Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas

This historic chapel near Covington, TN, was used in filming Walk the Line, a documentary about Johnny Cash. We found a geocache here.

 

I know it bothers people that Christians put their faith right out there in public, on their cars, and of course I never see this in Germany. When we were in Hawaii, I saw two people wearing Tshirts with Christian messages on them. I heard people saying "God bless" instead of "goodbye." Announcing you're a Christian is both detested and accepted in America. In Germany you don't say, your faith is private. However, those people in Saudi Arabia, they make Americans seem like they're only whispering their beliefs. In 2 days I'm going to my first Muslim country. I look forward to bumper stickers quoting their sacred texts. Which, of course, I won't be able to read: (

 

FOOD. I had only two southern meals I needed: Gus's fried chicken, and Central spare ribs. 

We dipped into Mississippi dodging Memphis for the moment to get my first bite of real Tennessee style chicken. They say if you haven't had Gus's, you haven't had fried chicken. Could it be true?

What a dive! I had no idea we'd be eating off paper and plastic and that there'd be a screaming baby behind us, which the employees kept going to to comfort him and make the parents not feel so bad. 

I saw the father (pictured) taking a bite from some Wonder bread. Confusing.

Then I had my first ever southern sweet tea. When they say sweet they mean you feel it eating your teeth away immediately. It was good, but you can tell it has about twice the sugar as Coca Cola. 

Later I learned you can mix it with unsweetened tea and make it more bearable for a northerner to drink.

Then we had chicken. And it's true, we'd never had fried chicken before this moment. We got the half chicken so we could each try each piece (and had leftovers). The chicken was so different from anything I'd ever had. It has a paper thin batter on it that is fiercely sharp. One customer complained on Yelp, "I broke my plastic fork on it!" What? He was trying to eat fried chicken with a fork? This is a serious crust, you need real teeth to take a bite. It's also spicy. Not too spicy, we both enjoyed it although J is a spice-wimp. Then it got better. As we ate it, it was so juicy, little streams of chicken juice dripped down onto the plate (is that why there's bread down there?). That's how fresh it was, how succulent. 

I don't remember the beans or coleslaw. I just want to learn how to make Tennessee style chicken. 

I have since tried, 3 times, and failed each time.

Then Arkansas, and another lovely Super 8 hotel, in West Memphis, which, if you can believe it, is in Arkansas. We'll get to Memphis the next day.

This was the nicest hotel of our entire trip - in Germany you're lucky to get a chair next to the bed to sit on to watch TV, this one had a couch, and even though it was one large room, it had TWO TVs!!!!!!!!

Of course we turned them both on. Why not. When checking out, when asked how we liked our room, I said, "Well, we had one completely unecessary TV but we enjoyed it too!

Go to West Memphis and enjoy the singular geocache and the double TVs.