Deep South - Fall 2011 - Day 5

We knew this was to be a long day so we had an early breakfast and moved on from the hotel. The breakfast had a buffet option in the Garden restaurant again but we both opted for a cooked choice, Julia had a stack of pancakes while I had the Conductor’s Choice, three fried eggs on a bacon and hash brown base – it proved a very good start to the day. Incidentally we took our tea bags down to breakfast and the waiter was happy to provide mugs of boiling water to get our start of the day fix of caffeine in tea form.
Next we headed to the Incline Railway up Lookout Mountain; we parked and caught a train up the mountainside at about 10.00. We sat facing down the slope and crossed with the other car at the halfway point, the only stretch of double track. As we ascended there was an excellent commentary which covered the “Battle above the Clouds” where the Union forces fought up the almost impossible slopes to dislodge the Confederates who were dug in at the summit. This was an important part of the raising of the siege of Chattanooga by the Southern troops after their victory at Chickamauga.
On reaching the top of Lookout Mountain the views were tremendous and we took some good pictures before walking some 200 yards to the Battles for Chattanooga Information Centre, here at a very reasonable price we watched a presentation involving video, a large relief model and thousands of pinpoint lights, which explained everything that happened from before the Chickamauga battle up to the Union driving the Confederates away from Chattanooga. It was an amazingly effective teaching tool.
To summarize the battles which combined under the name of Chattanooga:
Dates - November 23 - 25, 1863
Union Commander - Ulysses S. Grant
Confederate Commander - Braxton Bragg
Forces Engaged - 56,359 Union v 44,010 Confederate
Estimated Casualties - 5,815 Union v 6,670 Confederate
Result - Union Victory
We took a return ride down the mountain and set off for Nashville some 150 miles away but further for us as we had it in mind to visit the Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg TN.
We made good time and reached the visitor centre and registered for a guided tour, we did not sign up for the interpreter which may have been offered and certainly we needed. Our guide spoke English with the heaviest southern drawl that either of us can ever remember. Julia claimed not to understand anything while I kept thinking I had got on the right wavelength for short bursts before losing it again. I’m sure she was excellent and in fact very funny but that’s only by judging the reaction of others in our tour. Even before the tour we had noted that amongst the cars and trucks in the parking lot there were several campervans and some strange equipment on trailers, one of the few things I understood from our guide was that the annual BBQ competition was due to take place over the next weekend. With this in mind she asked everyone if they were “competing or eating?” She was judging but since some of the competitors were from Australia I doubt they ever worked out if they won or not.
The tour was interesting, what we understood of it, and here are some facts which I recall:
1) All Jack Daniels sold anywhere is distilled at this one site.
2) Jack Daniels was a very small guy
3) Nobody knows why his label is marked “No 7”
4) He died of an infection in his foot caused by him kicking his safe in frustration.
The most notable fact of all is that Lynchburg is in a dry county so we could not sample the drink and only recently had the firm been allowed to sell their products at the distillery on the understanding they were sold as souvenirs.
We later bought a bottle of Green Label as a present for an English friend who would not have seen it as it only sells in 44 of the United States to date.
We traveled on to Nashville and found the hotel, Best Western Downtown Music Row, by about 17.00, there was no restaurant in the hotel and we didn’t want to get into the car again so while Julia chilled out after her driving I scouted the neighbourhood. Within easy walking distance I found two pubs that served food, the second of which was the Red Rooster and this got my vote as there was a live group on.
We were agreed and the Red Rooster was indeed an experience, the food was passable and the atmosphere was unique in our experience. The audience was very varied and there were several women with children who were looked after by almost anyone there and just as we thought we had identified a lady as the partner of one of the singers that singer would leave the stage and completely ignore the lady. On a regular basis new people would come into the bar and clearly they were celebrities at this level but of course we had no chance to recognise them. The group of four musicians on the stage was not a group, they were four solo singers and they each delivered a song in turn and sort of supported each other if they could be bothered. After two songs each they were applauded off the stage and almost at once replaced by another four soloists, we saw two changes before needing to sleep.