Day #5: Memphis, TN to Bulls Gap, TN

At some point after leaving Oklahoma City yesterday we reached the halfway mark in our journey.  Memphis was an amazing day, full of history and exuberance.  How do we follow up something like a day spent in Memphis?  We decided to take an opposite approach.  If day #4 was all about Memphis, day #5 was all about scenery and an attempt to see a part of the south that we wouldn't have seen from the interstate.

The excitement started early when I became almost completely convinced that the man who came into the breakfast room in the hotel while TJ and I were chowing down on the free hot breakfast was none other than WKRP in Cincinnati alum Howard Hesseman.

Howard Hesseman

I came within a hair of asking him if he was, indeed, the former Dr. Johnny Fever, but my cowardice won out and I kept quiet.  Later, TJ got a look at him and immediately said, "Nah, that's not him."  For the sake of argument let's say that it was.
After hanging out with Howard, since Memphis is so close to the Mississippi border we decided that it wouldn't be too far out of the way to dip into Ol' Miss for a spell so we could add it to the list of states we've been to.  So we headed southeast out of Memphis and caught highway 72, which crosses the state line and then runs parallel with Mississippi's northern border just a few miles below Tennessee.

TJ and I never expected to see this sign in our lifetimes.

The weather today was absolutely gorgeous.  Clear blue skies.  Mild temperature.  No humidity.  We know we didn't get anywhere close to a representative look at Mississippi, but what we did see was beautifully scenic, and we could enjoy our surroundings on smooth, maintained roads.  

A view of Northern Mississippi

We know it's really hard for landscape photos to do the scenery justice, but believe us when we tell you that this is a very pretty part of the U.S.  For those of you following on the map, we caught Mississippi highway 15 off of 72 headed north and crossed back into Tennessee. 15 then became Tennessee highway 125.  On this road we passed through the idyllic little town of Bolivar:

Downtown Bolivar, Tennessee

We then caught state highway 18 and shortly thereafter turned right on state highway 100, which took us through part of the Chickasaw State Park.  We took 100 all the way to Decaturville, where we took highway 69 north to I-40.  

Tennessee State Highway 100

From one of our pit stops during our scenic diversion.

I was tempted to keep going on back roads for awhile longer, but along with the smaller roads came lower speeds and we still had to go through Nashville, Knoxville and beyond before stopping for the night.  I had hoped to at least stop at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville (original home of the Grand Old Opry) and the Country Music Hall of Fame.  It was beginning to look too optimistic to accomplish both, so I began to set my sights simply on the Ryman.  On the way we stopped at a very nice rest stop (apparently, all states except California and Oklahoma have very nice rest stops) which reminded us that we were traveling the "Music Highway," as I-40 is called between Memphis and Nashville.  As a result, this particular rest stop was called the Roy Acuff-George Jones Rest Area.  I'm sure this was the feather in the cap in the much celebrated careers of both men.

The next stop:  Nashville, Music City USA.

Nashville Skyline

The Ryman Auditorium is right smack dab in the middle of downtown Nashville.  Unlike Oklahoma City, which was not particularly crowded or difficult to navigate, Nashville is as bustling and busy a downtown as I have ever seen.  It even has some hills, so it seemed to me like a milder version of driving in San Francisco.  We found a parking garage close by and hoofed it a couple blocks to the Ryman.  It's hard to get pictures because the building is pretty big, and it is sandwiched between other big buildings on a narrow street.

The Ryman Auditorium

Plaque outside of the Ryman Auditorium

Elvis Costello brings his Spinning Songbook to the Ryman September 25th.

By this time we were hungry, so we walked down Broadway in search of a lunch.  We found the Big River Bar & Grille in hopes of getting something small to tide us over, since we still had hopes of finding good southern fried chicken for dinner.  After a tasty lunch (mine included cheesy grits) we realized we had spent much more time in Nashville than intended and we needed to get back on the road.  Mags the GPS lead us against both of our instincts safely and efficiently out of downtown and back onto I-40.

From Nashville the Taurus chewed up the miles.  Stops were few and brief as we tried to get to Knoxville by a reasonable hour.  But shortly before arriving in Knoxville we crossed over into the Eastern time zone and lost an hour.  We knew we would not make it to our planned on destination of Johnson City, so we looked for alternatives.  We settled on a little town called Bulls Gap, in which Mags helped us find a Best Western.  We had a new target destination only about 35 miles shy of where we had planned to stay.

We had another celebrity sighting as well.  Out of nowhere Dolly Parton appeared:

Dolly Parton on I-40

Just a little ways outside of Knoxville we finally bid adieu to I-40, which splits off to the southeast headed toward Asheville.  We headed toward the northeast on I-81.  The Best Western Executive Suites in Bulls Gap is arguably the nicest of all the BWs we've stayed in on this trip.  I was greeted by Kimberly, who in her delightful Tennessee accent rotated through her repertoire of pet names while talking to me:  sweetie, hon, baby, etc.  She also regaled me at length about the fabulous hot breakfast that would be waiting for us in the morning:  scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, gravy, pancakes, honey buns with butter, cereal, muffins.  The Works.  She also recommended a place down the road for dinner that makes great catfish called Sandy's Diner.  We tried to make it, but by the time we got there they had just closed.  So the bad dinner karma that has followed us throughout the trip struck yet again, and forced us to settle for Taco Bell and Dairy Queen, still in search of the elusive southern fried chicken.

Tomorrow is our last day on the road.  We will soon cross over into Virginia, and will be watching and listening carefully for any road closures due to flooding that might cause problems for us.  We may be meeting HHJ and T-Ray in Fredericksburg before I get to pull into the driveway of our new home for the first time.  In the meantime, we will be on the hunt for Tennessee and Virginia shot glasses for TJ's collection.  (We struck out in Mississippi.)  So come back tomorrow for the 6th and final day of the trip.  Until then, with the Dodgers and Giants currently tied 1-1, I bid you good night.