Days 77 & 78
New Orleans, Louisiana to Nashville, Tennessee
We were excited to visit Nashville, now that it has been added to the trip. It takes two days to drive from New Orleans to Nashville (at least at our slow pace) and we overnighted at an RV Park in the middle of Mississippi. The layover would have been event-less except that John happened to notice that one of the trailer tires was wearing unevenly. It was actually worn pretty badly and steel belts were exposed, which means that it probably would have failed in the next day or two. It was worn towards the inside tread, while the outside tread still looked pretty good, which made it difficult to see that it was a problem. Yep, we were lucky that we caught it! John swapped it out for the spare trailer tire and we were able to safely proceed the next day onto Nashville.
We learned that, in all these years, the distillery has never been shut down due to a fire, in part thanks to their on-site fire department. While these firetrucks, from 1919 and 1927, are no longer in service, they have other more modern fire trucks to keep them safe. Interesting note - the model of the 1927 Firetruck is "REO Speedwagon."
Jack Daniels has had a marketing program running for decades whereby enthusiasts can be granted a plot of land on site and, as a land owner, they become a Tennessee Squire. (The plot of land is about the size of a postage stamp.) My membership paperwork says that I became a Tennessee Squire in 1988, so, 36 years ago. (Thanks Mark!) Visitors to the Distillery receive special recognition and discount and can gain entrance to the Tennessee Squire room on site. I was looking forward to peeking inside, but unfortunately, the room had closed before our tour had concluded. So, here is a picture taken from the web of the Tennessee Squire Room:
We made a side-trip on our way to Nashville to see the town of Lynchburg, Tennessee. This is the home of the Jack Daniels Distillery and they offer tours, so we got to see where and how Old Number 7 is made. We learned that Jack Daniels is the largest seller of Whiskey in the world (and they are sold in 176 countries!) and yet they only have the one Distillery, so, every drop of Jack Daniels ever sold anywhere came from these vats and the water from their on-site spring. Pretty cool. Even though Lynchburg is in a "dry county" in Tennessee, they have been granted some special consideration and are able to offer whiskey-tasting as part of the tour for "educational" purposes. We enjoyed the education and the tasting!
We said goodbye to Lynchburg and headed on to Nashville. We arrived at our RV Park well after dark, which I usually try to avoid, and got all settled in for the night. It got down to 46 degrees that night and kept our little furnace running for quite the night. It appears that fall is upon us!
Jack's desk and his safe in his office. We learned that Jack kicked the safe once when he was unable to open it, breaking a bone in his foot. This led to infection, and despite multiple amputations, he contracted gangreen that led to his death a few months later. Yes, this safe killed Jack Daniels.