All good things must come to an end.

Asheville had been good to us but now was time for the next place and it was the turn of Asehville’s near-namesake, Nashville.

Driving through the Appalachians is always pleasant and pretty, so we were glad for more of the same until we entered the country capital of the USA, and state capital of Tennessee, Nashville.

A hub of bars and cafes each with their own bands playing. Pretty much all of them quality players, but there is only so much country and average man can take. I did however learn that the musicians, much like the staff, are paid way below an appropriate wage and rely upon the tips for their income. Even the bars of Nice treated their musicians better, which is saying something!

Printers Alley, then Broadway, a few beverages, boot shops and bands later we had enough of the brightlights and settled on a roof top terrace in the company of our latest rencontres, Tom and L.A., they were from New Jersey, well not originally, but that’s where they were based and were on a trip to Nashville on a wedding road trip of their own. Brash and loud, full of beans and a heart of gold, Tom was exactly the dude we needed to sit by, incidentally, if you ever had Campbells soup, Tom bought it’s ingredients. His wife L.A. (forgive me if I’m wrong and feel free to tell me off L.A. but I think that was short for Lou Anne) is a lovely, more reserved but equally gold hearted lady. Much laughs and a couple of cokes later we headed onwards for a look at the Bluebird cafe, much famed from the TV show that bears the City’s name as our evening dining spot. We initially missed the place an easily missable little spot, idea did exactly that! Pulling a swift U-ey in the parking lot I nearly obliterated two poor young lads innocently crossing the road, but it was too late, I hadn’t seen them, luckily they stopped just shy of Black Beauty’s nose as she rounded the corner, so I could only do the typical English gentlemanly thing, and raise an apologetic hand. Back to the Bluebird, not only was it entirely missable, but also, entirely closed, we briefly joined the queue, got chatting to a few Northern Irish folk in the line (turns out these were the poor chaps I nearly killed a few moments earlier) that were there also down to the TV show, and got annoyed by some bogan from Tasmania until Conny realised that the place was gonna cost us a fortune, we slipped out of the line as easily as we slipped in and headed for the local Trader Joe’s for supplies before heading out through the McMansions skirting Nashville proper intent on finding a place to sleep. Again the swamps were a no no, so we had to settle for an out of the way car park next to some sports fields…or so we thought.

We had our tea, and settled in for the night, tent hoisted, fast asleep, we were awoken by the knock and the call, “POLICE!”

Startled, my first words are “Oh crap” before opening the zips to a startled looking rozzer, perhaps it was my man boobs swinging in the wind that did it, perhaps my out of town accent, but I think it did the job enough to distract her so that she didn’t throw the book at us, she did however explain that we had to move on, so obligingly we told her we would and took her advice to go to the local Walmart. We thought we shall go to the side with the other RV’s and we did, holding our need for the toilets and went to sleep, or tried to amongst the noise. We awoke at silly o’clock with the light, and headed into the Walmart, which much to our surprise, and probably that of the customers, was a 24 hour one. I wonder what they thought of the van with a tent in the car park…?

The next morning we set out for Lafayette, Louisiana and the home of my mate Joe’s sister, and old babysitter of mine, one Mrs Kiera Baines, who graciously allowed us to park the beauty on her driveway and use her facilities, more importantly meet the family that has grown since I last saw her and Gary a decade ago.

Our route was to pass through Tennessee, which we did, almost without incident, save from the casual roadside fire that was smoking the highway and blazing along the embankment. I assume it was started by a flick of a cigarette on the dry grass but it would be exactly no more than that. We ummed and we arred about calling the authorities but seeing that the road was stuffed with big rigs and their radios, we thought these people probably see this more often than us and will know better how to deal.

Then on to Mississippi, where we planned to stop at De Soto National forest, en route, we thought we were heading past another fire, however this time it was the freshly crashed truck in the woods. Again, there seemed to have been enough people there to help so we thought we’d move on by. As night fell, just as we approached the trail head we had kept in mind for the night…a rattler, right in the road. Brilliant. The night from that point on, involved me taking the lead, with headlamps in every endeavour, from toilets to cooking dinner, but the spot we chose was a glorious one at Ashe Lake and the morning mist rolled of the lake beautifully as we tucked into breakfast. We met Norma, a toothless local who loved her dogs (a gaggle of tiny chihuahua things and one big fat mutt thing) and loved the swamp from which she came, but hated snakes and the way the local hunt folk treated the animals. She was a lovely sort, to make ends meet she collects trash along the river and sells it to recycle, and gets a free canoe ride out of it to boot. She tells us of the unfortunate decline of the life of the swamp folk, with her trash collecting even becoming dangerous due to the used needles being hidden amongst the trash she collects. When we speak of snakes, as she does with much chat, she gets very animated in the sweetest way, “Oh my goll-y I hate them snakes they scare the crap outta me…lucky you see they don’t want to be anywhere near you, so they don’t want no trouble, but if I was to think of all the snakes I past in the grass that I never saw…ooooh boy I’d never sleep again”.

We headed to the coast, the beautiful white sands of the gulf. Took a stroll down the pier, which at a glance looks lovely and is lovely until you hit the end, complete with guts laden bin and floor full of scales and various fish fluid stains.

By the afternoon we reached our goal, Lafayette, and boy was it hot. I was sweating my pills off in the mid-October heat, Conny and I headed for the nearest water hole (a Bavarian Biergarten no less) to quench our thirst before heading on to the Baines residence.