Road Trip to Woodstock & Beyond - Days 2 & 3

Click HERE to read Day 1

Day 2 

The next morning, we had a rather frustrating experience in Jackson, Tennessee. Trying to follow the GPS to the bakeshop, the designated exit was closed due to construction. No big deal, we'll just go down an exit and come back. The next exit, closed due to construction. Hmmm. And the next exit, closed due to construction. Three exits in a row closed due to road construction! Whose bright idea was it to do that? We finally got to the next exit, went over a couple of blocks and headed back to the bakeshop's address. We made it to the street where it was located and found it too was closed for construction! Close to giving up, we decided to give it one more try so back the way we came and across the highway hoping we could get across at the right street by going under the highway. Nope, closed due to construction. That's it! Woodstock Bakery will just have to wait until some other time. 

We had to go a block away from the highway so we could get to an open highway entrance and along the way, guess what we found - the Woodstock Bakery! Turns out there is a south Innsdale Cove Road and a north Innsdale Cove Road and we had been trying to go to the wrong one! Not sure all the hassle was worth it, but we did buy several items each for later consumption and we had a nice conversation with the friendly, young girl behind the counter. We really felt old when we told her we were on our way to Woodstock and she didn't have a clue what we were talking about. Everything we purchased and ate was delicious!

If you ever find yourself in Jackson, Tennessee, and if the road construction has been completed, get a chocolate cupcake from the Woodstock Bakery - yummy! Next up - Cooter's Dukes of Hazzard Museum and a late lunch with Paula Deen in Nashville.

It's about 135 miles from Jackson to Nashville. And if you have to keep slowing down due to road construction, it takes a while to drive those 135 miles. I love going on road trips with my buddy because we have so much in common. Driving from one destination to the next, we reminisce about old girlfriends who did us wrong and recall good times back when we were young and old age and death was remote. He is sneaking up on 70 and I have embraced 70 so we talk about aches and pains, bad knees, and lower back pains and we can’t remember where we put anything. We tell each other wonderful stories and the next day we say, “Hey, did I tell you the story about the time ...?” and the reply will be, “No, I don’t think so,” and we’ll do it all over again.

Aisles and aisles of stuff to buy at Cooter's

You may remember the TV show Dukes of Hazard back in 1979 and the early 80's. In today's political climate, can you even imagine if that show aired now? Most of the regular cast, Denver Pyle (Uncle Jesse), Tom Wopat (Luke Duke), John Schneider (Bo Duke), and Catherine Bach (Daisy Duke) went on to fame and bigger roles. Not so Ben Jones (Cooter) who has made his living being associated with Dukes of Hazzard. Of course, we had to visit "Cooter's Place" his Dukes of Hazzard museum. It's in a small building jammed pack full of the show's artifacts and lots of things for sale like t-shirts, Daisy Duke shorts, bandanas, playing cards, General Lee and Daisy Jeep model cars, postcards, signs - most anything you can think of. Maybe most interesting of the whole thing was the actual General Lee (1969 Dodge Charger), Rosco's patrol car (1978 Plymouth Fury), and Daisy's Jeep (1980 Jeep CJ-7). It was a fun way to spend about 30 minutes and well worth the free entrance fee!

After Cooter's Place, we were a couple of hungry guys! We found our way to Paula Deen’s Family Kitchen. By the time we arrived, it was the early afternoon after the lunch rush hour should have been over, but it was still very busy and we had to wait for 30 minutes to get a table. After being seated and getting our food, we found it was well worth the wait! We got to choose 2 entrees and 4 side dishes for the table (served family style) for about $20 per person. It's a bit expensive for lunch but worth it! I chose Beef Pot Roast and if I remember correctly, Chip chose the Fried Catfish. We had Creamed Potatoes, Cole Slaw, Candied Yams and corn for the side dishes. Each and every item was great! And if you want more of an item, just ask because it is unlimited refills. You also get a dessert, but we ate so much we couldn't eat another bite, even for dessert. Fortunately, they are happy to put your chosen dessert in a to-go container for your enjoyment later. I took a peach cobbler and Chip chose the Ooey Gooey Butter Cake. They were both a wonderful treat in our hotel room later that night. Highly recommend Paula Deen’s!

With very satisfied full tummy's, we got back on the road again headed to Bowling Green, Kentucky, Unlike Cooter's museum, we were headed for a much different, very interesting museum.

From Nashville to Bowling Green, Kentucky is only 70 miles. We arrived there a little after 4:00, but after our full-on meal at Paula Deen’s and then driving just a little over an hour, we decided it would be a good time to take the rest of the day off to relax a bit. We rarely make hotel reservations beforehand because we want to be free to stop early or late and we usually don’t know exactly where we’ll be when we decide to stop for the night. On our road trips, we usually live by the words of Lao Tzu – “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.”

We checked into a LaQuinta Inn and proceeded to relax, i.e. nap time! Our good luck with getting good hotels on the fly continued as our room was clean, cold, quiet, and had very comfortable beds. We woke up just in time to feast on Slotsky sandwiches and chips from the shop next door to the hotel and then settled in to eat our Paula Deen desserts and watch college Girls World Series softball games. It was a very good day.

Day 3

The next morning, after a surprisingly good breakfast at a Waffle House near the hotel, we drove to the reason we were in Bowling Green – The National Corvette Museum. Now this is a great museum! From the first Corvette to the latest and greatest. There’s a lot to see here with information on each car, the difference between the year’s models, and who owned that particular car if it was somebody of importance or fame. The place is huge – 55-acre campus and 115,000 square feet under roof with wide aisles and friendly, knowledgeable staff. Before arriving, we figured we would spend an hour or so here, but it was so interesting, we spent 4 and could have stayed longer.

You may remember when the National Corvette Museum made international news headlines on February 12, 2014, when a sinkhole collapsed in the Skydome of the Museum in the middle of the night. No one was in the building when it happened, but security cameras were rolling and caught the incident on camera. Millions of viewers later watched on YouTube as 8 very special, very expensive Corvettes fell into the 30-foot cave-in. The museum did an excellent job of covering this. The damaged cars are on display with placards describing each car’s damage and how much it would cost to repair (several were beyond repair). The sinkhole is safe now, but there is a plexiglass-covered hole in the floor where you can look down into it. Seeing those beautiful cars damaged like that was enough to almost bring tears to my eyes.

And then there’s the gift shop – one of the best I’ve ever visited at a destination site. Pretty much any Corvette-related item you could want is there. Most of the items were a bit expensive, but all were of top-notch quality instead of the usual Chinese-made cheap tourist keepsakes. I got gifts for family members as well as a t-shirt, jacket and a great lap blanket for me. The back of our vehicle, Chip’s SUV, is already starting to fill up with our goodies and we’ve still got lots of places to see and things to do! Next stop on the road ahead – Day 4 in Louisville, Kentucky.

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Road Trip: From Arkansas to Woodstock & Beyond - Day 1

 My buddy and I recently completed an epic road trip. First stop was for BBQ at "Tom's Barbeque" in Memphis, Tennessee. I heard it was on Guy Fieri's show "Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives" and was featured in his book "Road Trip." It also appeared in an episode of "The Best Thing I Ever Ate" on TV. Gotta be good, right? Wrong. Terribly wrong.

The order window in Tom's BBQ

Turns out, Guy was there 11 years ago and the TV show was from 10 years ago. The restaurant has changed ownership and should now be listed number 1 on the Worst Barbeque In America. It looked like it has been at least 10 years since the place was cleaned. As we walked up to the order window, the lady behind the counter stared at us like we had just kicked her dog. The phone rang while we were ordering, she turned away, answered it, and ignored us for 5 minutes with us still standing there in mid-order. An older gentleman came over and said he would take our orders. After ordering, we went to the other counter to pay and the woman said, "over 55 dollars." I said, "Sorry?" since all I ordered was a plate lunch. She looked at me scowling and screamed, "I wasn't talking to you!" She then continued to talk to somebody I couldn't see behind her. 

Bad, just bad

When we finally got our food, my sliced beef brisket was a large dollop of chopped beef swimming in some kind of awful-tasting sauce. The beans tasted like they had been made several days ago and left out on the stove. The potato salad had no taste whatsoever. We asked if we could have some salt and pepper and were told nothing is available. My buddy's corn-on-the-cob was an old, dried-up, shriveled-up ear. He bought a canned coke and said that was the best part of the meal. We ended up leaving a lot on our plates. Not a good way to start a road trip. Our considered advice is to stay away from Tom's Barbeque in Memphis - far, far away! We headed on down the road to Brownsville, TN.

After escaping the horrid experience at Tom's BBQ (I'd just as soon bite a bug as eat there again!), we drove 64 miles to Brownsville, Tennessee. Located amongst the cypress groves where Bald Eagles nest, I have to say we didn't find a lot there. So why stop? Like a lot of road trip addicts, I love road kitsch, offbeat Americana, roadside attractions, and Brownsville has a great one - Billy Tripps Mindfield.

In 1989, Billy Tripp began work on his life’s project: the "Mindfield," an immense steel structure just a couple of blocks from the town’s main square. Using salvaged metal, Tripp constructed the largest outdoor sculpture in Tennessee. The sculpture is about an acre large and, at the tallest point, 125 feet high. Tripp has stated that the Mindfield represents his emotions, personal growth, as well as his significant life events. In 2002, after the death of his father, Tripp added one of the largest additions to the sculpture, a water tower from a closed factory in Kentucky.

Tripp's Mindfield

Currently, Tripp continues to work on the sculpture, building pieces in his shop behind the structure and then adding them. In a published interview, he said, “I see it as a conversation with myself, but it doesn’t bother me that it can be overheard by other people." Tripp has also written a book, The Mindfield Years: Volume 1, and is currently working on a second volume. Like the sculpture, the book is autobiographical and runs 725 pages long. Upon his death, he intends to be interred within the sculpture. “It will be my cemetery,” he has said. “It’s my grave marker.”

After seeing it up close, I can see my mind and Billy Tripp's do not work in the same way. His work is certainly interesting, but it may be a good thing that his wife is a psychiatrist.

We stayed just long enough to stare at it while trying to figure out how a mind can conceive of such a thing. We were both quiet for a while, lost in our own thoughts. Thinking about it was putting a strain on our minds so, giving it up, we got back on the road. It was near sundown as we headed toward Jackson, Tennessee, our next destination and we still needed a place to stop and rest our weary heads for the night.

After visiting Billy Tripp's Mindfield, we headed to Jackson, Tennessee for some road trip food goodies at "Woodstock Bake Shop" which had come highly recommended. But it was getting late and looking on down the road, there were not many hotels so we pulled into a decent-looking Comfort Inn along the way. In our experience, Comfort Inns are usually ok, but not anything to write home about. Surprisingly, this one turned out to be really nice - very clean, new furniture, very comfortable beds, and even large, fluffy towels. Not much in the breakfast department, but that was due to Covid, not a shortcoming of the hotel.

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