From hotel to hostel, from blues to country; although not far from Memphis, Nashville was very different. Another Megabus journey dropped us in the heat of downtown Nashville. But connecting to a local bus to get us to our hostel was a breeze.

We arrived at the bustling 'Music City Hostel' just in time, the weekend before had been absolute chaos due to Nashville annual CMA Country music festival. Now the hostels guests mainly consisted of talented start-up musicians looking to make their big break in Nashville by playing at open mic nights and small gigs around the city. The place buzzed with groups or individuals strumming and singing in the shaded garden by day only to empty in favour of the city at night. Staying in a dorm we quickly made friends with a couple of Texans (John and Matt) who had been to the festival as a part of their road trip east. That night we headed to a local open mic, getting talking we swapped travel stories and discussed our plans in Nashville. For me, Nashville was about more than country music and southern cooking it was about Charcoal mellowed Tennessee sippin' whiskey. Jack Daniels!

Only an hour's drive south of Nashville lays the small town of Lynchburg, the home of the Jack Daniels Distillery. As some of you know, I have a bit of a weak spot of JD so this was almost like a pilgrimage for me. My spiritual home, pun intended!

We weren't originally sure how we would get to Lynchburg but as luck would have it we managed to round up a small group of others. Matt wasn't feeling too good that day so decided to skip it but John was up for it and able to drive us along with two Scottish girls (who strangely we actually met on the bus from St. Louis to Memphis) and a guy called Eddy who also drove.

As we neared Lynchburg and started seeing signs for the distillery I could hardly bare the excitement. For years I have seen black and white adverts for JD and said to myself "One day John.... One day" and now I was here! Arriving a little early for the tour we put our names down and headed into town for some lunch and a look around the histroic jailhouse. The town of Lynchburg is quiet and sleepy with a small population, most of who work for Jack Daniels. Many follow on the family tradition in their father's footsteps.

Lynchburg is in Moore Country and another tradition that has remained (since prohibition) is that Moore County is dry! That's right; in the town that makes every drop of Jack Daniels it is illegal to sell alcohol! Somehow though the laws have been altered slightly to allow JD to offer a limited number of special tasting tours! Luckily, because we had arrived early we had managed to secure a place on one of the tasting tours.

The guide walked us around the historic parts of the distillery talking us through every step of the process right down to the charcoal burning which makes JD different to bourbon whiskey. Sadly we weren't able to take photos inside any of the buildings but we saw every room from brewing to distilling to mellowing to aging and finally bottling. The tasting at the end was interesting; although we only tasted three samples (No.7, Gentleman Jack and Single Barrel) it was great to be talked through the fine differences in each.

Other the past few months I have resisted buying souvenirs too much but I couldn't resist buying a personalised engraved bottle of Jack to top off a fantastic day and another tick to my bucket list!

Our plan next was to hire a car from Nashville and head East towards Baltimore to see my relatives but the hire company wanted to charge and extra $300 for a one way fee which more than and doubled the total cost! Just as it was starting to look like a very expensive but un-avoidable cost, John and Matt offered to take us! They were already headed to the East coast and splitting the fuel 4 ways rather than 2 would help everyone out! So cutting short our time in Nashville to just one night out in the Honky -Tonks we hit the road, squeezed into the back of John's car and headed for our first stop. The Great Smoky Mountains!