Atlanta to Memphis
Well, we made it all the way to Memphis today. Going west, we gain an hour in a few spots and going from Georgia to Alabama gave us our first gain so we decided to utilise it and carry on to Memphis. We arrived about 4.30pm.
It was really another driving day but we have decided that the scenery in Alabama and Mississippi is much nicer than Georgia. It is very green with rolling hills and thick trees in parts – and of course dissected by the interstates in parts which take up a lot of space ! And today we managed to get fine weather all day !
Margaret Mitchell’s house Atlanta
We left about 8.30am and drove a short way into Atlanta (but not without having to tangle with an interstate interchange – just lucky it was Saturday morning and not peak hour !) to the house where Margaret Mitchell lived and wrote that classic Atlanta tale – “Gone With the Wind”.
We then headed out of Atlanta and west along I20 toward the border. Almost immediately in Alabama, the scenery changed from very flat to rolling hills as we drove into the very southern reaches of the Appalachian Mountain range.
We stopped in a town called Oxford where there is a covered bridge which was built by a slave around 1850. It is now located in an area called Oxford Lake Park – a nice parkland area on a lake. It was originally located in a nearby town called Coldwater. It is in poor condition but probably not unexpected for its age and the fact it was hand built.
Further on we passed another example of the passion for NASCAR in these parts as we went past another famous site – Talladega Superspeedway.
Vulcan
Next stop was Birmingham Alabama. Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama and has been a major industrial centre after it was established post Civil War. It also played a significant part in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 60s. For the 1904 World’s Fair in St Louis, the city comissioned a statue to depict its roots in the iron and steel industry called Vulcan – after the Roman god of fire and forge. He is 17m tall and stands on a 38m plinth on Red Mountain which overlooks the city. It is the 7th largest free standing statue in the US and the largest cast iron statue in the world.
Adrienne and Liam braved the lift up to the viewing platform for the view over the city. Other than a brief stop for lunch along the way – another service station/truckstop, it was then basically a drive through the west of Alabama, before heading into Mississippi. This road, US78 is being developed into future I 22 so is almost like an interstate but with far fewer cars than we had encountered on other interstates so far.
Into Mississippi, we passed through the town of Tupelo which is the actual birthplace of that well know celebrity from these parts – none other than Elvis Aaron Presley. Tupelo are obviously keen to extract every cent possible from that fame as the house where Elvis was born is surrounded by fences so you can’t see it from the road. Much to the disgust of all you Elvis fans out there – we didn’t bother stopping in Tupelo. We headed on and into our 4th state for the day, Tennessee and just over the border is Memphis. So now we will have all day tomorrow to explore the sights here. Dinner was at a restaurant called Owen Brennan’s – a bit upmarket style and good tasty southern cooking again !