Great Smoky Mountain National Park

Wed 29^th September

Drove into the park today and went to the highest point in the park - Clingman's Dome which is over 6000ft above sea level and gives 360deg views of the Smokies. After lunch went up to the Ober Gatlinburg Ski report and took the cable car down into the town & back. Spent the rest of the day wandering around town with supper at TGI Fridays which is a sports bar/restaurant. Going to spend another day here as we have found out that our flight back to SA is going to be a day later than planned !!  

Gatlinburg

Tues 28th Sept

Arrived in Gatlinburg which is the gateway to the Great Smoky Mountain Park and were in for a bit of a shock !! Had to travel trough a town 5Km before Gatlinburg called Pigeon Forge which is the hometown to Dolly Parton and looks like Las Vegas in the Woods. Completely over the top with a mixture of theme parks, millions of souvenir shops and churches !!!  Gatlinburg is not much better except it is nestled between the mountains and has a ski-resort feel to it, apart from the theme rides & souvenir shops.  In fact, in the winter it is a ski-resort and has a nice 120 person cable car which takes you up to the ski-resort above the town.  Spent the rest of the day exploring the town and shopping for gifts.

Yeehaa - howdy Ya'll from Nashville

Went out to downtown Nashville for some live Country Music tonight and some line-dancing from Michelle !
Had dinner in the Wild Horse Saloon (a renowned Nashville venue) with live music and line-dancing lessons

BTW - I found Elvis begging for tips on the pavement !!

Nashville Scenes

Monday 27th Sept
Spent the day exploring Nashville & the famous downtown music area. Some pics of Nashville below.

There is live music everyday in downtown Nashville in numerous venues from 11am to 11pm

Jack Daniels

Sunday 26th Sept
Left Huntsville in the rain and headed north towards Nashville, TN.
On the way popped into Lynchburg, Tennessee to the home of the Jack Daniels Distillery and took the tour of the famous distillery. Very interesting tour which explained how the unique Tennessee Sour Malt Whisky is made.

Our Tour Group at the Jack Daniels Distillery


After the tour and some lemonade (Lynchburg is in a dry county so no drinking is allowed, especially on a Sunday in Tennessee in the bible-belt of the USA !!) we headed for Nashville which is only an hour away.  Planning to stay in Nashville, Music City USA for 2 nights for Michelle to set her Country Music fix after my stay with the Blues ;-)
Cheers, Dereck

Sweet Home Alabama

Sat 25th Sept
Left Clarksdale early and headed across the cotton fields of Mississippi into Alabama.  Headed for Huntsville, Alabama and visited the US Space & Rocket Centre in Huntsville which is recognized as one of the most comprehensive U.S. manned space flight hardware museums in the world. See - http://www.spacecamp.com/museum/overview
Found a nice motel for the night in Huntsville and had a Mexican dinner in Alabama !!!

Graceland - Elvis has left the building !!

Friday 24th Sept
Picked up our car today and headed back to Graceland but Elvis was nowhere to be found :-)

Then left Memphis behind and headed into Mississippi to Clarksdale - birthplace of the Delta Blues
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarksdale,_Mississippi

Went to visit the Delta Blues Museum and tonight we are heading for the Gound Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale which is owned by actor Morgan Freeman who is a native of Clarksdale along with such Blues greats as Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and Ike Turner, 
http://www.groundzerobluesclub.com/home.php
http://www.clarksdaletourism.com/


The Crossroads
This is the intersection of the two great Blues highways (Hwy. 61 and Hwy. 49), alleged by some to be the site where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil for the ability to play music like no other.

Beale Street Blues

Went back to Beale St last night for some good Blues

What a place !!  Darryl, Sven, Mali & Dave would love it here.

More Memphis Magic

Thurs 23rd Sept
Headed downtown today and the 1st stop was the Gibson Factory where Dereck took the tour and Michelle went shopping !!! Unfortunately photos were not allowed in the factory, only the gift shop :-(
This Gibson factory manufactures the hollow body arch-top guitars like the ES-355 made famous by BB King and ES-175. All the solid body electrics like the Les Paul's & SG's are made in Nashville which is definitely going to be a visit when we get to Nashville in a few days time :-)

Had lunch in the Memphis Hard Rock Cafe which has a whole floor dedicated to Elvis

After lunch did some shopping in Beale Street and headed back to the hotel to prepare for another night on Beale Street !!!

Walking in Memphis

Wed 22nd Sept
Arrived at Memphis Amtrak station at 06h30 and took a taxi to our hotel where we were lucky to be able to check in early. Took the trolley car (tram) to downtown Memphis (about 1Km from out hotel) and headed straight for the famous Beale Street.

After lunch took a City Tour which includes a drive by of Graceland, stops at Sun Records where Elvis & Jerry Lee Lewis and many others got their first record deals, another stop at Beale St and some of the older Victorian buildings of downtown Memphis. St Judes Childrens Hospital, the Memphis Pyramid and the famous Peabody Ducks. Every days for the past 77 years, the Peabody ducks who live on the penthouse floor of the famous Peabody Hotel, come down the lift at 11am and walk across a red carpet to the fountain in the hotel lobby/lounge where they swim and play until 5pm when they are ushered out and cross the red carpet again to the lift and back up to the penthouse. They are bred on a farm specifically for this purpose and they spend 3 month in the hotel until they are exchanged for new ducks !! They are then retired to the farm to spend the rest of their days.  No duck is available on the Peabody Menu :-)

Went down to Beale St after dark for dinner and to see the weekly bikers parade. Beale St is alive with bars and clubs with awesome live music everywhere. Drinking is allowed on the streets and you are allowed to take your drinks into any of the bars or clubs along the street. Most of them have live Blues bands playing and there is no covert charge. Saw some amazing blues players and Michelle didn't want to leave when it was time to get the last trolley tram home at 11pm !!! The street stays alive until 3am every night and most bars/clubs only close about 5am. Tomorrow we are going back for more !!!!

Chicago - the Windy City

Monday 20th Sept
Arrived in Chicago via Amtrak from Minneapolis at 4pm and found our hotel only 2 block from Union Station ;-)  Went exploring by bus in downtown Chicago and found a nice Italian eatery - Portillos which had some interesting choices.

Tuesday 21st Sept

Got up early and headed for the Willis Tower (formally Sears tower) which is the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. Got out of the lift at the 103rd floor and you can walk around 360deg for a fantastic view of Chicago. They have 4 glass boxes which protrude about 2m out over the payment with 103 floors below you !!!

 

Willis Tower

Spent the rest of the day riding the 'L' which is the elevated subway train which Chicago is famous for and seeing the sites of the city. At 8pm got the Amtrak to Memphis overnight.

Amtrak - Minneapolis to Chicago

20/09/2010
Took the Amtrak train to Chicago today. Very comfortable double decker train which took 7 hours from Minneapolis to Chicago. Followed the Mississippi river for the 1st 3 hours and then headed across Wisconsin to Milwaukee and finally Chicago. After checking into our hotel we ventured out into downtown Chicago by bus to find a place to eat. Tomorrow we will spend the day sightseeing in Chicago before taking the Amtrak overnight to Memphis.

Catkin & the Pumpkin

After getting home Michelle took the cat (Catkin) for a walk around the garden to see the huge punpkins !!

 

Tomorrow we are off to Chicago by the Amtrak train.

Stillwater & Hudson

Took a leisurely drive to Stillwater, MN and then across the St Croix river to Hudson WI, where we had a nice lunch on the river at Pier500 followed by a walk around the town.

North Shore photos

Peter & Liz's place in Wisconsin

Grand Marais - Lake Superior, north shore

Grand Marais & north shore

Unhappy Americans !!!

From Dereck ... Don't know if you're getting any of this on TV back in SA but ...... the locals are not very happy with the government .. sound familiar !!!!!  Obama & his merry men are getting it from all sides and by the sounds of it the democrats may lose the senate & congress in the Nov mid-term elections.  There is a new party of nutters here called the TEA Party who we saw protesting in Washington.  Can't wait to hear the protests of the locals in the bible belt :-)

North Shore of Lake Superior

Left yesterday for a 3 day trip by car up to the north shore of Lake Superior. Took about 3 hours thru' the rural countryside of Wisconsin to reach Duluth in Minnesota which is at the headwaters of Lake Superior. Then drove up the north shore of the lake for approx 180Km to Grand Marais which is a popular tourist town with a picturesque small harbour & marina. (pics to follow as we have not had a chance to download yet - too busy!!)
Lovely weather yesterday but today is cold & rainy. Will spend the day travelling back to Duluth and stopping off at some of the small restaurants & craft shops on the drive back along the coast.  Lake Superior is so vast it looks just like the sea. In winter this area gets very cold and Canada is only 40Km away from Grand Marais. Lots of hiking and canoeing in the Sawtooth mountains in summer and skiing, etc in the winter.  Had dinner in a local restaurant last night and then went to the local tavern for a few drinks and took in the local live music who had some guy playing blues. Will travel back to River Falls in Wisconsin tomorrow and relax for 2 days before getting our train to Chicago on Monday ...
PS.  On Wed we went to the Mall of America in Minneapolis .. more to follow on this :-)

Washington / Wisconsin- Day 4 & 5

Got up early, packed our bags, checked out of the hotel and took a walk down the road to catch the metro train to the Washington Airport.  Once we had checked in we had a breakfast bagel (bacon, cheese, tomotoe and egg) at Cosi’s and waited to board our plane which had been delayed by 20 minutes.  Dereck and I were booked to sit in the front row!  Arrived in Philadelphia and once we had found where we needed to board, we had lunch at Chick-fil-A – both had a chicken sandwhich.  On the flight to Mineapolis, I was booked to sit in the front row and Dereck was booked to sit on the last seat at the back.  The flight took 2.5 hours and we gained another hour, so now we are 7 hours behind South Africa.  My uncle and aunt, Peter and Liz were waiting for us at the baggage claim terminal and it was great seeing them again. Once home we chatted for a while and then prepared supper – roast fillet with salads followed by espresso choc chip ice cream with chocolate sauce.  Had an early night.

Wisconsin -  Day 5

Dereck got up at 5:30am to go and play a game of golf with Peter.  I read a magazine and then went back to sleep and got up later when they got home.  Had breakfast and then headed on out to Dunn Brothers for some coffee while we checked the e-mail and then went to collect our car.  We have been given a huge big black Dodge Charger.  Went to Target and got the camera cable then headed on to Walmart where we bought another suitacase.  Had lunch at Wendy’s – Dereck a burger and me a chicken salad.  Headed off home to do some computer work.

 

Washington Day 3

Looked out the window and to our dismay saw that it was raining – not too hard but enough to get wet.  Checked the map and then headed out for a 1.8km walk down to the Vietnam War Memorial.  Quite interesting how they have done this, with a laminated book in alphabetical order of all the people who died with the column and row where there name is listed on the wall. 

Wandered around through the park and headed on up towards the White House where we found a restaurant called Cosi where we had breakfast – both had an Italian sausage bolognaise wrap and Dereck had coffee and I had a hazelnut hot chocolate.  

Then took a walk to the Natural History Museum.  This was very interesting and if you saw the movie Night at the Museum 2, this is where it was filmed.  We had lunch here – both hot dogs but Dereck’s plain and mine with cheese, onion and chilli (which was mince).  From here we walked down the road to the American History Museum.  I don’t particularly like history, but found this to be a very interesting place.  From there our plan was to catch the bus to the Arlington Cemetary, but the bus took over an hour to get to us and if we had gone there would not have been another bus to get us back to our hotel, so we just ended up going for a ride on the bus past all the places we had seen yesterday.  Still very interesting and this time we managed to see the South African Embassy.  Got off at the stop near our hotel and had a nice walk back to our hotel, but not before stopping off at Starbucks to have a coffee and me my favourite hazelnut hot chocolate – very yummy.  Freshened up and a bit later took a walk back to the Elephant and Castle for supper.  Dereck had a burger and I had a Thai chicken salad.  Walked back to our hotel passing lots of very enthusiastic baseball fans as the Washington Redskins were playing against the Dallas Cowboys.  Watched a bit of football once we got back to our hotel.

World War II Memorial

Washington Cathedral, Union Station & Chinatown

9/11 photos

 Lincoln Memorial

Washington Memorial

White house

Air & Space Museum

Exploring Washington on 9/11

After a pretty good night’s sleep we woke up refreshed and ready to do some exploring.  We left the hotel at 8:00am and stopped off at a Mac Donald’s round the corner for a bacon and egg griddle (two crumpets with bacon and egg in between) and coffee and orange juice.  Then we headed off to the bus stop to wait for our hop-on-hop-off bus ride.  The whole trip non stop is 2.5 hours and you can get off and on as many times as you want.  Our first stop was at the Lincoln Memorial, then we walked down past the reflecting pool, the World War II memorial and then to the Washington memorial.  Due to it being the anniversary of the 9/11 attack, flags on all government buildings were being flow at half mast and there were quite a number of protesters – also a number of WWII veterans.   We then walked to the Smithsonian info centre and then on to the Aero and Space museum which was very interesting.  After lunch of pizza and chicken strips we made our way to the bus stop and our next stop was China Town.  There was a big arts festival happening with lots of displays of various artists and crafts (mainly jewelry) and some live music which we watched for a while before finding a souvenir shop.  Found the bus stop and got the next bus to a stop closer to our hotel where we walked back to our hotel and arrived there at about 4:15pm.  Both quite relieved to put our fee up for a while.  We have just discovered that the cable we brought to download photos is damaged, so until we are able to buy one, we can’t upload any pictures.  

Touchdown USA

After enduring a 16 hour non-stop flight to Atlanta and then spending a hour in the immigration queue followed by a 2 hour flight to Washington, a metro underground trip and a 500m walk, we have finally arrived at our hotel !!!  Total travelling time from home to our hotel was 28hrs and they say travelling is fun !!!!
A quick shower and set off on foot to the white house. Then a lovely meal and back to our hotel and it is only 3pm in USA !!!!!!

Very jetlagged signing off ........