Real American Whiskey

When we picked out our rental car in Nashville we had lots of options in American cars. In fact we only saw one Nissan in the whole lot. Not that we were looking specifically for a foreign car, we just noticed their absence. We drove our Dodge to Lynchburg Saturday and I have to say it was a very smooth and quiet ride. The country between the two cities is beautiful, although "city" is a loose term when it comes to Lynchburg. Acres and acres of green farmland, cattle, horses, goats etc. There are lots of small towns on the drive. Every building has an American flag or a steeple on it. Every home has an American flag. The porches really did have rocking chairs. I wanted Chris to pull over so I could run up a big green hill singing  the hills are alive with the sound of muuuusssssicc but we were sure that someone would shoot me right off their lawn.

The tour was awesome. It was beyond my expectations and I learned a lot about Jack Daniel the man. He was by all means a self made man. He left home at 10 years old for pete's sake. It was awesome and I felt a surge of patriotism just hearing about how hard he and Lem Motlow worked over the years. I even asked Chris if it was crazy if I exclusivly drank Jack Daniel's from here on out because I want to support the business. He said yes.

The entrance of the Jack Daniel's Distillery

Note to self: Schedule hair appt as soon as I get back in Sac. Super hip "ombre" hair that is supposed to look better as it grows really just looks trashier and trashier every day.

 Beautiful creek at Jack Daniel's

 

Jack Daniel was a tiny little man that stood 5'2".  They say he wore the suit everyday to look older then his tiny stature and to distract from the Baby Jack nickname he bore as the youngest of 10. The cavern behind this statue is the natural spring that produces the water that all Jack Daniel's products are made of. It's full of limestone that strips all the lead out of the water. This is one of the few places in the world where this process occurs naturally.

 

Proof that turkeys are following me everywhere.

 

We left the distillery and headed to Lynchburg proper. The sign says Lynchburg has a population of 361 but a quick search on the World Wide Web ( our tour guide kept calling it the World Wide Web) says it's actually just north of 5000.  Lynchburg is just a town square with tourist trap style shops wrapped around it. It would seem inauthentic if I didn't know that that the buildings really are that old. We ate lunch at a hole in the wall that smelled fantastic and served up some delicous BBQ. It seemed to be an old house turned into a BBQ joint. You could see right into the kitchen and it was your standard small house kitchen. While we were there they pulled a big yellow cake out of the oven. They dressed it up with chocolate syrup, coconut, pecans and served it to me hot when it was like, " Please let me eat that. I need that." Our sandwich was $2.99. The tea was sweet. It was the kind of southern hospitality you see in TV. But nestled in between all the Jack Daniels Fudge and antique shops was a " Dixie Souvineer" shop. I only peeked in the window but from what I can see it seemed to sell everything you could imagine a confederate flag on as well as a wide selection of anti-Obama merchandise including a " Don't blame me, I voted for the American" bumpersticker. In fact, even at the Moon Pie Cafe they sold little tins that had President Obama's face on them with the word DissapointMINTS underneath. The box was half full. It was next to another box that had Obama emblazoned tins that said ObamaMINTS. There were 2 more tins in this display so I bought both of them so they would be even. My fear was that if I bought the rest of the box it wouldn't be refilled and Pro-President Obama merchandise wouldn't be represented. But I didn't want the anti-Obama mints to outsell him.

Playing checkers outside the general store

 

Moon Pies are everywhere here! Moon Pies are a Chatanooga TN original and they are crazy about them. Who knew there are so many flavors? Banana, Strawberry, Orange, and Mint are some of the flavors we found besides the traditional chocolate and vanilla. We bought a few of the mini ones so we could try the flavors. They were gross.

 

 

Travelling around Tennesee was an eye opeing experience. Our tour guide at JD had a great little anecdote that sums it up quite nicely. Someone asked a famous person, "The world is ending tomorrow, what are you going to do?" The famous person replies "I'm going to move to Tennessee. Everything happens 10 years later in Tennessee."

 

We are fairly certain that Tennessee is where all the stock footage used in Republican commercials is filmed. This is "Real America", right here with the green hills and the blue skies and livestock. Where giant Ford trucks are a necessity because people actually haul things. Where Walmart IS the place to shop because it is the only big box store for miles. Where people grow their own food and hunting, not Whole Foods, puts food on their table. If this was the life I was raised in I too would think the TV was full of crazy people. Big cities and sky scrapers and hybrid cars, mini malls, smart phones, microbrews and soccer would seem all kinds of nuts and socialist to me too. In fact, anything that brings large amounts of people together while doing the same kind of thing would seem like a socialist activity. When Democrats go on TV and say "We are doing this together" it makes sense to me that the community here says "No we're not! I built this myself." Because they are doing things themselves. Yes, they have serious community out here but I can see where the western and eastern sea board seem so foreign and non representative of their life and how we are not in it with them. Because we don't. Even this one day excursion into the countryside has opened my eyes about the differences from state to state and I've been thinking about it so much I cannot even ariticulate it correctly yet.

 

There will be more to come. More adventure. More thoughts. I have to quit wasting this sunny day with blogging and a Gossip Girl marathon....