inquired about other things to do close by, I decided I didn't need to spend $20 for rides to/from a fancy mall. I took it easy the rest of the morning and got to the airport early.

I thought I'd got out of Nashville without buying things but right past TSA screening was a whiskey store carrying Louisa's liqueur! Had to get a bottle of course. Then near my gate I saw Parnassus books! Had to get Ann Patchetts lastest of course. 😁

I looking forward to some Louisa's over ice cream when I get home. 

Asheville, NC

We have another one-night stop in Asheville, NC. The drive from Charleston is fairly uneventful but as we approach,  mountains appear in the distance adding some interest to the view. 

After stopping at our hotel and dropping off bags, Travis takes us on a quick tour of the main town offering some suggestions for lunch spots. Asheville has some great Art Deco architecture that has remained intact from the 1920s and a lot of great artists live here. 

We had lunch at the Woolworth Walk soda counter, which also currently holds selections of independent artists' works. After a club sandwich, Fiona and I strolled a bit through the booths, picking up a blank card from one artist's shop, in lieu of bringing back actual art. 

We have plans to meet back with Travis so he can drive us to Biltmore Estate. The property is massive and as we enter the first gate, we are immediately impressed with the forested grounds. We later learned that all of this property was over-worked farm land that had to be rehabilitated and was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. The mansion itself was designed by Richard Morris Hunt. There was a wonderful audio guide describing various rooms and highlighting key pieces of art. The tour covers the main floor, family bedroom wings, guest areas, pool, bowling alley and gym, and servants quarters. We lucked out in timing our visit as the staff were decorating for Christmas and many of the rooms already had trees, mantel decorations and other festive touches.

Upon exiting the house, the stable, carriage house and repair shop are all converted into dining & shops. 

We had just enough time to do a quick stroll of the closer garden areas including the Italian garden, walled garden and conservatory. Each new section was more beautiful and impressive than the next. 

As we returned to the main driveway, we saw Travis and the van and our drive back to the hotel took us past some of the farm areas so we got a full loop of the estate. 

The day concluded with a delicious BBQ dinner of pulled pork, corn pudding and baked beans at Buxton Hall BBQ. 

Tomorrow, another early departure will take us to Nashville and we leave Rita behind to return home from here.

Charleston

The remaining tour stops are all fast one night stays. Charleston is a quick 2 hour drive from Savannah but as we leave Georgia, the cypress swamps reward us with glimpses of heron & egrets. 

Travis tells us that Charleston was a slave trading port so has been very wealthy. We stop for lunch at Brown Dog Deli for a tasty sandwich surrounded by retro movie posters and a ridiculously compelling video (no sound) of two hands with red painted nails crushing what looks like soaps or candles. We tear ourselves away from the video to drive to Buxton Books to meet our guide for a Black History tour. The bookstore is small and cute but with a nice selection and a banned books display front and center.

Our guide Damon Fordham finally arrives a bit late, starting us off at an adjacent parking structure. I finally understand why when he pulls out a mouth organ to play a bit of Summertime from Porgy & Bess (using the parking building for acoustics). He will tell us more about how this relates to Charleston later. 

I can't begin to replay the amount of history that Damon shared with us but he covers everything from the founding of the city to the Slave market, to St Michael's Church and how Mother Emmanuel AME church was founded, to a brief period during Reconstruction when all citizens of South Carolina had more comprehensive rights than we do now and how that was destroyed by Jim Crow laws and how racism was used to bolster the wealthy class. He added a few more musical interludes along the way and told us the story of the couple who inspired the story of Porgy & Bess and the Gershwin musical still performed today. It was a fascinating talk. I bought one of his books which he signed (also supporting the store). 

After the tour, we met back with Travis who drove us to our hotel. After getting our room settled, I joined Fiona to walk down to the City Market. I took a quick stroll through and discovered most of the booths to be fairly conventional crafts, but there was a sweet grass basket maker so I stopped to talk to him. During our walk with Damon, we had stopped to chat with a Ms. Simmons about her baskets and I really wanted to get one. Not being sure how far to go back to her location and finding this vendor to have some smaller baskets & scoops I picked up a small rice scoop from him for a slight discount. The baskets are extremely labour intensive and so pricey. 

After leaving the market, I looked at the map and felt the intersection where Ms Simmons was didn't seem too far so I kept going there and she was still set up. Her prices were much better and she was willing to bargain. I found a basket I liked and suggested a price well below her asking. But I realized too late that she only took cash! She was kind enough to allow that she would take what cash I had if I promised to send a cheque to her! I couldn't believe that kind of trust! I agreed, took her address, snapped a picture of her with the basket and then walked off. 

Then I thought I should see if there is an ATM from my bank close by - yep, down a few blocks! After finding the machine, getting some cash that would also cover Travis' tip, I quickly walked back to Ms Simmons - meeting up with Fiona on the way. I managed to catch Ms Simmons before she wrapped up. I learned that she is married to a military man who served out of San Diego during Vietnam where she lived for many years! She's from the Charleston area and learned her weaving craft from her grandmother. Her smile and warmth just melted my cold cynical heart. 

 

I caught the free shuttle to save time back to the hotel where I decided to eat the remaining half of my lunch sandwich instead of going out for dinner. 

Tomorrow we have an early start and longish drive to Asheville. 

Savannah

We arrived in Savannah yesterday after a smooth 4 hour car ride. We got into town in time to look for lunch. After a short walk around the area near our hotel, we stopped at Java Burrito where I got a chicken bowl which was filling and reasonably healthy. 

Our afternoon activity is a tour of Bonaventure Cemetery, a beautiful old municipal cemetery made famous by the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. 

Our guide Paschal was a wonderful story teller. Despite the heat, he regaled us with the history of the cemetery and how it ties with the history of Savannah. He pointed out symbols carved into stone monuments, interesting family plots, historical figures of importance to Savannah and less well known figures. 

One thing we learned is that the statue of the bird girl that appeared on the cover of the book has been moved to the Telfair Museum. 

After the tour, we went back to the hotel to rest up a bit. A couple of the group went out to dinner or for a walk. I decided I wanted to check out the riverfront. I started at the Waving girl statue and walked along the shop fronts, food stalls and restaurants. The water front is very active but the stores had a slightly touristy air about them. 

I popped back up to street level near the Cotton Exchange building and walked down to Leopold's for ice cream. They had a lot of different and interesting flavours and the Turtle Pecan Pie flavour I tried was delicious! 

I came back for an early night and a shower, ready for our next full day.

The main activity for day 2 in Savannah is a food walking tour. Travis took us to the Cotton Exchange to explain a bit of Savannah history before heading to the Taste Experience location to start the tour. 

Our guide is Bailey. She was terrific! We had a total of 6 food stops starting with a pork belly stuffed donut at the shop 

Along the way, in addition to sausage rolls, she crab soup (delish!), Parmesan crusted haddock with a beer taste, chicken empanada, and honey tastings with an apple honey cheddar bite and cookie, we walked along part of the river front starting with a great view of Talmadge Bridge with two large ships passing under.

Bailey took us for a walk through the JW Marriott hotel, which is in a refurbished power plant. The design is unique but it's the decor which stuns. The entire lobby area is filled with fossils, huge geodes, crystals of various sizes and a giant metallic looking dinosaur sculpture! 

After popping back up to street level and a couple more stops we ended the tour at the Savannah Bee Company for the final taste of different honeys and a couple of treats.

Everyone broke up for the rest of the afternoon. I headed to the Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters to book a tour. I had enough time to walk over to the Telfair Museum first to check out their collection and of course the Bird Girl. Most of the art was not particularly notable (some impressionist style paintings, portraits, sculpture) but they surrounded the Bird Girl with various paintings of Savannah, giving a nice context. 

At the Owens-Thomas house, our guide emphasized the nature of the contributions of the enslaved population of the house to the running, maintenance and function of it for the family who lived there. Hearing of this in the context of home living puts it into a perspective that is very relatable to a city person like myself. I found it incredibly moving, and it was made more poignant by finding that a servant (probably an indentured woman of African descent) from the 1920s shared my name. 

After a brief rest back at the hotel, the group of us headed to the Pirate's House for dinner. It's quite a fun but also historical house. There truly were pirates who occupied it and used various secret tunnels to get from there to the waterfront. The house inspired RL Stevenson's Treasure Island. You can still see parts of old tunnels and the Herb House is the oldest structure in Savannah. We quite enjoyed our meals as well! 

Atlanta History

This morning I met up with our guide, Travis Hanks (yes, he's a distant cousin of Tom) and some of my fellow travelers. I'm rooming with Rita from Toronto and we also have Fiona from Cambridge, England.

One the things I found appealing about the description of this tour was a focus on Black American history. Today we visited some sites in Atlanta that told part of that story. 

Our first stop was the Atlanta History Center. It's located in Buckhead so we passed some pretty fancy homes on the way, including the Governors mansion.

The History Center has exhibits on Atlanta, the Olympics, local folk art, railroads, and a beautiful garden and farm buildings. There is a steam train locomotive that told the story of how the railroad  built the city. 

The highlight of the Center is the Cyclorama, a 360 degree 50' high oil painting & diorama that was originally created in the late 1800s by German artists in Milwaukee. It served as the movie of its day. At the History Center, there is a film that tells some of the story of this impressive art work. The painting technique gives an incredible impression of being 3 dimensional in places and the addition of the diorama figures really adds to this effect.

The Center also had a lovely folk art exhibit with all different kinds of craft types from quilts to pottery to musical instruments. 

The cafe at the Center had a particularly delicious selection of items made with local ingredients. 

After the Center we headed to the MLK National Historic Site. We weren't able to join the tour of the birthplace but their exhibits on his life and times were very well done. Travis guided us a bit around the area, explaining how the post Reconstruction segregation laws affected this community and showed us MLKs family home. 

The original Ebenezer Baptist church building is in this area, as well as a more modern and larger church building. The MLK memorial includes his and Mrs King's tombs and exhibits of his personal effects, awards, clothes and other ephemera that really humanizes this great man. 

After a rest break, I met up with Travis for dinner. We were joined by Han from the Netherlands, who had missed our morning meeting! 

Travis took us to Twisted Soul for some delicious soul food. I had a wonderful pulled pork sandwich and delicious cornbread along with some stimulating conversation about all of our travels.

Tomorrow is a relatively early start to get on the road to Savannah.

Trip through the American South East

Due to various issues at work, I haven't given myself a significant vacation until now.

A couple of months ago, I was toying with two potential group tours. One was a Death Valley photo trip that was pricey but very small. The other was a trip with Intrepid Travel thru the Southeastern US, with a focus on Black history. I ended up choosing the Intrepid tour for cost reasons - I'd get more days out of it. Turned out to be a lucky choice because the unexpected appearance of Hurricane Hilary in late August created a lot of devastation in the Death Valley area and the park is closed for the time being. 

Today I started my trip by flying into Atlanta, the joining point of the tour. I spent an extra night at the hotel and had a couple of hours to kill. We are quite close to Centennial Olympic Park so that seemed like a good place to get a few steps in after a long flight. 

The park has quite a bit of open space but a whole area off to one side consists of several water features dedicated to various Olympic themes or people. 

I caught a squirrel playing chicken with a red-tailed hawk in one of the trees in the park.

So apparently Georgia squirrels are as brazen as the ones at home. 

I had initially intended to grab a bite at the hotel cafe however the only people in there were some business men at the bar, no servers in sight. This had a distinctly unappealing air so I checked out Google Maps for some ideas. One that seemed promising and was close was By George.

Turned out to be a great choice. The service was fantastic from the start. I was greeted by the manager who stopped at my table to say hi. The server was wonderfully informed. The room is gorgeous. The restaurant is in the Candler Hotel (part of the Hilton chain) in a turn of the last century building funded by Coca-Cola founder Asa Candler, and was the first steel skyscraper in Atlanta. The dining room is high ceilinged with marble columns (of local Georgia stone) and beautiful chandeliers. 

The manager told me the building was a bank at one point and offered to show me the basement vault after my meal.

With the help of my server, I chose the tomato & burrata salad, shrimp & grits, and peach bread pudding. The salad was delicious with excellent quality grape tomatoes and nice burrata. 

The shrimp was outstanding. At the server's suggestion I asked for them to tone down the heat. While it pushed my tolerance for 'piquante', the flavours were incredible. The bread pudding was quite good but not peachy enough. The price of the meal was very reasonable compared to what a similar might cost in LA.

After settling up, I was led downstairs past the kitchen to the small vault and safe deposit room. The detail on the inside of the safe doors was amazing and I loved the touch of whimsy with the 'gold' bars and Coke bottles. 

The front room of the space was laid out with a table and place settings and I was told that they are planning to do up the room as a chef's table for the holidays.

On my way out, the manager showed me the chandelier hanging in the ornate marble stairwell. He had quite a story about how it was found in a storage crate completely intact in perfect working order! 

All in all, what a wonderful introduction to Atlanta and southern hospitality. 

Tomorrow morning I meet the group and my roommate for the week. Hoping it's a fun group.