Tumble of of bed and we stumble to the kitchen...pour ourselves a cup of ambition...yawn and stretch and try to come alive....We were heading to the land of Dolly Parton...the volunteer state...Tennessee!

We had our clean laundry and our clean selves at the ready to begin the long drive. I'm not sure but I think ...I think that maybe adele was played on the way. Me and Liz decided to put a bet on, how many times the song would be played on our 11 hour drive. I bet 23 and Liz bet 21...it wasn't quite that many but it was 11. That's once every hour...I mean come on that's just overplayed to the max!

A quick Walmart stop was in order to get some hot chicken. We decided to be crazy and try our first corn dog. I have to say they are.... MINGIN!! Why on earth do they exist I don't know how anyone an like them. I've tried one and will never be purchasing again.

We got to the state line of Arkansas...an guys its not pronounced as it's spelled...its pronounced Arkansaw. Liz thinks a phone call to obama is in order to correct the spelling. I'm not sure what that conversation would be like...'ow Baaams, I thinks you need to change the spelling of Arkansas, it's a bit confusing for some people!' haha. We stopped for our state picture and continued driving through the state.

It got slightly worrying, an advert came on the radio saying that 1 out of 10 people in a town in Arkansas are criminals. Great news for us especially as we decided to sleep in the car. Who the hell advertises that sort of stuff. 'welcome to the state of crime...come in and you will be mugged!' a great advert right there.

Shaun Kingston 'pretty girls' was playing on the radio as we were driving through. The song now goes like this 'there's a lot of criminals in this city, there's a lot if criminals in this town....,We gotta catch the right one' and it is dedicated to Arkansas!

Another advert came on not long after advertising an adult sex shop. What sort if place are we driving through? Some messed up state is the answer!

It was getting dark and we needed petrol...there was no way we wanted to break down in this sort of area, not far from Texas where the Chainsaw massacre happened haha. We got our petrol and went to find a nice cafe for a rest.

The maps had decided to stop working for us. The cell service was not on our side here, we were in proper country...so we ended up driving up a mountain...it was very dark so I turned around as fast as I could and went back down to the main street where we stopped for some caffeine at a little coffee shop to have a break.

As we started driving along again Liz came out with: 'there must be less light pollution here than there is at home because you can see the stars here.' I'm not sure why she said that bit I'm pretty sure the reason you can't see the stars as much at home is because there are always clouds. Right? That's almost as bad as when she said 'you don't need clouds for it to rain.' haha.

After a little bit longer driving we decided to call it a night. The next rest stop was our sleeping destination. We got comfortable I'm our blankets and went to sleep. It was a freezing night in the car this time. My trusty red blanket did not keep me warm at all during the night. I kept having to turn the engine on for some heat. You could tell we were heading in to colder weather. Boooo!

Liz couldnt decide wether she was hot or cold and kept going from one extreme to the other. Its the early menopause I think. Haha.

We woke up and were surrounded by people not looking through the window, obviously but just a lot of people about.  We didn't realise it was like 8.30am. Oopsy. Time to hit the road again and get out of this crazy state. The 'natural state!' more like the 'get out or I'll mug you' state. We will get on the phone to Obama and get him to issue a warning sign for tourists!

The state line into Tennessee couldn't have come sooner, but can you believe they didn't have a welcome to Tennessee sign. We were devastated. We stopped at the welcome centre I check there, but all they had was Memphis and a wall hanging of Tennessee. That would have to make do.

We stopped at Memphis for a little while, and when i mean a little while it was about 40 minutes. We went to graceland, the home of Elvis Presley  to see a bit of history about him. We thought it had to be done while we were there so we paid $10 for parking which was a lot already considering we weren't really massive fans of the man.  As we walked to the entrance it said $30-$80 to get into the place. Well b***** that!! Like hell were we paying that much to get in.  I'm not that bothered about him really. He's not worth that amount of money. He might have been 'the king' back in the day but not anymore. Hehe.

As we had paid $10 for parking we thought we'd have a little wander. But every shop was Elvis merchandise so the wander didn't last long either. We had basically paid $10 to get our picture taken but the 'Graceland sign'...fun times. Talk about saving the pennies aye!

We stopped at our second home, walmart and picked up some lunch.
Mr google maps likes to trick us sometimes and keeps saying we are on the wrong road when we are not. So it took us a little while to find the place, but got there in the end.

We arrived at Nashville and checked into our the music hostel at quite a nice time. We could take it easy for a bit before hitting the town. Monday nights have a 50's themed night on at the 5 spot. We were told it was a good night so that's where we decided to go.

When we were ready we went over to the communal area for our usual pre drinking session. We had our vodka confiscated as soon as we walked into the room! Can you believe it?? It's a hostel full of young travellers!  I felt like a naughty school child. We were fuming!! The hostel has a rule: no alcohol above 7% is allowed on premises. Why didn't they tell us that when we checked in...we would have just drank it in our room if we knew haha!

So we were back to having no alcohol. A boy we had met called Jack took us to the local shop to get some beers and we all came back to play some crazy snap and ride the bus. And take one guess who lost at ride the bus again...yes thats right...that would be me! Damn game!

Off we went in our taxi to the 5 spot. It was pretty cool in there. Everyone got pretty into the 50's theme...the girls were dressed in 50's style dresses, had their hair pinned back and had the red lippy on. It was cool to see... I wish I'd dressed up. A few people were even doing jive dancing around the dancefloor. Me and Liz attempted it but failed miserably and just went back to dancing how we do best...like a pair of idiots. A few drinks later we started to get pretty tired so we called a cab and slept the night away.

It was a struggle for me in the morning an I have no idea why, I think it was down to tiredness...bad times. A lovely skype session with Lenny loo cheered me up though. We miss her on our travels. First up we made some pancakes...with Nutella. Yum yum! Second was our mile and a half walk to Downtown Nashville. Broadway to be exact. We had a little wander and checked out some Honky Tonk bars. They seemed pretty cool so decided that's where we would head later that night. The cutest old couple were singing while we were having a beverage. The woman left the stage an started sipping on her beer, now that's a life aye? As we left the man sang 'now here's a sad song, two girls leaving the bar, it's like a bank losing money!' haha. Amazing! Great atmosphere there. I love all the live music there.

Next on the to do list of our day was the farmers Market. It wasn't anything special to be honest. I think it was closing as we got there so we just strolled through then began the mile walk back.

Walking the streets over here is just insane... It's as if the men have never seen girls before. They beep, start muttering to themselves or slow the car right down and just stare...I mean do these people not know how to be subtle. They make it sooooo obvious and I'm not really sure what they want us to do. Are we supposed to flag them down and say thanks...or what you staring at? Jeeez it's really irritating! We got back to the hostel and caught the last hour of sunshine. So chillaxed for a bit to top up this non existent tan of mine.  Brad (one of the guys that work here who looks like justin lee collins) came to join us to eat his salad. Not lying but it must have taken him about 40 minutes to eat a small bowl. How funny!

The time had come again to get all dressed up ready for a night at the Honky Tonk! We had another skype session with the Gleaves sisters. We had lots to talk about...it lasted pretty much an hour. We are such gossip queens.

We walked to get our bud light because we were vodkaless and we were ready for our pre drinking session. Of course we played a few rounds of crazy snap and also played taboo. Me and Liz know each other far too well...we rocked at this game. If we were in teams we would have kicked everyone's asses.

Our taxi came and we were off to Broadway. We got the taxi guys number so we could call him when we needed picking up...well he was back within 30 minutes to get us. We had one drink...weren't really feeling it so went home. I'm not sure what is happening to us. We are getting old. All this partying is taking it's toll on us. Not good news!!

We got back and Liz went straight to bed. Justin Lee Collins was still awake so went and chatted to him for a bit while he Facebook stalked me and made fun of my profile!! Nothing wrong with a bit of banter.
It wasn't long before it was bed time...sleep was in order ready for another long drive.

I'm feeling fresh this morning...good times. I'm ready for some waffles and Nutella before hitting the road. That should keep us satisfied on the food front for a few hours.

So next stop Chicago with a stop off at Kentucky. It's looking like another cold sleepover in the car...wooo! I'm soooo tempted to steal one of the hostel blankets. They are amazingly cosy!

So let's mount up the car and be on our way. We will catch up in a few days.

In the words of Elvis Presley...'I'm all shook up,  Ah huh huh!'. I've had fun Tennessee!

Chow for now!
J.Lxxxx