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Nashville, TN

“Where y’all from?”
“Australia”
“You live in a trailer?”
We are in Mississippi. The southern accent seems to be the strongest in the country. Yet, if they misunderstood us, we must have strong accents too! We have just driven from Louisiana where they say, “thank God for Mississippi” as it makes every other state seem just that bit better. Apart from their hilarious accents, there isn’t much going for Mississippi. The rest of the country has accepted our drivers license as ID, but not in Mississippi. I asked security at the hotel casino where we were staying, why they didn’t. Their response was “we don’t get international visitors”. We must be the only two willing to sleep in a cheap hotel in the middle of nowhere for three days to save some money. Maybe it wasn’t so hard to believe that it was half the price of a campsite elsewhere.

The south is famous for fried chicken. What better place to try this 2,000 calorie meal than at “Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken diner”. Well, it certainly was an experience. The patrons and chefs were the height of basketball players but the width of extra large sumos. The southern accent was as thick as ever and it felt as though we were in a Forest Gump movie. It sounded like “Bubba” sitting at the table next to ours, when he said in a hardly recognisable accent: “My rich cousin drove 4 hours for fancy tomatoes and pheasants. I’d only do that for fried chicken”. He was in the right place. For $6, the plate was full of three large pieces of fried chicken, baked beans, white bread and SLAW. A combo to block the arteries and stretch the fat pants. We are beginning to really miss fresh fruit and vegetables. Apart from the fried chicken experience, the only thing going for Memphis, Tennessee was Graceland. We saw Elvis Presley’s house from the outside rather than paying a whopping $70 to enter. Meh! Unless you’re an Elvis fan, it’s just a big house on a ****** main road. Farewell to you, one horse Memphis town.

The everyday folk out in Nashville, Tennessee sound as if they jumped straight out of a country and western film clip. We attempted not to giggle at their accents. No other place in the world could a city get away with having their nightlife back to back with country music bars. The home of country, Nashville, sure can. Each bar down Broadway has live music with singers, singing about their truck, a girl, beer, blue jeans, losing a dog, but always, their truck! It was all knee slapping, boot scooting good. Our favourite was the band at ‘Honky Tonk’. After that ranch party in Tahoe, I don’t mind a bit of country music to get the foot tapping. It’s a good second best after Hanson anyway!

Why would you drive to Kentucky? Obviously for a $5 KFC Buffet! Wow, life is exciting for us right now… If we hadn’t of come, we wouldn’t have known that they don’t have those slightly yummy KFC chips, but instead have mac and cheese and baked beans as side orders. We had a much better reason for driving through Kentucky, to the state of Ohio. Our very first Intrepid trip, back in May, was to China. For those who remember, we met a lovely group of American zoologists who made our stay in China. Elizabeth, from Ohio, kept in contact with us over the last nine months. With only a few hours notice, Elizabeth kindly took us out for an amazing evening in Cincinnati, Ohio. Over a few too many glasses of wine, we chatted for many hours about travelling and life in general. Those ladies made that trip all those many months ago and Elizabeth made our stay in America’s midwest. It was so good to break up the travelling and spend time with a friendly local. The morning after that night of red wine, I swore I would never drink again. Quite obviously that ridiculous declaration wasn’t going to last very long. The free bourbon tastings at Kentucky’s Jim Bean distillery was enough to put me off again however. Twenty four types of bourbon, tasted like 24 varieties of petrol.

Our little 9 hour venture to Ohio took us up to one of the country’s most northern states. That venture meant the next day, we had to drive all the way back down to the southern state of Alabama. The few thousand religious signs indicated we had entered The Bible Belt of the south. Some of the signs were rather confronting. Others were light hearted and witty. Two of our favourites were:
– Going in the wrong direction? Jesus specialises in UTurns
– Today’s forecast: God reigns and the sun shines
We were back in the Deep South, not for fried chicken but to experience more of the southern culture. This can be quite difficult, as you can’t buy a cultural, non touristy, experience. It just happens. Most of the time, local interactions have been in local restaurants or bars, normally in smaller country towns. Finding an open restaurant in a small town, on the day of rest however proved rather difficult. We found one place open and it served their famous catfish. After Vietnam, I was worried that fried cats would actually be served. Dave reminded me that the south is famous for seafood, so we would be safe from a purring plate. All the food comes out fried. This sadly didn’t surprise us as nothing in the south is fresh. We found it hard to taste the difference between the fried shrimp, fried catfish, fried chicken, fried bread and fried potatoes, but we both enjoyed the experience all the same. Food is such a huge part of any culture. Our free appetiser should have come with instructions however. The table of 10 next to us, watched me figure out that the bowls full of uncooked chunks of onion and ‘slaw was to be placed inside the corn bread cake. It seemed slightly odd having a sandwich before a main meal. At least it wasn’t fried!
Our lack of local food knowledge at this restaurant wasn’t the only thing separating us from all those in their Sunday best. From the moment they said “come right on in”, we were treated like minor celebrities. Immediately, word got around that two Kiwi/Aussies were there. At first, like many Americans, they thought we were English. We overheard people saying “have you heard their accents, go over and listen to them”. We met dozens of waiters who had never heard accents like ours before, as in, not American. They wanted to know all about New Zealand and Australia. One asked why we were in Alabama. We said we had come to hear accents like theirs. Ironic, I know. Their accents were so strong that we had to lean in to understand what on earth they were saying. The manager sent one girl who had the strongest accent over to meet us. Her response to my question, why was her accent stronger than anyone else’s, was: “well ma’am, ma family must be more raaedneck.” Can’t argue with that!
As we sat in this restaurant, ate fried everything and were waited on by some of the country’s friendliest, this country song came over the radio:
“…that’s what I love about Sunday
Singing along to Amazin’ Grace, shaking the preachers hand.New believers gettin’ baptised
Mommas hand held up high. Havin’ a hallelujah good time.
That’s what I love about Sunday.
Going home to my blue jeans, havin’ some fried chicken and baked beans.
Cat-napping on the porch swing, doing nothing at all,
That’s what I love about Sunday”.
All of these little snipets of things we have eaten, seen, heard and especially the people we have met, will leave us with fond memories of the famous southern hospitality.

The week in the south warmed our hearts but it didn’t warm the waistline. One in five American’s are obese. I now understand why. In some states, fried everything seems to be the only option. The jiggling boobs and bouncing bums at Hooters in Florida was a great place to put the fried chicken days ‘behind’ us, literally. It’s hard to eat anything but salad when you have ladies in little knickers, unknowingly, inspiring what goes in the gob.
Thankfully, our last 8 hour drive was from Tampa, west cost of the Florida peninsula, down to the Florida Keys. It was also the last time our sat nav said “drive straight for the next 350km”. On the way we stopped in the Eve
rglades and went on those airboats. It’s kind of like a whitewater rafting boat but with a large propeller. The everglades is 1.5million acres of marshy land that is mostly under water and covered with tall grass. It was also full of alligators and birds that our airboat driver named Henry and Henrietta? When we got back to the land, I was first in line to hold a baby ‘gattor! He was a slimy sucker.
Back on track, we continued onto the Florida Keys, a stretch of 1,700 islands. The furtherest south is Key West and marks the most southern tip of continental United States. Bridges and causeways link the 192km of islands together. The longest bridge, 7km long connected us to the island we stayed on. Accommodation prices along those islands are on par with New York City. The campsite prices weren’t much better but still within reach, so we booked two nights. Sadly, we didn’t realise that the campsite was covered in rocky gravel. This, and our 1cm thick yoga mats was not condusive to a good night sleep.
The following day we went for a swim in the Keys and a hunt for key lime pie (and yes, they fried it) but came back early because a storm randomly ripped through the Keys. We returned to a flooded tent. Without a word of a lie, we bucketed 5litres of water from the, not at all waterproof tent. Another thunderstorm was expected that evening. We dried out our bedding, put down the tent and relocated to the backseat of the car, for an evening tucked up in the boot. We paid a small fortune for that gravelly campsite, so by golly we were going to use it. If only as a car park! How dull would life be if we had of just paid to sleep in a comfy, dry, hotel.

Florida is not our favourite state, maybe even the least favourite. Some of it is very nice, but a huge proportion is very old and dirty. The drivers also are the worst in the country. Arriving back into Miami marked the end of our road tripping days. We had two nights to kill however before picking up our friends from the Miami airport and heading north for a week in Disneyland. Those two days happened to be when the whole of Florida jacked up the prices due to a Public Holiday. Camping, hostels, motels, AirBnB (a room in someone’s house) were all triple our budget. We ended up booking the most random accommodation to date, even more than sleeping in the car boot. For ‘only’ $50 per night, we rented a tent in someone’s backyard! When we arrived to this persons backyard, it was full of tents. In fact our arrival meant the owner had to buy another tent. At least with a new tent, it was waterproof. Five tents and five couples camping in a dodgy neighbourhood with a makeshift shower and bathroom facilities, next to the chickens. I have to say, it was all kinds of weird but it was an experience. The last experience, from our RoadTrip across America.

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