Single Blog View

You know when you’ve ended up in one of those areas where you know you shouldn’t be, well we’ve had a very squeaky bum moment in one of those areas after dark in Memphis.

Let me take you back to the beginning of our 500 mile and one new state day. The day started in a very rainy Pigeon Forge, very very rainy. I’d spotted in the yellow pages that the local helicopter museum had the helicopter from Airwolf as one of it’s exhibits (yes I do lead an exceedingly exciting life, thumbing through the local yellow pages wherever I stay) so we tried briefly to find that but couldn’t see it through the rain and I didn’t fancy the mad dash to a tacky souvenir shop to get any Dollywood tat as I’d already got soaked just packing my things into the car, so we headed across Tennessee. If you are interested, we stayed at the river chase motel in Pigeon Forge - www.riverchasemotel.net

When we got to Pigeon Forge last night we’d been a little confused as we thought that Tennessee was in the next time zone, Central time, but when we asked at the restaurant and checked the clocks in the motel they were showing the same time as we had on the east coast when we started. We then realised that the time zone actually split the state of Tennessee and half was in Eastern and half was in Central and spent the next part of the journey looking for a sign by the road telling us that we’d changed zones, no such luck.

The drive over to Nashville was pretty nasty really, if it wasn’t for the rain it was the wind that was buffeting the brick formally known as the grand caravan but as we headed down town the weather picked up. Fortunately Ivan and his dad had decided to find a bar in Pigeon Forge and had got chatting with the locals and had explained our plans, they had suggested a bar called Tootsies in downtown Nashville and what a result (http://www.tootsies.net/). We were able to park just across the street and once a quick shower had passed we hopped over and went in. There inside the door were two guys playing live music at lunch time and a bar full of people listening along appreciatively. Although I didn’t recognised any of the songs, it was easy to tell they were pretty good and they were entering in with some banter with the crowd. They even regaled a story of how some guys had left his business card for a Santa for hire as a tip and they decided to call him on their phone and put him on speaker phone so the bar could hear, it was like a radio show prank call done live in front of us. I hope that was authentic and not just put on for the tourists as I hope that is just what Nashville is like.

We stayed for a couple of drinks but knowing we had a long drive, decided to head off back on the interstate. This is where I made a new friend. Some guy had been indicating right in the right hand lane and then pulled left in front of my to over take a lorry, no problem. Once he pulled in I accelerated slightly to get past. What I had spotted but he hadn’t was that by pulling in he was about to encounter merging traffic so I accelerated a little more to get past to give him enough time to pull in behind me, but instead he just started to pull out alongside me, so I had to brake and he had to brake more. No damage done so I though nothing more of it. A couple of miles further down the road I noticed that he had caught up with me and had started flicking me the bird. I ignored him and kept driving, but he just kept sitting on my tail flicking the bird. I eventually pulled away and thought nothing more of it, however another 10-15 miles down the road, I had got caught behind a lorry in the outside lane when I looked in my mirrors and there he was again, this time honking his horn and flicking me the bird with both hands, again I ignored him. Eventually he gave up, but I’m not sure what he was trying to achieve, let’s just hope he didn’t have a gun.

In our quest to go coast to coast we also want to visit as many states as we can as well so instead of heading straight for Memphis we decided to drop into Independence Mississippi, chosen only for it’s name (an Independence that Dave Gorman didn’t go to on his trip- If you are not aware of this, check out his book/DVD of America Unchained, a road trip but one avoiding using chain hotels restaurants or gas stations). Independence MS was also chosen for it’s believed proximity to Memphis, but as the sun was setting and we still hadn’t got there we were a little concerned.

As you will remember Monday night was a lesson in not stopping at a motel at a truck stop (or one with railroad tracks nearby) so we had set our hearts on not doing the same again today, but not knowing Memphis we didn’t know what to do. The previous night’s conversation in the bar had pointed us to Beale street downtown Memphis but we weren’t sure of the exact location or where we could stay so we headed for down town. By this stage it was 7 o’clock and dark. We went down a couple of streets and then a couple more and realised that it was looking more and more estate and slum like and no bars or hotels could be seen. In fact all we could see were gangs on corners or the odd dodgy looking guy hanging around. After a couple of more turns and passing by a freight yard we found the Liberty Bowl football stadium and headed the hell out of there. For the second time, and certainly more real time we felt in actual danger. Those are the scenarios you read about, 4 middle class guys in a car with Florida plates in the wrong part of Memphis reading a map is a recipe for disaster. As we were heading out of town for the ring road and the relative safety of a truck stop we passed a crime scene with about 4 police cars and an ambulance, we had assumed that a store had been robbed.

We made sanctuary of the hotel in Lake Horn just over the border in Mississippi, and although the rooms have free wi-fi, they also have very thin walls so am having to type this under the duvet to keep the noise down. We decided to dine at Hooters, as you do, and I have to say I was greatly disappointed, not what I would call Hooters grade girls, Brandi from the WingHouse would knock spots off of any of the girls tonight (which I'd pay to see). We did see on the news though that there’d been a fatal shooting at a restaurant in downtown Memphis around 7 pm this evening which made us all a little uneasy in our seats. Rag and I have left Ivan and his dad back in Hooters to get some intelligence on the day ahead, either that or they need more beer.

Tomorrow is a key day on our trip but I won’t spoil it for you (although you’ll see it on the planned route if you do want to look ahead). Let’s just hope it’s a safer day and we make it through without having to change our underpants too many times.

(Oh and sorry for the large amount of text and no pictures, but it’s difficult taking pictures when driving or you are about to get shot. See Rag’s post or the separate road trip photos page if you want to see more.)