We left Charleston on Sunday and as the weather was getting colder we decided we needed more jeans than shorts so this called for a visit to our favourite clothing store, yup Walmart!  I got a pair of $20 Wranglers and Alex a pair of $20 Levis (strangely not 501s).  We drove up to Givhans Ferry State Park, a smallish park on the Edisto River, popular with fishermen and kayakers in the summer, not so popular in November so it was a quiet stay with only a few hardy fellow RV’ers in the campground with us. 

We left on Tuesday after a couple of relaxing days and visited Congaree National Park, nope we’d never heard of it either.  It turns out to be a very important park for tree biodiversity and sadly the largest remaining example of a river flood plain forest.  These forests used to stretch across the whole of what is now the southeast of the United States, from South Carolina, down through Georgia, the top of Florida, across Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and into Texas, but the rivers have been tamed and the forests all logged leaving only Congaree as an example of how the region would have looked to the indigenous people.  There are ‘champion’, i.e. tallest and oldest, examples of loblolly pines, bald cypress and water tupelo trees through the park.  It was described as a combination of the Redwood and Everglades national parks with enormous trees and broad wide flowing waters.  During the summer the mosquitoes are also like the Everglades, the visitor centre has a scale that goes up to ‘War Zone’ for how bad they are!  We walked along the Oakridge trail crossing bridges over streams and tributaries looking up at the vast trees and spotting birds and some feral pigs and deer along the route.

We stayed that evening a Paris Mountain State Park which gives the reason why we chose not to run around it in the morning before we set off for The Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP).  The ‘Smokys’ in contrast to the rarely visited Congaree, is the most popular park in the whole National Park Service with up to eleven million visitors a year.  Fortunately, November is a quiet time for them as it is cold and often lives up to its name of Smoky with low cloud and mist covering much of them.  We went via the Blue Ridge Parkway which winds its way along the mountains all the way from the Shenandoah National Park to the entrance to the GSMNP. 

We stopped for lunch at the highest point on the route and walked up to a vantage point within the Pisgah National Forest.  We sat for a while on a bench along the trail and contemplated the sheer beauty of the ridges of forest stretching into the distance without a single man-made structure within the view.  This was truly one of the most beautiful and life affirming sights we’ve seen on the whole trip, just contemplating them soothes the soul and places in context where man sits within nature.

Right enough of the hippie feelings stuff, back to the trip, we drove on to the GSMNP visitor centre, through the park itself and to our campground in Pigeon Forge.  Pigeon Forge is not only one of the places to stay near the park it also is the location of Dollywood, Dolly Parton’s eponymous theme park, entrance to which is $62 per person during the season.  We declined the opportunity to visit her ‘Stampede’ and chose instead to eat dinner in.

Thursday, we went to the GSMNP properly and walked the Appalachian Trail to Charlie’s Bunion and back.  I don’t know who Charlie was and why he got a bunion at this point but the point commands a great panoramic view of the valley below and the mountains across from it.  The problem was it was very cold along the walk and my cheap walking shoes were letting water in from where they had previously broken on the sole and been repaired with Alex’s favourite superglue, I had a beautiful view with freezing toes!  We hurried back changed socks and drove up to Clingman’s Dome, the highest point in the park, to walk the steep half a mile to the lookout point from which you can see for up to 100 miles in all directions.  Worth the trip and on the way back the sun was setting giving beautiful (if cold) views in the fading light.

Friday dawned cold and clear and we drove on to Nashville arriving in the late afternoon, booked a trip to the Grand Ole Opry for Saturday then caught the $10 shuttle bus downtown.  Their only strictures were to only get on the bus that was stopped outside BB King’s Blues Bar (as they did not stop anywhere else and consequently any other bus people got on wouldn’t bring them home) and to remember, to the point of suggesting writing on your hand with a marker pen, where you were staying.  Apart from that they reserved the front seat on the ride back for those who might need rapid access to the waste bin by the door, otherwise they were happy with however you wished to behave.

We started in the Famous Saloon and worked our way up and down Broad St, alternating who was picking which bar playing whatever type of music to enjoy. We saw a variety of music, from the traditional Country and Western you would expect, through heavy rock to an intriguing cover of a Beastie Boys classic.  All the bands were pretty accomplished and as none of the bars we visited had cover charges, remarkably good value tor the tips we left each of them.  The highlight was probably the traditional country band, led by a woman with a good double bassist who along with a great fiddler, had the best dancers we saw all night.  Alex’s highlight was talking to a group of black youngsters body popping on a street corner for tips, at one point doing a very good synchronised dance akin to Michael Jackson’s Thriller.  It was all I could do to drag her away to get a poor hot dog and back onto the last, but one busses back to the campsite.

Surprisingly Saturday morning was a little blurred and we didn’t get out again until after lunch when we went into town again to visit the Tennessee Museum by the Capitol building, quite interesting for the information on Presidents Jackson and Polk, who between them added a large swathe of territory to the United States and encouraged Texas to join the union.  It also had information on why Tennessee is nicknamed the Volunteer State, basically they rush to sign up at any opportunity to fight, including during the Civil War supplying 100,000 troops to the Confederacy and another 50,000 to the Union armies.

We had dinner in yet another bar with live music and walked to the main event for the day …. The Grand Ole Opry.  If you haven’t heard of it, this is the legendary radio show that was first broadcast in 1925 and is still going strong today.  It has moved several times in its history but we saw it at the Ryman Auditorium, its home between 1943 and 1974 when they built their own purpose built auditorium and resort.  The show is at the Ryman during the winter season when they use the new auditorium for seasonal shows.  The Ryman was originally a church and has a stalls and gallery but still seats several hundred.  The show is still broadcast live and was packed when we were there.  It goes for two hours with three sections, each presented by a more established ‘star’ and with a presenter who reads out the sponsors announcements in a rapid deadpan voice, exactly as you imagine they have done since the 1950’s. 

We both thoroughly enjoyed the show, they had 13 acts ranging from a couple of older ‘greats’ through to a country version of Ed Sheeran and a couple of brothers in a band called Locash who closed the evening, in between they had a bluegrass act (with an ancient front man), a comedian and the largest (in thighs at least) group of resident dancers I’ve ever seen.  The place was rocking at points in the evening and apart from a couple of songs obviously related to religion surprisingly un-proselytising for how I imagined a Country and Western gig would be.  We went home on the Gray Line bus after a great evening.

Sunday we got up and drove all the way back from Nashville, Tennessee to Hickory, North Carolina where we were greeted by a lady who was born and grew up in Ipswich before marrying an American and emigrating to the US.

M

Thanks to everyone for their support during October at a difficult time for Matt and his brothers.

We few back to Philadelphia on Thursday 2nd November and were greeted with the most stunning sunset as we got a cab back to Reg. In the laid-back style of the place that we had left him in, he was waiting for us with his keys on his windscreen… bit of a culture shock after having been home for a month where we have two locks just get into our flat after the security door! Anyway, no one had driven off with him and we were incredibly grateful to the site for having stored him for October.

We went that night for a pizza and a beer to just get back into the swing of things and discovered that once again no one could understand us as we must have become very British again having been home. It was very comforting to be back in the land of junk food, very friendly wait staff and we had a huge pizza (shared) and some beers whilst we were bombarded by TV’s showing sport. Everyone ups and leaves at 9pm, as we did, so we were well and truly back into the US lifestyle.

Next day we had to reequip Reg with food and fuel for our trip to Gettysburg. Again, we attracted a lot of hilarity in a deli that we stopped in for breakfast. The ladies behind the counter were asking me all about the Royal Family (luckily, I know a bit thanks to Mummy) and when I declared Prince Charles to be an ‘arse’ – they kept asking me to say it over and over again as they thought it was funny to elongate the ‘r’ sound as opposed to their ass!

After all that, we drove south west across Pennsylvania and arrived at Gettysburg just before twilight. This meant we could go to the Visitors Centre and orientate ourselves. Except that it was closed but a volunteer outside gave us a map and we went to the National Cemetery where Lincoln made the Gettysburg Address from.

For those that do not know (myself included until last week!) the Address was not a battle cry at all. I think many of us assume it was. Instead the battle had already taken place – three days in July 1863 – 1st to 3rd July between the Union and Confederate forces. The Address were some remarks by Lincoln at the dedication of the cemetery as there were so many bodies at the end of the battle. There had been a campaign to bury the 20,000 plus dead properly and the land had been bought from a farmer and the idea of a national cemetery agreed as a fitting tribute to men who had died in the war. The governor of Pennsylvania spoke first – for two hours (can you imagine listening to that!) and then Lincoln stood up and gave his Address which was under two minutes. It turned out to be one of the greatest speeches ever given.

On Saturday we went to the Visitor Centre which was now open and watched a great film about the battle and then went up to the Cyclorama which is a huge painting done in the 1890’s of the battle. It shows the last desperate day when the Confederates under Robert E Lee were basically marched into the Union guns and unsurprisingly defeated and ended up fleeing the scene. The painting is a masterpiece – completely huge – a bit like the IMAX at Waterloo, and they narrate over the top with sound effects to make it a very real experience.

That afternoon we then got on the Thompsons and cycled around the historic drive which is all over the battlefield. The landscape and atmosphere was very evocative and you could understand how the whole battle rested on who had the higher ground (the Union) and what it must have felt like for those three days.

Like Vicksburg which we went to about this time last year it is always interesting to see all the different memorials and plaques to the soldiers from different states and then watching people from nowadays find their state troops or even in some cases relatives on the memorials. The Civil War is still the biggest loss of US life in a combat situation despite all that has come since. Staggering figures.

After Gettysburg we decided to stay south and west and head for Shenandoah National Park. This is something that we would have done with Mummy and Nick if they had come, it was well worth it.

The park is on the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains and has a road called the Skyline Drive which runs 115 or so miles of it. We started off in bright sunshine and the leaves were amazing – still very colourful – yellow, bright reds and of course lots of golden browns. All good, busy as this is quite close to Washington DC so I am sure many people come for the day.

Completely unexpectedly we found ourselves in low cloud and the visibility fell to literally a couple of metres in front of us. Some drivers coped well, others not so well but for the rest of the afternoon we either had great views of the Virginian countryside either side of the ridge or just damp and cold with red taillights in front. Reg just got on with it although pity the people behind him as we had to all go at 45mph and overtaking was not an option.

Since we have been back we have tried to be very stoic and British about the weather and how annoying it has been – and thinking back last Sunday was the start of it. Clearly now we are in winter. The clocks have changed here too and it is very chilly at night. We have heating in Reg which we have been utilizing to the full. We are no longer getting up and thinking of shorts and t-shirts sadly!

So even though the weather had interfered with the Skyline Drive we had seen enough and had a walk half way along to get the sense of it. I was struck again by my silliest observation from the whole trip – which is that there are an awful lot of trees in America. (I won’t be winning any prizes for being profound!).

On Monday we then set off for the Blue Ridge Parkway which is a similar thing – a National Park road that would take us on the crest of the mountains all the way to North Carolina – a sort of Appalachian Way for vehicles. Lovely and sunny up until lunchtime – we were amazed by it. Then we drove into the low cloud and did not really emerge again until Wednesday!

Abandoning plans to complete the Blue Ridge Parkway after Tuesday lunchtime because of the weather we decided to get to Asheville where we needed to do some Reg related errands and hope that things cheered up. Sadly, they did not and it was pretty miserable – drizzle, torrential rain, fog, cold and low cloud.

So, the whole purpose of an RV is to take off, so that is what we did – to Charleston which is in South Carolina and always intended to be the most southerly point on this leg of our trip. We hammered down the freeway and got to the site in pouring rain but trusted the weatherman who said things would improve from Friday onwards. And they did.

Friday was lovely and sunny and so much warmer than we have been used to of late. We set off into Charleston and did the best walking tour of our trip so far. For two hours Erica showed us the sights of the city and told us some very funny stories.

Charleston is a very pretty place and there are lots of antebellum mansions and clearly before the Civil War when it was the fourth largest city in the US and maybe even the wealthiest at some time before that, the great and the good had invested on the peninsula with the Ashley and Cooper Rivers either side. The houses still belong to old money and the town is amazingly well preserved (second only to Rome apparently) for not allowing development or any crass commercial activity or height in the old centre.

However, all of this comes at a price. It was the centre of the domestic slave trade and has a very shameful past. We went on Sunday to the Slave Museum and read the ghoulish stories of how humans have treated one another. Matt was surprised and embarrassed to discover that a former Governor of the Bank of England was a serious slave trader in the 1720’s with eight ships transporting human misery across the Atlantic. All his ships were named after his wife and daughters. Hmm… what a lovely touch…not.

We had a good time in Charleston and had a tasty dinner on the Friday night and saw the locals out and about. Everyone is very friendly in the traditional southern way and a lot of ‘y’all’s’ have been spoken, not by us just yet.

So, our first week back has ended and we have loved being back in Reg. We have been slightly frustrated by the weather but thrilled to be back in this lovely place where the people are so genuinely friendly, the history is staggering (sadly quite often rather horrific) and it has given us the opportunity to reflect on the last month – so not a bad return all in all.