Entering the Heart of USA Country Music

Timon van den Berg
Jul 11, 2018
5 min read

Leaving the cool air from the mountains behind us, with a four hour drive to Nashville ahead of us and temperatures close to 40 degrees (Celsius), we were hot! Of course we already knew we were hot, but who cares :-).

Due to the fact that the 4th of July was coming up, we booked our AirBnB with Jennifer way in advance. It's fairly normal that the check-in time of an AirBnB is around 2 PM local time, but being two Dutchies, coming from a country you can cross from left to right in less then 4 hours, we never took into account that we were going to cross a timezone line. So we thought we arrived at 2PM, but in fact we arrived at 1 PM, so we found Jessica still heavily cleaning and a little surprised to see us already. We went for lunch in an amazing Taco Bar with an amazing Nashville vibe and all kinds of Mexican dishes which you won't find at Chipotle!

Our first night in Nashville was a special one, we took the public bus (everyone Uber's so it was empty) to the world Famous Blue Bird Cafe. We didn't book tickets in advance so we were only allowed a quick peek inside. Slightly disappointed, we made our way back to the bus stop, finding "Fire Fly Grill" on our path. This restaurant is just crazy! You will find so many things on the wall, on the ceiling, etc. that you spend your whole meal exploring what's on the wall. We ended up speaking to an American couple. We told them our story and they really enjoyed it, because when we finally asked for the bill after all the exploring we did, they already took care of our drinks. They didn't tell us and we didn't know and they already left so we never had the change to thank them. Hes and I added something to the wall, so if you ever go there, you know who put it there.

The 4th of July celebration in Nashville was just crazy, we spent our night on Broadway, watching shows from multiple famous Country Singers. The ambiance was amazing and around 10 PM there was the biggest firework in the nation. By the way, firework was sponsored by Dr Pepper. So after seeing this, I realized I have to limit my Dr Pepper consumption, because if they can afford this we are drinking it too much!

Our last day in Nashville started off by visiting the Tire Shop, on our way to Nashville we most likely hit a rough piece of road and destroyed one of our front wheel tires. To keep the car stable we decided to switch both front wheel tires. But of course Dutch as I am I kept the good tire, pretty sure we are gonna need that some time in the future :-). We also spend some time this morning with Becca and Sam who were staying in the AirBnB as well. They are doing a cross country trip in 8 weeks, very cool! We finished the day in the Horse Saloon, with a huge stage, where during dinner Country Bands are providing typical Nashville entertainment. From my perspective, there is no place anywhere in the world like Nashville, it's a great experience and people are unbelievable friendly. As an example, I was 7 cent short on a purchase and the guy behind the counter chipped it in himself. Ok, only 7 cent, but still!

All though Hester was already looking at houses for us to buy in Nashville to establish ourselves there, it was time to move on and enter Georgia. Our route would bring us to Atlanta with a stay over of two nights in Blue Ridge on a campsite. On our way there we would make a stop on a historic battle ground just below Chattanooga. The ranger who we met in the park, started talking with so much passion about the battle that we ended up spending more then two hours listening to his story. He drove with us and a couple other people to different historic places in the field, where battles with impact had taken place in the war between the Union and the Confederacy.

We arrived at the campsite just before they closed the office. Due to rain many people had cancelled their nights, so we were lucky and received the best spot. Watching over the river from our tent spot was amazing.

Tubing is the number one camping activity in the US. Everyone on a campsite owns at least two tubes, which they use to float down the river. Hester and I had to try it so in the morning we went to the rental office and got ourselves two tubes. We would float on the river for about 6 miles (10km) and from there a van would return us to the campsite. Despite some rain in the end it was a very relaxing experience with some faster flowing parts in the river sometimes to raise our excitement levels. At night we cooked our meal above the campfire and received free homemade ice cream from one of the campsite guests. I'm not sure who in Europe goes camping and brings himself an Ice Cream maker, but as we found out Americans do. I guess they leave the potatoes at home. We also figured out our last part of the US route and decided that we do want to go to Yellowstone, prior to leaving the US.

Leaving our amazing campsite and jumping in the car for a short 1,5 hour drive to Atlanta was easy. We were excited because in Atlanta we would visit "The world of Coca-Cola" and besides that we saw CNN's HQ and the Mercedes Stadium in which the Falcons play American Football. The world of Coca-Cola was a nice experience. The museum is build around the secret of the ingredients which are in Coca-Cola. Besides multiple movies, animations and a ton of old signs, which were all great to see, there is the tasting room. In the tasting room we found more then 100 different flavors from all round the word. After trying 20 or so I was done, but Hester came into a flow and tried a couple more.

The tourist spots in downtown are fine in Atlanta, but the rest of the neighborhoods that we visited were a little rough. At nighttime we went to a restaurant which is called "Old Lady Gang". It's a typical Southern Kitchen with amazing local food, if ever in Atlanta definitely a place to go to.

We would only stay in Atlanta for one night so the next morning we were off back to the South East Coast, Charleston and Savannah, which should be a completely different America from what we have seen until now. More about that the next time....

When ending this story we are traveling for 13 days and drove +/- 1,700 Miles.