Dashing from east to west across USA we have acquired new knowledge. We learned that not everything that looks like space-junk is actually space-junk; there is such a thing as too much steak; and there is no Forrest Gump bench in the Savannah square. We found no yellow brick road in Kansas and not even a lineman in Wichita. We did however, find the Choo choo in Chattanooga. At some (undetermined) point we were 24hrs from Tulsa, and someone did show us the way to Amarillo, so it’s not all bad, going west.
Forrest Dumped
First stop out of Florida, we head for a bit of movie history in Savannah, Georgia. Savannah is certainly the most beautiful town we have been to in USA so far. Elegant architecture, charming parks, wonderful shops, cafes and culture. It has notable political history too, however the town is (in certain circles at least) better known for its iconic place in movie history: the spot where Forrest Gump sat on the bench.
Excited as we approached the square, we hunted for a shop to buy a box of chocolates. I don’t normally need any excuse to buy chocolate, but… you know… for that bench photo opportunity. But we found no chocolates. Why? Because it turns out, there is actually no photo op. Forrest has been dumped and the bench is gone! What the bejeezers are they thinking??? Destroying one of the most iconic scenes in movie history!! Hrrrumpppff. Call us grumpy old sceptics if you want (many do), but we have a sneaky-beaky suspicion that Savannah is playing down the Gump connection. Not very ‘cultured’ to be known as ‘The Forrest Gump Town’ is it? Shame.
Marines to Choo-choo
Just over the border into South Carolina is the US Marines’ training base of Parris Island. It’s an operational USMC base, but with a bit of a security faff/background check at the entry gate, it’s possible to get in to visit the Marines’ museum. Even if you have some military service under your belt (as we have), the stories from the history of the USMC, through to their modern-day operations, recruitment and training are an eye-opener.
From Parris Island we said cheerio to the Atlantic and headed west. In Augusta we visited our overlanding friends, Scott and Angela. It was great to catch up with them and particularly interesting to see one of their latest vehicle projects: last year in Belize they bought the very Land Rover that belonged to the Prime Minister when Queen Elizabeth II carried out a State Visit there. For provenance, they have a photo of Her Majesty riding in their Land Rover with the Prime Minister personally driving her! Who has a cooler Land Rover than that in their garage, eh???
Moving on west, it would be remiss of us to not include at least a small part of Tennessee in our route, so we nipped up to catch a look at the fabulously named, Chattanooga. Yes, the famous Choo Choo is still there, but awful weather… we didn’t hang around.
Jack Daniel or Carrie A Nation?
Travelling across southern USA it’s hard not to be aware of its trickier eras in history. The anti-slavery, Civil Rights and Civil War history is particularly moving. But it was the national prohibition era that briefly caught our attention. In Tennessee we toured the Jack Daniel distillery. It’s great fun with entertaining guides, but curiously the county in which the 150 year old distillery plant sits, employing 370 people, is a ‘dry county’. Some might whisper the term ‘hypocritical’ , but we couldn’t possibly comment 😉
Now… what about the whole ‘dry’ prohibition thing? Back in Savannah, Georgia we visited a well-presented and informative museum of that 1920s/30s era. It explains the background, the politics and some personal accounts of the time. One standout character of the day was a six-foot tall hatchet-lady: Mrs. Carrie A. Nation (yes… her real name apparently!). Carrie started an anti-drink campaign, literally hacking-up illegal speak-easy bars in front of the drinkers. The idea caught-on with (mostly) women doing copy-cat hack-attacks and Carrie became a bit of a ‘hatchet celebrity’. Somewhat amusingly, the innovative Mrs Nation funded her campaign by the sale of souvenir miniature hatchets. We can only imagine the campaign she might have generated with access to the power of social media.
Although national prohibition was lifted in 1933, Jack Daniel found that his distillery’s essential source of pure spring water sat slap-bang in the middle of a county that was, and remains today, one of the USA’s several ‘dry’ counties. A strange dichotomy, but it somehow doesn’t prevent them doing a good tasting session at the end of the tour. And Carrie? We later saw her statue, standing for posterity in the streets of the night-life district of Wichita, Kansas – just near all the bars and beer-tap pubs.
Little Rock
Scooting west again, we crossed the mighty Mississippi into our State No.9: Arkansas. The city of Little Rock was in 1957, the scene of a shocking and pivotal event of the Civil Rights movement. Following a recent Federal de-segregation law, nine extraordinary young students defied white protesters, police and national guard forces to walk into the Central High School for their basic right of education. To see the footage and first-hand accounts of those days is a truly alarming, sobering experience to which we really cannot do justice here. If you’re not familiar with the full story, we highly recommend Googling it to see for yourself.
Little Rock also has a more recent notoriety as the home of Bill Clinton and his Presidential Library. Back in Dallas, Texas we decided out of idle curiosity to visit the Presidential Library of Bush the Younger. Now, passing through Little Rock, we thought that in the interests of political balance, we ought really to check-out Bill’s bid for posterity. Each of the Presidential Libraries is interesting enough, but of course, selective in their accounts of the respective eras (Bill, for example, has a notable absence of references to ‘Monica’). If we had to give one teeny little extra smarty-point, it would be to Bill, purely for his self-mocking humour in an amusing video shown about his final days at the White House. Nice work there, Bill!
Route 66 – Whacky Stuff
Next on the westward dash, we thought we’d intercept the famous Route 66 somewhere north of Tulsa. There’s all sorts of whacky stuff along ‘The Mother Route’, but we started our ‘Route 66 experience’ with the only small section of the route that is left from the original 1927 highway. Then, not far off the route we went to see some space-junk at the side of the road. Okaaay… it looks like space-junk, it’s actually a crashed cement mixer that has been painted-up in NASA colours 😂.
Meanwhile, cruising along in Cuthbert, we got word that our friend Andy Maguire happened to be visiting Wichita on a work assignment (and no, he’s not a linesman). So off we popped on a small detour up the (non-yellow brick) road across Kansas for a night out in the bright lights of Wichita. It was great to catch-up with Andy and would have been even more fun had it not been for the bone-chillingly freezing temperatures up there. Jeeeze.
After Wichita, we dipped south to re-join Route 66 in Oklahoma and cruised across the Texas ‘panhandle’. Here we come across a row of colour-sprayed Cadillacs, half-buried at the side of the road (as you do).
Back to Texas for free steak?
In Amarillo, Texas we were also curious about a roadside advert: ‘FREE 72oz STEAK’ it shouts in huge letters… ‘if you can eat it in 1 hour’ it adds in much smaller text underneath. You can’t just drive-on past that kind of thing… we just had to investigate the Route 66 Big Texan Steak Ranch.
Whilst most diners order the standard 12/18/24oz ribeye, the occasional crazy-dude tries his luck with the ‘72oz Free Steak’ challenge. For the decimalised peeps, 72oz is around 2kg. In anyone’s book, that’s a lotta, lotta meat for one person to scoff in an hour. A table is set on a small centre-stage in the restaurant, with digital timers overhead. Crazy-dude sits at his monster-pile of food which is not merely 72oz of steak, oh no, that would be waaay too easy. Crazy-dude must also eat three fried prawns, a salad, a bread roll and… drum roll… a large baked potato. All of this must be eaten in one hour to get the meal for free. Who on earth would be the crazy-dude?? Well… there’s no real shortage of crazy-dudes out there. In the short time we were there, we saw three crazy-dudes make an unsuccessful attempt.
Leaving Texas into southern New Mexico, we have now finally reached what we define as ‘The West’. Here, in the warmer climes of south-western USA, we plan to spend most of our winter. Our first stop will be to see the Aliens of Roswell. If you never hear from us again, try asking ET to phone home for us…