The Long-Lost Cousin's Surprise Visit

On the third morning of our trip, using Google Maps, a road atlas, a pen, and several napkins, we revamped our route and decided to, instead of heading south to I-10, take the route every sensible person takes when going out West and get on I-40 in Knoxville. (Eventually, I'm going to write a post, with diagrams, of the many routes we've PLANNED and the ones we've actually taken.) With this route, we'd pass through Nashville and Memphis (and therefore Graceland) and, I realized from the map, Sparta, Tennessee.
It is a funny coincidence that I grew up in Sparta, NJ, and my dad's family is from Sparta, TN. From what I understand, most of the family is there, and the family I know is a small branch that moved to New Jersey. (Like how my mom's family is all in France, and we are just the small long-lost American cousins.)
I called my parents and asked them, "Should I stop in Sparta?" I didn't know if it would be rude to just drop in on people who have never met me with less than a day's notice.
My parents said, of course we should stop in, and my dad called my grandfather and several hours of phone tag ensued, as we drove from Bristol (where the giant guitar was) to Knoxville to Sparta.
But finally we made it there.
Apparently, Sparta is the county seat.
And finally, the family:
Next stop: Memphis!

Knoxvilles "Golden Globe" ;)
acutally, we didn't think we would have that much fun in Tennessee!
but it was, but yeah, time to moove oooon...

Nature??? let's go shopping!

As yesterday was our "Nature Day" today we did some: SHOPPING. For having enough energy we stopped by at Gus’s and had great b-b-q and delicious milkshakes!

Once we started we couldn’t stop – also because we passed by a Wal-Mart (o-oh). So our car fills up with tourists souvenirs, shoes, t-shirts, shot glasses, hot sauces …

Question #1

?Question: How do you recognize you are in the Bible Belt?
!Answer:

- a little girl singing “HALLELUJAH” in the supermarket
- an old lady saying “Bye, be good, I love you, girls.”
- signs like “You call it abortion, God calls it MURDER”
- or “God’s last name is NOT damit!”

music makes our day

Okay, guys, we changed our whole roadtrip ;) well, not all of it, but we skip out Florida to get on the I 40 to have more time in Arizona and California :)
After having used the computer in the hotel lobby (google maps helped a lot to figure out a good way to see fun stuff), we saw a huge guitar right next to the road. We had no choice, freak things like that attract us so we hit the brakes and made a stop for the “World’s Only Guitar-Shaped Music Museum” :) so cool. How many people can claim having been in a music instrument??
After that little stop the road called us to our next stop: Knoxville :)