48stateroadtrip.com

I think they put a URL underneath all that even, which is just too much. Really, how much of my time and attention do you want me to devote toward deciphering all the little words on your sign while I’m flying by at over 70 scale miles an hour? Another night photo:

Nothing to see here.

And with that, I’m in #39. Only nine left. Man. I find myself waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, scared that I’ve somehow missed a state. But I haven’t. Just Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah remaining.

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It’s a pretty capitol and the Bicentennial Mall around it is likewise nicely done. After a few hours, I felt I knew everything there was to know about Tennessee history (through 1996). Apparently Piggly Wiggly, the first self-service grocery store, is a product of Tennessee. Also the UT women’s basketball team won an NCAA title some time. And Tennessee took part in some war in the 1860s. It’s all fading now.

I don’t have much of a connection with Tennessee or anything, but I was in Nashville for a few hours after taking my mom to the airport and before heading over to Rich’s place for dinner, so what else was I gonna do?

Good weather also, btw.

Not that any of these photos illustrate the fact, but Tennessee is a state obsessed with its own weird shape. And this is a fountain that for some reason symbolizes rivers or something.

Das Capitol. At which point even *I* will concede that my captions have jumped the shark.

Half-capitol.

Dunn, Tennessee and Dunn, me.

Because Nashville is the “Athens of the South”, according to Nashville.

Seems like maybe Athens, Ga. would be the “Athens of the South”. Meh. I wonder how either of them would fare against Sparta. Someone should develop a simulator. I also walked around Vanderbilt campus for a while and decided that it looked like a college campus.

And then dinner with Rich & Jen was great.

And to all a good night.

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I’m getting close to as behind on blog posts as I’ve been all trip. Woot!

More photos from the Natchez Trace Parkway. It continued to be a road with stuff to see on either side of it. Day 107 wasn’t rainy. We had peanut butter and jam samiches for lunch. What else is there to tell, really? I know, you’re just here for the photos. Punks.

Tishomingo lily pads.

The nearly-invisible swinging bridge.

I can’t tell if this photo is interesting, unsettling, or just bad. I guess none of those are mutually exclusive from any of the others.

Meriwether Lewis died here.

Fall Hollow Falls.

Jackson Falls.

Tennessee countryside.

I should probably do some sort of study about blog post quality and previous-night sleep. It was about 35 degrees last night, but mostly both my hips are sore from — I dunno. Lying on the ground without enough padding, I guess, and that’s apparently my personal COG.

Wishing you a safe, lucrative Guy Fawkes Day tomorrow,

bkd

How much do you want me to explain about the Natchez Trace? I’m guessing *this* much:

The Natchez Trace is a trail that runs from Natchez, Miss. to Nashville, Tenn., about 450 miles. It was used most famously by late 18th- and early 19th-century traders from Tennessee and points north, who would ship their wares down the Mississippi river to Natchez or New Orleans, sell them there, then sell the barge for scrap and walk home.

About right, right?

Then they built this parkway that follows the course of the Trace, which is what we were driving on. It features the trace itself (it’s just a trail) as well as some sights.

This Indian burial mound, for instance.

BTW, it rained all day — usually hard.

Mt. Locust Stand — $0.25/night just 180 years ago.

Rocky Springs, population 0 (not counting the 999 ghosts).

Windsor Ruins — survived the war, but not the fire.

The swamp walk was the best part of the day.

Although we didn’t see any alligators.

Yes, that’s what color the water is.

Ended up staying the night in Starkville. It was a Friday night, but fortunately, Mississippi State was on the road, so hotel rooms were plentiful enough. And Sonic was better than I remembered it.

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Some of these were taken on the evening of Day 105. Most of them, actually. Because it wasn’t raining on the evening of Day 105. Which may cause you to wonder why this is labeled Day 106. Life is full of many mysteries.

Natchez is in Mississippi. It’s where the Natchez Trace starts. The Natchez Trace is a trail that runs from Natchez to Nashville. I’m not sure why it’s not the Nashville Trace.

A run-down house with river view.

The Magnolia House.

The Stanton House.

The Rosalie House. We visited this one on Day 106. That’s why.

Interior of the Rosalie House. No one important lived there.

My mom making the tour guide happy.

Natchez was kind of a cool little city, actually. Every other house was on the historic places registry. Sort of like New Orleans, but without the trash and only 80-percent humidity. Nah, actually the houses are more traditional southern than New Orleans — fewer wrought iron railings, more neo-classical columns. Supposedly, at one time in the early 19th century, like a third of all American millionaires lived there. It’s less than that now.

Also, you can’t easily find the start of the Natchez Trace Parkway when you’re there. It’s not like they have signs telling you where to go. As such, we started at Mile Post 8 (more to come!).

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Fortunately my headlines jumped the shark a couple months ago, so no need to feel embarrassed by this one.

My mom flew out to New Orleans to join the road trip for a few days, btw. She was the one who insisted we go to the French Quarter. Well, “insisted”. Anyway — it was everything everyone told me it would be (i.e., “a bunch of old buildings and it smells like vomit”).

I’m sure it smelled better before Katrina.

We had a cool hotel, in no small part because the room had its own loft.

See? Loft.

(Prytania Park Hotel — it’s located right in between the Garden District and Warehouse+Museum District.)

Then we walked to the French quarter.

There was an underpass along the way!

They have porches like this there.

A door as crooked as a Louisiana politician.

St. Louis Cathedral and tourists taking photos of same.

Tour carriages lined up at Jackson Square.

I learned that Jackson Square was *meant* to be the town’s center. And then the person who ended up owning the land built buildings on either side of it, but that it wasn’t pretty enough — so she had it beatified (park ranger’s word, not mine).

And I’m still waiting for someone to explain why Andrew Jackson doesn’t net out to be a villain for killing all the Indians he did. (In protest, I no longer use $20 bills.)

Me with cannon. Cannon with me.

I’m thinking about opening my own voodoo shop in Mission Viejo.

The New Orleans house my mom grew up in lived in for two years as a kid.

Anyway.

I think the people that love New Orleans so much are people who first went there in college with all their friends and got drunk and partied so that now every time they go there, they remember being 19 and getting drunk and partying with their friends.

It’s basically how I feel about Hohenstein-Ernstthal.

(No, I never got drunk in Hohenstein-Ernstthal — except on my own sense of self-importance, which is much headier anyway.)

Out,

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Finally made it to a French-speaking state!

This is a photo caption.

Next stop: New Orleans.

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Thirty-seven down, 11 to go!

I deleted the Mississippi photo, sorry. Not on purpose. I could go into a detailed discussion of the circumstances that led to the deletion, but the story is so fraught with peril, you would surely perish from the hearing.

OTOH, is Mississippi really the “birthplace” of American music? Aside from Elvis being born in Tupelo… what? Oh well.

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Last military museum for a while. Well — till Texas. That seems like a while, but it’ll probably be like a week and a half.

The USS Alabama is a WW2 battleship that was used for five years, then sat mothballed for another 15 before getting towed to Mobile, Ala., where it became a “museum”. Sort of the martial-maritime version of the Biltmore Estate, except for the entry fee was 82% less and it wasn’t the home/play-thing of a useless trust-fund nerd. If you want to know what a WW2-era battleship was like, this is a fantastic ship-museum. They let you touch a lot of stuff and climb on things.

They also have a WW2-era submarine there, the USS Drum.

As an added bonus, this photo also shows Mobile’s skyline. Seriously, it’s there.

The periscope actually works. You can see the Alabama through it. You can order someone to fire torpedoes at the Alabama, but nothing happens, at which point the fantasy breaks down.

They let you climb up into the conning tower, which is pretty cool. There are also a lot of levers and knobs you can manipulate to your heart’s content (depending on your heart). This would’ve been the greatest field trip ever if I were still in grade school.

Also there’s sort of a flight museum. Or at least, there are some planes parked in a hangar there.

Any color you want, so long as it’s gray.

“See that white plane over there? The one that’s the only legitimately unique thing we have in this place? Yeah, that one. How ’bout you go ahead and throw all those folding chairs next to it. There you go.”

The plane’s a YF-17, one of two prototypes that were originally developed for the Air Force, which rejected them in favor of the F-16. Then the Navy needed something small, so had Northrop re-develop it into the F/A-18 that has since grown up considerably to where it’s now not small at all. Anyway — nice folding chairs. Hope that airplane’s not getting in the way of your spare television set.

Then battleship.

Roll, Tide!

16-inch shells are pretty big actually.

Some day I hope to learn semaphore so I can quit wondering whether a ship is talking about me.

Well he did. And he’s basically the Ted Williams of right-handed pitchers.

Manning my self-selected battle station.

Other things I feel like typing right now:

• The Alabama is a fantastic artifact, especially so given that it was never updated after WW2 and therefore has its 1942 almost completely intact.
• Being allowed to crawl all over it is awesome. For instance, you can crawl into all three of the sixteen-inch turrets. Never done that before.
• Some time I’d like someone to explain exactly what it is that makes up the smell inside a big, retired navy vessel. I’m guessing it’s oil, grease, and seawater, but — it’s just a guess.
• A WW2-era battleship would make for an unbelievable haunted house, I think.
• They claimed that the ship went through 1,000 gallons of ice cream a day, despite having a crew of only (“only”) 2,000. Raises at least a couple of concerns for me.

The Pacific War Museum is the one in Texas. It’s the only one I got left this trip. Sadly. I skipped the WW2 one in N.O. If you’ve been there and it’s great, please don’t tell me now.

Thx,

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Maybe it’s like you’re supposed to feel like the governor is the person responsible for the state you’re entering, so you know who to go talk to if you find yourself dissatisfied with, say, Alabama. Maybe the governor is the state’s CSR-in-Chief.

Photo:

Based on what criteria “beautiful”?

Went to Mobile. Stayed in a hotel. Watched baseball on TV.

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