We have made it to the "Birthplace of Rock & Roll" and the "Home of the Blues!" We just finished walking up Beale street after visiting Mud Island on the Mississippi River. We walked the length of the entire lower Mississippi (Old Man River) in 1/30th scale on the Mississippi Riverwalk.
We've been pretty busy since our last post. After walking around Chatanooga, and seeing the Chatanooga Choo-Choo, we ventured into Georgia where we saw Rock City. A cavernous maze of man-made walkways through natural rock formations. There's a view from Lover's Leap that on a clear day you can see seven states, (VA, KY, NC, SC, GA, TN, & AL). It's not really a city, but we had quite a lot of fun touring the mountain side.
Continuing on our mountain theme, we saw (and camped within) Stone Mountain Park, which includes Stone Mountain, the largest exposed granite rock in the world. It's located 5 miles west of Atlanta. From there it was off to Atlanta, where we visited Centennial Olympic Park, and toured the CNN Studios. We searched for a neat little art museum our map listed, and upon discovering it's location we quickly learned that they were repainting the white walls, white.
Next up, or at least from what we remember, was Alabama's highest point. That makes two on this trip, (Clingman's Dome was the other). We asked for a primitive site, and that is what we got, I don't think anyone's camped in that area in years. A cross between backwoods camping and a rundown, overgrown bee-infested mud puddle. We had enough of trying to make that site work so we drove around to the other sites. Semi-primitive was just as run-down and still had no grill. We moved up to first class, the improved site, with water and electric hookups.
We passed one guy in a trailer that looked like he lives there, but all of the other sites were empty. We setup camp, fended off the bees, and wearily went to bed. Morning came, we were still alive, and we wanted to wash up (we hadn't the night before). The bathhouse, the first one with paper towels we've seen the entire trip, had no running water. Fantastic... While brushing our teeth at a water spout, we were approached by multi-millionare Wal-Mart builders, Brian and Jennifer Healy. We thought we had an early start at 7:45am, however it was 10:00 am by the time we were finished hearing stories about their life, their company, their plane (a Challenger 604), their bus, and taking pictures of the coyote who stopped in for a visit.
He did inform us of a beautiful hike to Bald Rock which was a much better view than the observation tower. The bald rock hike looked upon almost 21,000 acres of untouched land in the Talladega National Forest.
After an unknowingly long drive through western AL and eastern MI, we started looking for a campground. Our first attempt lead us into the sticks, where we saw cars up on blocks on peoples front lawns, and lots of long stares (but friendly waves) from the locals. We never did find that campground so we got back to Highway 78 and found Wall-Doxey State Park, a very empty, but well-maintained park.
Before venturing to Memphis this morning, we played some disc golf, (aka Frolf). For all those unfamiliar with the sport, it's basically golf with a Frisbee.
We think that's enough writing for now, we're going to have a few beers on Beale street to payback this coffee shop for letting us use the Internet for free!! And hopefully we'll catch a live Blues band tonight...
Rock on everyone!
Jonathan & Christina
