All good things must come to an end and so we find ourselves on the last day this years American Road Trip, with a final drive of 240 miles from Gatlinburg to Nashville Airport.
We had to be out of our log cabin by 10am so had done most of the packing the night before. After a last check and making sure all of the rubbish was locked away in the bear proof bins We got in the Durango Hemi, hit the roads and said goodbye to Gatlinburg.

We didn’t have to check in at BNA until around 17:00 that evening so we still had time to do a bit more road tripping on the drive back. The Plan was to take as many of the back roads as possible and keep off the freeways ( or highways – I’m sure there is a rule to which is a freeway and which is a highway but i can never remember it!). Anyway, Nothing was really planned other than a nice meander through the Tennessee countryside, so we headed off along the 411 to Knoxville.

I can’t really remember the actual route we took to Nashville but we took in everything from 4 lane highways (Freeways?) down to single track roads that we thought would come to a dead end. We crossed lakes, rivers, railroads and drove through typical American shopping areas lined with chain restaurants. At some points we didn’t see another car for miles as we drove past trailer parks and what looked like abandoned junk yards. We stopped in Kingston and did some last minute goody buying at a Dollar General ( ie, American sweets and chocolate by the bucketload). After many more miles of roads we came to Sparta.

Sparta, i suppose, was the American equivalent of a Chocolate Box English Village. It was a quaint town that didn’t look like much happened on a daily basis and the centre was very 1950’s with it’s courthouse and art deco style picture house. In fact, I suppose it reminded me of the Town in Gremlins or maybe Hill Valley from Back To The Future. We parked up and had a quick wander round, some great coffee and lunch and then set off on our final leg of the journey to N

After a pleasant stop in Sparta ( which didn’t have a Football club) we got back on the road and headed to Nashville international Airport. We were ahead of schedule so decided to do some last minute shopping at Oprey Mills. I don’t think we got anything but we had a coffee and a wander and then headed off to the airport.

Dropping the rental car was easy enough and a couple of minutes later we had made it across the car park, into the airport and to the business class check in which went as smoothly as you would expect it to. I was a little worried about having to put my guitar into the hold but they allowed me to take it on as hand luggage along with my rucksack.
Nashville airport was ok. Nothing to write home about and as we were flying BA business class we were allowed to use the American Airlines lounge. Shouldn’t have bothered mind you as it was every bit as bad as the Aspire lounge at Heathrow on the way out. Actually, i think it may have been worse. We were a little disappointed with the lounge arrangement at BNA after being spoilt rotten with the BA Lounge at JFK when we travelled business class from New York to Heathrow. It served it’s purpose mind you, Deb swears blind we were sat next to somebody famous but i didn’t recognise them and it was soon time to board the plane.

Business class was unfortunately British Airways old style. Don’t get me wrong it’s a bit like complaining that your Ferrari is the wrong colour, but again it was a bit of a come down after how fantastic our New York flights had been. The food was good. Well it was for me. They had run out of a vegetarian option for Deb so she wasn’t overly chuffed. The leg room was great though the seats weren’t quite as comfy as the new style business class with BA, but that didn’t stop me dropping them down into a bed and sleeping for most of the journey.
The flight flew by, on Landing at Heathrow it took about 45 minutes to get from the plane, through immigration and have our luggage in hand. Our chauffeur, Adam was waiting for us when we got through and we were soon in the back of a luxury Mercedes S Class and on our way back north in the Best Derby Chauffeur Service, A52 Executive Cars 😀 😀

So, Three weeks, 5 states, several fantastic hotel and shack and lots of memories.
Deep South USA … it’s been a blast