Day 21

October 20 – Chattanooga to Nashville

Breakfast at Maple Street Biscuit Company

A biscuit is kind of like a scone but more flakey pastry than cake. It’s one of Josh’s fav southern foods. He has tried to make the sausage gravy at home but the sausage is not quite the same. Needless to say we were both a little excited for this breakfast. Most of Chattanooga had the same idea. The queue to order snaked right through the restaurant! It seemed daunting but moved quite quickly. It was one employees job to shout out the names of the orders when they were ready. She shouted names like ‘Wonder Woman’, ‘Captain America’ and ‘George Washington’. We wondered at this and were busy trying to think up a cool Aussie name to have her yell out – Captain Kangaroo, Mick Dundee, Skippy the bush kangaroo.

When we placed our order we had not yet decided what name to use and our server asked us this question –

I chose Ned Stark. Turns out that’s how your order name was assigned! So instead of an Aussie name we were stuck with Ned Stark!

The biscuits and gravy were delicious even though they look so unappetizing and photograph like crap!

Right next door was a candy store so we went in, video called Harry and showed him around.

So many sodas!

A fine selection of Halloween candy for Harry and Shyanna.

We hit the road for Nashville but stopped for a quick look at the Tennessee River.

Then we were in the mountains!

This was 11am!

We stopped for a rest break about half and hour out of Nashville and our server was so excited to hear an accent and meet some Australians. She asked us if it was very different and we told her we had just spent 5 minutes looking at and taking pictures of the iced chocolate Mother’s and massive Red Bull cans! She laughed.

Nashville

Black Shag Vintage

For records, band tees and cowboy boots.

Third Man Records – Josh is in his element.

We checked into our hotel, returned the hire care and got a LYFT to the pedestrian bridge near the stadium. It was game day for the two rival college football teams: Tennessee State and Tennessee Tech.

What an atmosphere! People had set up tents and bbqs and trays of southern food – sort of like the car park at Flemington for the Melbourne Cup. It’s called a Tailgate party and it’s a tradition before games. People even had full size smokers!

Students and alumni were in their fraternity and sorority groups. So much fun!

We crossed the river.

And descended into madness! Broadway was FULL of hens groups, bachelor parties, party buses, and even dinosaurs. The sound was so loud you could feel it – music coming from every bar and venue. Yahooing and cheering. So many drunk people! What will it be like after dark?

I shopped for cowboy boots and found a pair I loved but I don’t think they suit my large calves 😩

We walked off Broadway to eat at Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint.

Then we headed back to crazy street to see how much drunker people could get.

I was still holding onto my cowboy boot dream but after Betty’s Boots showed me every relaxed fit/wide calf they had – I was not convinced. They just looked awful on me.

I tried a jacket instead for the bargain price of $600 (50% off!) I could purchase a hand made suede jacket. Hand made in India in a sweat shop. Nope.

We followed the smell of deliciousness to a store called Savannah’s Candy Kitchen selling salt water taffy, pecan gophers, pecan pralines and pretzels covered in butter fingers. We bought some take away for dessert.

Moved on and tried a different boot store and focused on ankle boots. Nearly got some but a gurgle in my tummy sent me running to Josh to call an uber. We have not been quite right since Mexico.

These two honky tonks are home in bed at 8pm. Hot tip from the concierge – now we’ve seen what the tourists come to see, head to east Nashville tomorrow for an authentic experience. Hopefully will be a lot quieter with everyone sleeping in and nursing hangovers.