JvK's tour of the South

[JerryvonKramer]

Hi all, this is not really wrestling related, but my wife and I did Route 66 back in 2010 from Chicago to LA via all the ususal towns in between plus Vegas and ever since have wanted to do a second road trip in the States before we have kids and it's too late for such adventures.

 

I am thinking of doing a loop road trip as follows, the idea is that we're stopping overnight in the major towns, driving about 3-4 hours between them each day:

 

Atlanta

Nashville

Memphis

New Orleans -- 2-3 days here, thinking on a scenic drive through Mississippi but skipping staying at any of the towns.

The back through Alabama (not sure where to stay / what to see there), other option would be dipping into west "panhandle" Florida

Atlanta to fly back

 

The timeframe is going to be roughly 2 weeks. Apart from the stretch from Memphis to New Orelans, we don't want to be driving much more than 200 miles or so in a day.

 

This is a very rough plan at the moment, but I'll be fleshing it out in the next few weeks -- we'd be going first couple of weeks of June (how is that weather wise?)

 

I know there are quite a few guys who post here from around this neck of the woods, so is that doable in 2 weeks? And are there any stops people would recommend taking in? I did consider extending the first leg to go from Atlanta to Charlotte to Nashville, but I'm not sure whether Charlotte is worth visiting or if there is much of interest there (honestly, Ric Flair is the only thing I know about it!). Maybe just a visit to the Smoky Mountains staying in a log cabin or something.

 

I will also try to persuade the Mrs. to attend some grungy local wrestling show along the way at some point as a cultural experience, but the timing would have to work.

 

Thanks for any tips in advance.

[soup23]

This is a good plan. I would recommend either going to the Smokey Mountains straight from Atlanta or preferably to go from New Orleans to the Gulf Coast back up to Atlanta (this is about a 5 hour drive) instead of cutting through Alabama. Weather will be pretty hot. Around 90-95 degrees Fahrenheit or 32.2 Celsius. It will also be very humid so expect that.

[JerryvonKramer]

Thanks Chad. I've been doing some research and I've drawn up a 14-day itinery.

 

1. Atlanta - 1 night. Maybe go see the Coca Cola stuff. Find somewhere nice to eat. Is there much else to do in Atlanta?

2. Smoky mountains - 1 night.

3. Nashville - 1 night. Music related stuff, catch some sort of show in the night.

4-5. Memphis - 2 nights. First day take in the town itself, find some BBQ, go to a honky-tonk bar etc., 2nd day Graceland. I will be sneakily looking out for Lawler-related things too.

6. Natchez - 1 night. I want to stay at this old plantation, feels a bit weird after watching Django Unchained, but Mississippi looks stunning, Mark Twain country. Will try to find a steamboat. Also, drive from Memphis to New Orleans seems too far without a break.

7-10. New Orleans. 3 nights. Everyone says New Orleans has a ton of stuff to do.

11-12. Somewhere on coast of Florida. Maybe Destin or Pensacola. 2 nights. This will be the time to chill, go to the beach and recharge.

13-14. Atlanta. 2 nights. On one of these days we'll go to Six Flags theme park, on the other I guess we'll get ready to go back and maybe go shopping or something.

 

This is the ball-park plan, but it would be good to know if there are any places in between the towns to stop off and take pictures and stuff.

 

Also, I do kinda feel guilty about basically driving around Alabama and avoiding it. Just doesn't look like there's much of note there and my only two associations with it are that Lynard Skynard song and racism. I would consider stopping in somewhere like Jackson for a night to break up the long drive back from Florida to Atlanta but only if there's stuff worth seeing and doing there.

 

Would appreciate any input into this.

 

Also, I am terrible in the heat, aircon and ice will be a must for me.

[Kronos]

If you hit up Natchez -- and if it's still there - be sure to eat some fried catfish and japaleno cornbread at 'Cock on the Walk'. It's right on the river. Also, I have never been, but Oxford, MS is supposed to be fantastic. Old South college town, great antiquing and other shopping, etc,

 

You could always do your beach stop in Gulf Shores, AL, if it's not oil-ruined still.

[soup23]

Thanks Chad. I've been doing some research and I've drawn up a 14-day itinery.

 

1. Atlanta - 1 night. Maybe go see the Coca Cola stuff. Find somewhere nice to eat. Is there much else to do in Atlanta?

 

The Aquarium is really nice and is within walking distance of Coca Cola. You could always go to an Atlanta Braves game if it works out where they are in town. Some other suggestions are the MLK stuff, Stone Mountain, and a tour of the Georgia Capital.

 

2. Smoky mountains - 1 night.

This may honestly be too much out of the way for one night. You could maybe perhaps sub going to the Smokey Mountains for one night in the Chattanooga area and either go to Rock City, Ruby Falls, or visit the Choo Choo and downtown district.

 

3. Nashville - 1 night. Music related stuff, catch some sort of show in the night.

This sounds great and I love nashville.

 

4-5. Memphis - 2 nights. First day take in the town itself, find some BBQ, go to a honky-tonk bar etc., 2nd day Graceland. I will be sneakily looking out for Lawler-related things too.

This also sounds like a solid plan although I was personally disappointed in Graceland and definitely couldn't fill up a day just centered on that. There is other fun stuff to do though in the town.

 

6. Natchez - 1 night. I want to stay at this old plantation, feels a bit weird after watching Django Unchained, but Mississippi looks stunning, Mark Twain country. Will try to find a steamboat. Also, drive from Memphis to New Orleans seems too far without a break.

Never done it. Only been to Oxford , MS which is a great traditional southern town as Kronos states below.

 

7-10. New Orleans. 3 nights. Everyone says New Orleans has a ton of stuff to do.

Been prepared to have the time of your life and not remember much of it afterwards. New Orleans is set up great geographically that you can really just find a starting point and do whatever you want for the rest of the night because everything is within walking distance.

 

11-12. Somewhere on coast of Florida. Maybe Destin or Pensacola. 2 nights. This will be the time to chill, go to the beach and recharge.

We go to either Destin, Panama City, or Gulf Shores, Al. All three will have nice white sand that is uncommon for many areas but we have found Destin to have the clearest Gulf waters when we have went (less algae). Also be prepared that all 3 are pretty "touristy" type spots.

 

13-14. Atlanta. 2 nights. On one of these days we'll go to Six Flags theme park, on the other I guess we'll get ready to go back and maybe go shopping or something.

The Six Flags is fine but a pretty run of the mill amusement park to me that doesn't have very good themeing. Also that will be a day where you will be sweating your ass off.

 

This is the ball-park plan, but it would be good to know if there are any places in between the towns to stop off and take pictures and stuff.

 

Also, I do kinda feel guilty about basically driving around Alabama and avoiding it. Just doesn't look like there's much of note there and my only two associations with it are that Lynard Skynard song and racism. I would consider stopping in somewhere like Jackson for a night to break up the long drive back from Florida to Atlanta but only if there's stuff worth seeing and doing there.

 

Alabama has some pretty cool towns (Huntsiville Space stuff, Auburn (kind of a lesser version of Oxford, MS), and Montgomery (state capital). However, I think the other stops on your trip will be more scenic and entertaining overall.

 

Would appreciate any input into this.

 

Also, I am terrible in the heat, aircon and ice will be a must for me.

[Exposer]

Parv, Coca Cola is a great place to visit in Atlanta. I had a blast there when I went back in high school. There's tons else to do in Atlanta but most of what I did was school related like malls for lunch, the bodies exhibit, the Varsity restaurant (burgers & fries joint), etc. The CNN center is a pretty neat place to see. There's a massive food court and the CNN tour is something I remember finding interesting. Six flags and White Water are great theme parks too.

 

Nashville is a place I oddly have only been to once even I as live in Chattanooga. The music scene is definitely something to check out though.

 

My best advice. Wear light. It's FUCKING HUMID here. It definitely gets well into the 90s also. Don't let that scare you off though. This sounds like a fun trip.

[Exposer]

 

You could maybe perhaps sub going to the Smokey Mountains for one night in the Chattanooga area and either go to Rock City, Ruby Falls, or visit the Choo Choo and downtown district.

Being a Chattanooga guy, these are all great place to see. Especially Rock City and Ruby Falls. We have an Aquarium here too and a great walking bridge with some really nice parks on the North Shore. If you like art we also have a terrific Art District. The Hunter Museum of Art is the big one here. Downtown is a great walk and there's some excellent restaurants here as well. Chatt's right in between Atlanta and Nashville so it would be fairly convenient.

[Dylan Waco]

Chattanooga is also the place of my birth, surely a historic site for any wrestling fan

[Cox]

I drove to Nashville and Memphis about two years ago and had a blast. A few recommendations:

 

-Not sure if you're a whiskey guy or not, but the Jack Daniels distillery is less than two hours outside of Nashville. It's not really on the way to anything so if you're not a fan, it's skippable, but I had a blast when I went there because I'm a huge Jack guy.

 

-The Mid South Coliseum was still standing in Memphis when I went there two years ago, but it's not currently in use, and it was fenced off, so I'm not sure if people are actually allowed to go over there. Still, it's a pretty cool monument to wrestling history that may not be there much longer, so stop there if you can. The Channel 5 studios are not too far from there as well, if you wanted to see the location of so many great Memphis studio brawls. I had my picture taken at both since I'm a huge mark.

 

-Food recommendations: all of the BBQ places in Memphis (Interstate, Payne's, Neely's, etc; my personal favorite was Interstate) are worth visiting, but for the love of God, make sure you go to Gus's Fried Chicken in downtown Memphis. Best fried chicken I've ever had. I went to Memphis expecting to love all the BBQ places, and I did, and wasn't even going to go to Gus's since I had seen this as primarily as a BBQ and whiskey road trip, but Gus's wound up stealing the show. Not sure how the Brits feel about fried chicken, but Gus's is the absolute best. Total hole in the wall type place, but what they're doing with the fryer there is magic.

 

-Not sure if you're a big Dirty White Boy fan, but if you are, there is a gas station off of I-40 in Bucksnort, Tennessee that sells a ton of Bucksnort swag. I went in there and basically bought one of everything, since I'm a huge Dirty White Boy mark. Only thing I wish I had bought but didn't was a Bucksnort t-shirt, but that was only because I was too fat to fit into an XL at the time. Now that I've lost weight? Huge regrets. I need to go back to Memphis now just so I can get some more Gus's and a Bucksnort t-shirt.

 

That's all I can think of for now. I didn't stop in Knoxville at all because I went with my dad, and I knew I was going to have a lot of weird wrestling requests in Memphis, so I wanted to keep the weirdness to a minimum, but the Knoxville Civic Coliseum is where most of SMW's big cards took place (their other big location is in Johnson City, not too far off the beaten path either). One day, I'd like to go back and hit more weird wrestling landmarks, like the Nashville Fairgrounds, but there is plenty to see and do in Tennessee while driving through. Have a great time!

[BrickHithouse]

-Not sure if you're a whiskey guy or not, but the Jack Daniels distillery is less than two hours outside of Nashville. It's not really on the way to anything so if you're not a fan, it's skippable, but I had a blast when I went there because I'm a huge Jack guy.

Is it like a winery where they let people sample the products throughout the tour?

[Cox]

They do not, but that is because the distillery is located in a dry county. They are allowed to sell one comemerative bottle of Jack Daniel's at the distillery, but not on Sundays, and of course, the day I took the tour was a Sunday. So if you want to actually buy Jack Daniel's from the distillery, do not go on a Sunday.

[tomk]

If you want to do a bourbon tour, Jim Beam is the only brand in a dry county. The N.O.-Nashville-Louisville trip is a nice one and all the other stops on the Bourbon trail involve tour guides getting you soused.

 

Thanks Chad. I've been doing some research and I've drawn up a 14-day itinery.

 

1. Atlanta - 1 night. Maybe go see the Coca Cola stuff. Find somewhere nice to eat. Is there much else to do in Atlanta?

Atlanta is a giant fucking city with an active night life and lots to do.

I assume anyone who is interested in wrestling the way you are is also interested in puppetry…the Jim Henson Center for Puppetry is in Atlanta.

You’ve expressed interest in Rap… I would recommend going to one of Big Oomp’s record stores. Atlanta is pretty much been on the cutting edge of the link between stripping and rap and is place where you will see the future of athletic stripping (headstand butt cheek clapping supposedly got its start there) and full service strip clubs (strip clubs with built in barber shops etc)…rappers and producers will use the clubs to try out new beats/new songs etc. If you have money to throw around, 300 Bowling Lanes is a nice place to interact with the more Bougie side of the industry.

If you’re into metal, Dark horse tavern does live band metal karaoke with no cover.

If you are planning on making own meals on this trip, I would recommend stopping at the Decatur Wolrd Market, pretty much best and cheapest place to stock up on spices, produce , etc for the trip.

Atlanta does have horrible horrible traffic and I wouldn’t want to enter or leave the city between 3:00-7:00.

Also if you are legit "terrible" in the heat,(1) this whole trip feels like a bad idea (2) you should be aware that Centenial Park in Atlanta (where the Coke stuff is has no trees and is just like a magnifying glass for Atlanta heat.

 

3. Nashville - 1 night. Music related stuff, catch some sort of show in the night.

You want to get to Prince’s for some Hot Chicken which is Nashville specialty.

 

7-10. New Orleans. 3 nights. Everyone says New Orleans has a ton of stuff to do.

You don’t really need to do the tour of Mardi Gras world, but outside the tour area you can see a bunch of their stuff without paying for tour. Alternatively you can take the free ferry ( $1 round trip by car) from Harrah’s Casino to the West Bank (crossing Mississippi every half hour) and walk along the levy to see the west bank part of Mardi Gras world (the Styrofoam work is done on east bank the plexiglass on west) you can normally see many of the floats parked behind the West Bank Mardi Gras world. If you go further down the levy you will see Club Caesar’s which is worth going to if you are interested in New Orleans bounce.

As to safety of going to hip hop, bounce shows in N.O., use good judgment. In New Orleans in general two things should be remembered. 1) Part of why the cops are as corrupt as they are is because most of them supplement income working in uniform as private security (this means if you see a cop someplace—he isn’t necessarily there to protect the citizens interests so much as the club/ establishments, etc). 2) New Orleans isn’t New York, Atlanta—it isn’t a nine to five town with a happening night life—it is a 6 -3 industrial town with a happening night life (you will see more guys with industrial accident missing arms than diabetes missing legs---which isn’t to say that there aren’t lots of people with diabetes)---outisde of the French Corner (and even in parts of French corner) the night life is there for the residents entertainment you are visiting---if a guy with an arm cast challenges you to arm wrestle he’s testing and fucking with you-it isn’t Vegas- don’t finger fuck a girl on the dance floor ( best possibility is that she’s someone’s work buddies’ neighbor’s cousin—worst case scenario she’s another patron’s mom).

I would go to N,O number one cemetery (where the orgy scene in Easy Rider was filmed and where Nick Cage has had his pyramid built).

I always recommend doing a swamp tour. One of the things that people don’t get about New Orleans is how close it is to Cajun country. Essentially the places you see on Cajun reality shows are suburbs..the distance of Newark to Philly.

If you want to see modern New Orleans brass band, the Stooges have a regular Thursday night gig at Hi-Ho lounge. I like the Stooges a lot , they have a real “I want to start a fight” energy similar to TI’s “What You Know”. The Hot 8 who have a more polished ( I don't want to say commercial sound) have a regular gig at Howling Wolf Sunday nights.

For Jazz brunch: Court of Two sisters I think is the tastiest one I’ve been to (not the best seafood but the best everything else). Roosevelt Hotel Sunday Jazz brunch has the best band (guy who plays in all Clint Eastwood movies). Best brunch in general is LA Provence in Lacombe which is farm to table food. You need to take the bridge to Covington to get there which is the longest continuous bridge I think in world (half hour across and a neat experience as there are chunks where you can’t see land on either side).

It is a big food and drink city but I’d really need to know what type of food you like before starting suggestions. I do think everyone should experience buying drink or jello shot from a drive through Daquiri shop. I stay away from sweet Bourbon Street daquiris but the drive throughs tend to be good. Open container law in your car is you are not allowed to have the straw in the cup, I don’t know how that covers jello shots. Additional shots of everclear are a buck a pop.

 

Also, I do kinda feel guilty about basically driving around Alabama and avoiding it.

The drive from New Orleans to Atlanta is about 6 hours…only two of them are in Alabama but the two hour Alabama drive feels mind numbingly long and the boys are out to catch you for whole ride. I would strongly recommend breaking it up. You can do gulf shore beach,wind creek casino, or Birmingham, ala. Birmingham has the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Museum across the street from the 16th Street Baptist Church, which is also a couple of blocks from the Abortion clinic that was bombed in the late 90s, plus there is the Vulcan Park and Museum.

[JerryvonKramer]

I forgot to mention this, but I had a flight booked for this for the end of June/ start of July. Arriving in Atlanta. Every hotel booked. Even tables booked at certain restaurants and ... I had to cancel it ALL. Lost a bit of money on the airfare too.

 

Why? My head of department wouldn't sign off my leave. I have an exam board or something the day I would have got back, but she wouldn't accept the idea of me going away before the official end of the semester. In all honesty I thought the semester would be long finished by that time, but apparently it goes on till the 4th July (even though teaching ends start of May).

 

I was pretty pissed off at this, I mean come on, there's no teaching, no marking to be done, no real reason to be there than this one meeting I could have attended anyway, and she wouldn't sign it off.

 

They jack prices right up in July and August on airfares. And I have to attend my mate's wedding first week of September and then the new semester starts. Never had a job where leave was just flat denied for no real reason like that. You can imagine how pissed off my wife was.

 

So this might be on the backburner till 2014 now.

[Johnny Guitar]

Shame your trip has hit a roadblock. But it'll be worth it when you eventually get there.

 

I had the best year of my life travelling America. Some of it even involved wrestling.

[NintendoLogic]

If you're in Eufaula, Alabama, be sure to hit up Phil's BBQ. My uncle owns it.

[BrickHithouse]

How is the heat and humidity in Georgia, S Carolina, and that general region in September? Does it taper off by then or is it still insane?

 

My wife and I are knocking around the idea of a road trip through the Southern US or to Montana and the Dakotas.

[CaptCabana]

Depends what time frame. Around Labor Day, it's still fairly muggy (at least in South Carolina).

 

It's normally about mid-to-late September that it starts getting better.

 

Of course, last year broke all the rules, and it was still warm in November here.

[soup23]

Mid September through October is usually my favorite time of the year down here. It can get hot in the day but is usually moderate and the nights are mild and nice.

[SteveJRogers]

FWIW, I would hit up a baseball game in Atlanta.

 

I guess it would be WAY too early to catch a REAL FOOTBALL game as that is a hotbed for college football. As well as some big NFL franchises, but for the most part College Football is King in the south.

[BrickHithouse]

How hard is it to score day-of-game SEC football tickets? I'd be up for a Georgia game if it was even a remote possibility. There is no possibility of selling my wife on a baseball game

 

Really looking forward to this trip. My boss sounds cooler than JvK's, so there's really no chance that ours gets cancelled.

[soup23]

Day of Game SEC Tickets will be available. If it is a huge game with two highly touted teams, take out a second mortgage; if it is an SEC team vs. Cupcake, expect face to be available, and if its two lower ranked sec vs. sec teams, about double face value seems apprpriate.