First Week Recap
It’s the end of the eighth day of the trip but here are some of the highlights of the first week.
- I’ve stayed two nights in hotel rooms, 5 nights in friends’ houses and no nights camping so far.
- I’ve driven about 2,000 miles (today was a big driving day and I’m now at 2,500).
- I’ve spent $229.27 on gas (more today).
- 12 Bones in Asheville has the best BBQ I’ve ever had, particularly the dry rub ribs.
- Nashville has been the most impressive and livable city so far, a big surprise to me.
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Belle Meade Plantation was very interesting. Every entrant in this year’s Kentucky Derby descended from a Belle Meade thoroughbred and every Derby winner from 1972 to 1996 (from memory but something like that) did as well.
- Beale Street in Memphis was hopping with activity and the Peabody Hotel was great.
- St. Louis has a lot of traffic.
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The Arch in St. Louis is so much more impressive than I imagined.
- The Anheuser-Busch Brewery Tour was great. It’s the site of the beginning of the modern beer industry, which I didn’t know. Adolphus Busch came up with the idea for the first national beer brand (all beers had been regional to that point), came up with the name Budweiser to sound German while still easy to pronounce for Americans, and was the first brewer to pasteurize beer, even before milk was pasteurized (this allowed shipments all over the country). The site is also home to the largest bottling plant in the world (over a million square feet) and a gorgeous stable for the Budweiser Clydesdales.
So far so good. See more pictures on my flickr page and some videos on vimeo. I’m checking out the architecture of Columbus, Indiana, in the morning and then on to Louisville, Kentucky. Current location is always here.
