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Do You Have a Pen: Tennessee

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I wrote another book, but it's about travel this time! This one is pretty big, actually, with close to 60 chapters. The book, Do You Have a Pen: My Time Spent on the Road, on the Rails, and in the Air, can be pre ordered or, depending on when you see this, purchased by clicking the link HERE. A new chapter will post daily and then the book will be available for immediate purchase.

I also released the rough drafts of the book chapter by chapter on my website and you can read what I wrote and get the gist of the chapters. Honestly, you don’t even need to read the book. There is enough information between the blog postings and the resources pages found HERE that the rest of the book might just be fluff.

With that said, the blog is a very first draft, mostly notes, of the final book. It’s out of order and a tad messy. This gives you a peek inside my writing process where I do the technical, eclectic part first and the voice tends to change depending on the topic I am discussing and the research I did for the chapter. Paraphrasing from common knowledge sources in the first draft gives it that eclectic look and feel. So please, enjoy my scattered brain and typos in this draft of Do You Have a Pen: My Time Spent on the Road, on the Rails, and in the Air.

The book itself its a much easier format to read plus adds a lot more of me into it as it goes on with real world, easy to grasp examples where I could put them and honestly, I would truly appreciate your purchase.

Tennessee

Tennessee state flag.
Tennessee state flag.

Every part of Tennessee is distinct with their own identities.  I think it has to do with the state being so wide and taking up the width of two or three states,  but only being about two hours from top to bottom.  I actually like most of the state.

Knoxville is busy.  You will be in a traffic jam morning,  noon,  and night in Knoxville.  I’m not sure where everyone is going,  but they are going somewhere.

Chattanooga is actually one of my favorite cities I have yet to fully explore.  It’s busy there all the time and expect a traffic jam.  They need a beltway or some type of bypass around the city to connect the interstates but move traffic around and away from the city center.  One Uber driver was taking Robert and I to the bus station and he said  “Chattanooga has two bus stations.  One is in a bad part of town and the other is also in a bad part of town,  just not as bad as the other.  That’s not the one your’e going to.”  Crap!  He was not lying.  Chattanooga was also one of the most economically depressed cities in the country and they had an unusual solution.  They invested in their city by putting fiber optic cable up and down the city streets and made internet a city utility.  This attracted younger people and a few startups to the city because it was so wired in.  With as bad as the city is,  its a lot better than it was a decade ago and the design seems to be working towards increasing the city’s middle class.

Nashville,  the home of music in America,  is the normal big city with all the traffic jams and hustle of any other big American city.  Its actually pretty awesome and on my bucket list of places I would like to spend New Years Eve.  The downtown is gorgeous and alive with activity.  When approaching on Interstate 65 from the North,  there is a building with a pair of spires on top and I swear the building looks like Optimus Prime’s head disguised as a skyscraper.  PRIME!!!

Memphis is busy in the daytime,  but seems to get sleepy at night.  As an analogy,  it seems like a city that works and then goes to bed just to work again the next day.  Obviously there is more to do in the home of delta blues,  but it just has that vibe to me—or lack of vibe.  The city is scenic as you drive through,  but it seems to roll up its sidewalks when it gets too late,  leaving a strong criminal element. 

One place in Tennessee I was fortunate enough to explore was the George Dickel Distillery.  It’s one exit West from the exit for Jack Danials and I’d much rather see George Dickel.  My friend Brandon brought a bottle over to my house for us to split one New Years Eve and it has since become my favorite whiskey.  It’s roughly a  $22 bottle and honestly taste better and is smoother than many  $50 bottles.  Bourbon is my personal preference and I normally don’t drink straight whiskey,  but with George Dickel,  I will make the exception.  It is the epitome of a Tennessee sipping whiskey.  If you go to the distillery for a tour,  read the directions on the website as the GPS directions will get you lost about a mile before the distillery.  They have a little creek running through the property with signs to beware of snakes by the bridge going over.  Yeah.  Full of copperheads.  The  $12 tour will also give you a semi private tasting of their four main products and they have a store on site selling all their products.  One of their whiskeys is a seventeen-year whiskey that they had accidentally misplaced and was only supposed to be a twelve-year and now sells for around  $125 a bottle from the store.  I can only imaging how good it is and they have no intention of reproducing that whiskey.  It was an accounting error and it was stored too long because they forgot they had it in the storage barn.  I normally drink the seven year,  and the twelve year is even better,  so I can only imaging how amazing their seventeen year tastes.  Anyone who really likes this book is welcome to send me a bottle of the seventeen-year for my birthday or Christmas. 

In Newport,  Tennessee I found a barbecue restaurant called the Giggling Pig.  They are not Cannon’s,  but they were damn good.  The restaurant looks like a shack and has exposed insulation in the first dining area you walk in to  (which may not even be legal in some states),  but it adds to the down-home feel of the place.  I really like the food and haven’t had anything I didn’t absolutely love out of there.  As a general rule,  when trying a new place like that,  I try to get some sort of sampler platter so I can try as much of a variety as I can and they did not disappoint.  I love the assortment of sauces on the table and I will try each one,  bite by bite.  Another great little find was Tito’s Place in Franklin,  Tennessee.  The irony of the restaurant was Robert and I were driving back in a rental car from Huntsville,  Alabama and we were both hungry and wanted to go a couple hours before eating.  I had mentioned wanting Mexican food from Hacienda,  a small chain in Indiana with a local place near where I live.  I really like the food and it’s nothing close to what I think of when I think of authentic Mexican food.  Robert fell asleep as I drove and he said if I see something that looks good,  to pull in and we’d eat there.  I was getting drowsy myself and saw the sign for Tito’s Place.  It was kismet!  I pulled off the interstate and found the place.  You could tell it was an upper class area and we went in expecting the food to be over priced,  but we were there so we were going in anyway.  When you travel a lot,  sometimes the food costs get high just because you’re in an unfamiliar area and don’t know the cheap places.  Prices ended up being pretty decent and the food was the best trendy Mexican I ever had from a trendy place.  Most trendy places really aren’t that good to me,  but they were spot on.  It was nestled in the Berry Farm’s Subdivision,  a high end shopping area with amazing little finds like the Berry Farms Wine and Spirits that seemed to carry every conceivable type of whiskey every to grace the Earth.

Tennessee is one of the most diverse states in the country,  again something I attribute to the width of the state,  but it goes from ultra modern to backwoods then back again.

Thank you for reading this little piece of Do You Have a Pen: My Time Spent on the Road, on the Rails, and in the Air. If you received any value from what you read, I ask you to please consider purchasing this book by clicking HERE. Thank you for everything!

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