Manhattan, Kansas and the Road Trip that was.

Again I’ve let this fall behind purely because we’ve been so busy the last week. I’ll try and recap most of it.

The first few nights in Manhattan were a blur, infact to be fair virtually every night we've spent here has a kind of hazy feel to it. Me and Stu were the only ones brave enough to try and "Edward 40 Hands" which basically involves getting 2 40oz bottles of beer taped to your hands and you cant go to the bathroom until your finished both. Fun Times...

Stu, Kerri, Me, Adam

Complete!

So from the last post you’ll have gathered we were in Lynchburg Tennessee earlier in the week. We’d been staying with Adam in Manhattan up until Sunday and seeing as everyone was going back to Uni the next day we figured we’d get out of their way for a bit and do some exploring. Our original plan was to head to St. Louis and spend a few days there but after looking at our atlas I noticed that we were pretty close to Nashville… and Lynchburg. After checking the distances we figured we could make a 5day round trip to Nashville and get back to Manhattan for the parties on Friday and the football game on Saturday.

We set off towards Kansas City via Topeka on Sunday night and just stopped in at an Econo Lodge which is the American equivalent of a Travel Lodge style place. A room with 2 queen sized beds has only been costing us $60-75 a night between the 3 of us so it’s really been helping us keep under budget. The next morning we had lunch in Kansas City and decided to get back on the road to put some big miles on the clock. We drove straight through St. Louis that night and onto Nashville itself, covering around 650 miles.

We spent the next day just wandering around Nashville and getting lunch although we didn’t really know where we were going so it just seemed like another small city! From there we headed down to Lynchburg to check out the Jack Daniels Distillery stopping briefly in Graceland to check out the home of the King.

When in Graceland we wandered around the grounds of the house without actually going in. We weren’t that big fans and the $30 each they were asking for entry could be put to better use. I think I speak for the 3 of us here though when I say that there was something quite sad about the place. There was an air of desperation around the place, people making a living selling pencils and dishes with is picture on. I know he had some hangers on when he was alive but I couldn’t help but wonder what he’d think if he could see the place now. We made a sharp exit and headed down to Lynchburg.

The drive down was much more interesting than the seemingly endless interstates we’d grown used to. We were driving through small country towns and villages that would look right at home in an old Western Movie. After maybe an hour or so we arrived at the main visitors building where I had the penultimate picture of the trip so far.

Once in we signed up for the Tour and checked out the displays in the main building. After watching a quick film about the place and how Jasper Newton “Jack” Daniels came to buy the place we moved onto see how the stuff is actually made. While me and the guys thought it was a Bourbon its actually classed as a “Tennessee Whisky” although the all knowing supreme being a.k.a Captain Negative a.k.a. Microphone heid a.k.a Iain Dallas did have an argument with the guy about it ;) All negativity beside it was a great little tour. They still have the original little office that they operated from, the same office that housed the safe that killed Jack!

Basically he went in to work early one morning and the safe was giving him some jip. After struggling with it for a while he gave up and in frustration kicked it so hard that he broke one of his big toes! Being a true mans man he didn’t bother telling anyone and eventually got sick from the infection. His foot ended up gangrenous and the doctors had to cut it off however it had spread quickly and they had to cut his entire leg off. This however wasn’t enough to catch it and so on the 10^th of October 1911 he died.

What can we learn from this? Never go to work early.

Here’s some pictures:

They had their own fire engines!

The oldest Barrel House


The iron free creek where the water comes from.

The Infamous Safe

The Sour Mash! It smelled amazing.

They make their own barrels to age the whiskey in and actually sell the barells once they've been used to some Scottish Whisky makers apparently.

You can actually buy a keg of Jack for around $10,000

Bruce - Our guide

Jeff Arnett - Current Master Distiller

After finishing up and completing the second Pilgrimage of this road trip it was time to move on and head to Memphis.

We had some lunch there and hung out on Beale street which is the main bar district. We found out that there was going to be a big bike rally that night so we decided to stay for the night. Within a few hours the entire street was packed with bikes so we took the opportunity to take some pictures:

We stopped at St. Louis on the last leg of our return journey to Kansas and managed to get up the St. Louis Arch! It’s a monument to the days when St. Louis was considered the gateway to the west, pretty big monument!

Since getting back on Friday afternoon we’ve pretty much been out at the bars and parties. It’s a hard life eh?