Road Trip: In the Steps of Gone With the Wind

Aunt Pittypat would have fainted away. Just look at what happened to Atlanta!

It's a massive, thriving city now, with an infernal traffic problem,  rush hour evidently happening all day. I'm guessing this monument has something to do with the Olympic torch.

 Snapped to while away the time crawling along the motorway through the city - not our best choice of route. We were headed for Jonesboro

A small Georgia town where "Gone With the Wind" was set

 With some suitable architecture

 And an old railway station

Which housed the "Road to Tara" museum. Unfortunately we coincided with a tour bus-load who crammed into the little museum with their guide, who was in costume, though it wasn't quite clear whose. He regaled them with stories of how Margaret Mitchell, who stayed locally, got her inspiration for the book (the characer of Melanie was based on a nun from Savannah, apparently). We had to jostle our way through the crowd to get to the exhibits and didn't manage to see as much as we could have. As always, we didn't have enough time.
 I remember trying to say this in French at school

There were Scarlett lampshades and figurines and a book by the actress who played Bonnie.  And there was a case full of Mammy dolls. They were described as the "beloved Mammy tradition" but I expect they'd be considered politically incorrect now

They even had Scarlett's bloomers from the corset-lacing scene

And the too-low-cut barbecue dress

Less charming was one of "Sherman's Neckties" found at Jonesboro. As part of his destruction of the Confederate infrastructure, General Sherman had the rails heated until they bent out of shape.

 There was a touching display about Father Emmeran Bliemel, the first American military chaplain to die in battle.

The Benedictine was killed giving the Last Rites to his Commanding Officer at the Battle of Jonesboro.

 Nearby was the Confederate cemetery.

 Like many other memorials we've seen in the South, put up by organisations of redoubtable ladies.

I wonder what Mrs Arthur McDermotte Wilson Jr's story was.

Here's some more insignia of the short-lived "Confederate States of America"

Whatever you might think of their cause, all the little unmarked graves were desperately sad.

 Though some did have names

And they did allow them to fly the Confederate flag.

It's reviled in many quarters for its associations with slavery but interestingly I've seen a lot of them flying up north - deep in Yankee territory, particularly in rural parts. The other day, back in western New York, I was stuck behind a pickup truck with a huge one emblazoned on the back. These days it's sometimes been adopted as a symbol by people who say they're fed up with being pushed around by the government.  Though back in Jonesboro, the local citizenry seemed nothing if not patriotic

 Leaving town, the Gone With the Wind references weren't over yet.

And here was an actual cotton field

 Though they now have rather more enlightened ways of harvesting it. We liked the giant rolls of cotton wool.

Another popular Georgia crop - pecans.

And then it was into Florida and nearly the end of our journey.

to be continued

Road Trip: Triffids, North Carolina Style

Once we'd got over our excitement at slaying the dragon (see below) we continued down through North Carolina on slightly tamer but no less beautiful roads, with babbling mountain streams running alongside. 

As we stopped to take photos we saw one of the South's weirder natural phenomena.

If you look closely you can seen whole trees and  bushes blanketed with kudzu, a rampant weed that chokes everything in its path. A North Carolina equivalent of the "Day of the Triffids".

So only the ghostly shapes remain beneath.

It reminded me a bit of that artist who used to wrap buildings.
More cheerful was a picturesque lake

Fringed with the obligatory "cottages"

 At one point we drove along a wall of rock from which tiny autumn trees were growing.

And then to a place called Murphy. I wonder what constitutes "Christian" Martial Arts?  Only in America?

Perhaps the congregation of this gorgeous Methodist church could enlighten me?

To be continued....

Road Trip: Wrangling the Dragon

It seemed like a picturesque country road, Route 129 south through Tennessee and into North Carolina, along the scenic edge of the Great Smoky Mountains. But we started noticing more odd things. Such as a convoy of four Corvette sports cars overtaking us and a sign that read something on the lines of "Last Chance.Trucks Turn Around Here or Else". Perhaps we were coming up to a narrow bridge? But no, the road just kept twisting and turning steeply up into the hills. Then there more strange signs: "No Stopping on Grass for Photo". Well it was a photogenic place but... And we kept encountering motorbikes and more motorbikes and performance cars and more performance cars. It reminded me a bit of  a time in rural France when I inadvertently found myself on the Tour de France route and wondered why little pockets of bystanders kept waving and clapping. Were these cars and bikes having some sort of race?

Eventually we found a place to pull off the road and take pictures. I went to look at the sign on the reinforced bear-proof litter bin.

What was all this talk about dragons?

The view looked peaceful enough.

Then I spotted a couple on a motorbike who'd also stopped. I called out, "Hello!". The girl was from Brazil and blew a kiss. "What's with all these bikes?"  I asked. Her boyfriend looked at me astonished, "Don't you know where you are?" I must have looked puzzled, "You're riding the Dragon's Tail!", he said, fishing out a map, "People come from all over the world to drive this road". A road which, the map showed, had 318 bends in 11 miles, many of them hairpins. Well there was no turning back now. "Don't forget to look at the dragon at the end!" called out the Brazilians.

So we piled back into sister-in-law's trusty SUV, and re-entered the fray. Dragon-wrangling turned out to be enormous fun - so long as you obeyed the rule to "stay in lane" and didn't look down too much. Oh yes and occasionally pulled over to let the Harley Davidsons go screaming past. Sister-in-law got quite a workout at the wheel and with me clutching my seat, we got into the rhythm of it, posing for the photographers' stalls set up to capture the moment, like they have on those screamer roller-coasters. When we got down to the other side, we felt like a couple of kids, immovable grins fixed to our faces.
  Down at the bottom, we found the Deal's Gap bikers' resort with bacon and egg breakfasts, T-shirts pinned to the ceiling, grey-bearded types in Confederate flag bandanas and a gift shop selling such things as beer glasses saying, "I Survived the Dragon's Tail". The Brazilians re-appeared and waved, "You made it then!".

There was a friendly seasonal display

And here, finally was the Dragon, swathed in cobwebs for Halloween.

Bulging red eyes and a fat spider hanging from its mouth..

Everywhere were photos and dire warnings to be careful..

And a "Tree of Shame"

Festooned with bits of crashed bikes

Now it would be fun to do the road in this little fellow..

Amazing what can happen on a road trip. The whole world wants to go somewhere and we find it quite by chance.

Road Trip: Paris, Tennessee - Not

... or rather Knoxville, Tennessee. which  proved to be a good place to find a pavement cafe. "Just head for Market Square", said the girl at the hotel. (I thought I was being clever with the title, until I realised that there really is a Paris, Tennessee, home of the World's Biggest Fish Fry. That's for our next trip.)

Knoxville did have a European feel to it, though it had some odd characters sitting around. But then so does Paris. It was interesting to see a monument to American suffragettes.

The bell used to be rung to summon the police if there was a riot. Better have one at West Ham's ground.

The square had a little park with a scenic water feature.

Or two. This was an "interactive fountain". That sounds a little alarming.

Does it suddenly jump out at you as you walk past like those at that palace in Salzburg? It's a bit too obvious for that. Perhaps the American version of 'elf n' safety won't allow too many surprises. I see there's the usual list of "No's" and "Don'ts" on the sign. The sort of thing that didn't trouble old Austrian Archbishops.
  Meanwhile we adjourned to one of the cafes which proved a success. It was called "Tupelo Honey", a name hard to pronounce but I would recommend it. We sampled southern delicacies - fried green tomatoes, belly of pork (wonderful) and salted roast beets, all on grits. When you have grits at a diner they tend to taste like the stuff Oliver Twist asked for more of. But when a good restaurant prepares them properly they are sublime.  Below are two prime examples of the Transatlantic language barrier and of what Americans call  "biscuits." They are a little like scones on speed.

Parts of Knoxville had an interesting futuristic feel.

 And there was a good liquor store where they persuaded us to buy local Bourbon. "Make sure you water it down", said the assistant ominously. And then we were out in the country again..

...where we started seeing some odd phenomena.

And various warning signs. "Trucks turn around here" said one. And then there was this

But I bet some of them are. The road ran past a dam

And towards some scenic mountains.

We were headed for a nice quiet country road through the hills. Or that's what we thought. Forget about trick fountains. We were about to get a seriously big surprise.

to be continued....