Chattanooga Choo Choo

So boy did we make it pretty far south. On the way to Chattanooga we stop to view a historic mansion - it really wasn't all that special. The only cool was the breakfast we got. This place was recommended by a local at the grocery store and it was truly amazing.

The town if Chattanooga was nothing special. It apparently has a great aquarium but that isn't really our cup if tea. To do it again we would skip this destination. The only really thing in town was the Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel. You can actually stay in old railroad cars.

The only other thing we are noticing is that MN does not have a lot of exposed power lines. Boy they are an eyesore.

Fall Creek Falls State Park

We ended up here based on multiple recommendations from people in Nashville. Basically everyone we asked told us to head here and boy were they right.

We did have two complaints and one odd observation with the park.

1. The signage for trails was pretty poor

2. The state park system does not enforce quiet hours so we were up until 2 am with loud neighbors. We are starting to wonder if we are some sort of magnets because of how often it happens.

3. The observation. The park only had 11 none electric sites. We both found this to be incredibly odd and were unsure why so many tent campers would want an electric site. Then we went to bed the first night, it was a low of 84 and humid. We fell asleep to the soft hum of everyone else's fans.

Overall we will totally come back here again. There was a lot of hiking and multiple creeks to swim in. And yes I did swim in a creek.


Plus next time we will bring a fan

A day of driving to get to camping

Our drive from Nashville was filled with history and finally good food. We stopped by the Carter house in Franklin TN which was a site for a Civil War battle.

The Carter Family lived on a farm and were unfortunately caught at the center of one of the bloodiness battles of the war. All family members survived by hiding in their basement. The tour was really amazing but the grounds were pretty small.

On the way out of town we found this place. It was amazing to have spicy food with tofu as well!!!!!!

Music city - Nashville

Rating - Awesome for music and history

We got in to Nashville on Friday and he first thing we did was walk downtown to the Visitors Center. While raiding the Welcome Center to TN I got a coupon for the visitor pass. This pass hot us into 4 sites each for $25. I know it seems really expensive bit one of the sites was $22 and they were all over $15. Did I mention that everything here was pricey?

On to the awesomeness- while getting our passes we were asked to go to a live radio recording. BJ and I are digging Bluegrass so it was pretty fun to see Ballsum Range live with 12 other people. Plus it was free!

Foodie Time


For all of you that know me way you know I an a bit of a foo snob. I must say that I did not find Nashville to be a food Neva but here are a few places we liked.

Two more food notes

1. They have amazing frozen yogurt with all the toppings you could think of.

2. They love their Yuengling out here and being a PA Girl I am loving it too.

The Sites

Country Music Hall of Fame - if you Country music you will love it here. If not you will feel a bit lost. We went because we felt like we had to see it. To be honest they had a lot of original instruments an costumes which was really awesome to see.

Cheekwood Masion and Botanical Gardens - this was great because we got to see awesome gardens, a small art museum and a historic mansion. I am sorry I don't have more pictures to post at the moment because I was using the cannon for most of the day.

The Hermitage - The this the home of President Andrew Jackson. I actually do not know a lot about him other then the controversy about how he stood up for some while opposing others. The tour and the grounds were really awesome. The only negative was the 100 degree temp withe 80% humidity.

The Belmont Mansion - if I had to choose only one historic site to see in Nashville this would be it. The tour was so detailed and the guides were clearly passionate. The mansion is now part of the Belmont University so the grounds don't look amazing but they have painstakingly restored the interior down to the wall paper with many original pieces. The other awesome thing is that it was built by a woman and her money. She owned it until see died. She also had some unique experiences in the Civil War.

One last note- we would totally but not in July. Boy it is hot. But good news is no more heat exhaustion !

More burial mounds

So Collionsville, IL might have seemed like an odd destination but we didn't just stay for the swimming; we stayed because of Chokia State Park. This place was recommended by the awesome guys at Effigy. These burial mounds are much more recent - only about 2000 years old. They are Also much more Aztec in shape and structure.

There was a nice museum and a lot of hiking here. After we were done seeing the sights it was almost 2 pm and time to get on the road to Nashville.

We have tried our best to avoid interstates so that we can get a netter view of the country. This has been really awesome for the moat part.

On the way to Nashville we did make some stops. We stopped at the home of the first governor of IL

So a few tips from today

1. If you are a vegetarian and drive past a coop stop and ask for dinner recommendations. We were in Carbondale and they pointed us to an awesome place

2. Stop at state welcome centers. We scored hotel discounts, state maps, state park information and countless ideas for things to see. Plus the one welcoming us to KY was amazing

3. Always ask people for their recommendations.

St Louis - a city better left unseen

So we arrived super late into St Louis. We used hotswire and got an awesome deal for a hotel downtown. Shame it was so gross! Don't stay at the Crowne Plaza here.

The next day we were up early to see the sites and honestly it was pretty sad. Lots of vacant buildings and homeless people. We decided to bike the 6 miles to the zoo and check out their park. It was just eery quiet for a city. The park was empty.

The zoo itself was pretty cool. It was free and very large. I was feeling pretty tired so I was only able to see about half of it. The only odd part about the zoo was the lack of signage. There were many times we had no idea what we were looking at and there was no info past a name.

We left that night and headed across the river to Collinsville for the night. We stayed at a hotel with a pool (turns out I really do like to swim).

Who Knew Iowa was so Pretty

So our first day of road tripping has brought a wonderful surprise - Iowa is pretty awesome.

It started in the far NE corner when we went to Effigy National Monument. These are burial mounds dating back over 10,000 years.

This place was amazing. The were multiple different hiking options including a 10 mile loop. I still wasn't feeling great so we opted for the 2 mile loop - not what the doctor recommended for heat exhaustion but definitely what my mind needed.

Also, a quick shout out to the park ranger here. He totally set us up with maps and recommendations. That is where most of today's stops came from.

So this was a busy day so ease bare with me. Next we headed to Pike's Peak. This is the highest point on the River.

Next we drove into Guttenberg. Why? Well of course we wanted to see one f the only remaining lock master houses left on the Mississippi. Apparently lock masters loved in it until the 1990's. It was pretty awesome and worth a stop in if you are driving through.

I have wanted to go to the field of dreams since I went to college at ISU. I can now check it off the bucket list.

The F of D is actually in Dyersville, IA. This town also has a Basilica. It is one of only 60 some in the country.

There was this old man in their cleaning when we arrived and he shared the history of the church, school and priest. It was actually really awesome.

From here we had to book it. The goal was to get to St. Louis which is another 5 hours.