A Southern Road Trip

It started out with a road trip heading to Nashville, Tennessee for a tractor show. As always, if time allows, I diverged! What is more fun than finding stops you never planned. Unanticipated finds bring me great joy! Our first planned stop was Patti’ 1880’s Settlement Restaurant in Grand River’s, Kentucky. The Land Between the Lakes is stunningly beautiful! In 2021, we traveled this direction. We made a Civil War stop at the Land Between the Lakes before heading on to Paris, Tennessee. At Paris, they have their own miniature Eiffel Tower!

Our first road trip stop at this lovely place was back in 2017. Keith, my husband is quite enamored with their food at Patti’s. We arrived midafternoon for a lupper. We shared a wonderful pork loin with seasonings. The spinach salad was the best! We didn’t have any room for dessert. This is a tragedy because their desserts are to die for! Here was the pie we had on a previous stop!

History of Patti’s

This sprawling restaurant was first established in 1975. Bill and Patti Tullar stopped in Grand Rivers and fell in love with the beautiful Land Between the Lakes. They purchased the Grand Rivers Motel. The website shares their story, “In 1977, Bill, Patti, Chip and Michael Lee, started Hamburger Patti’s Ice Cream Parlor. The restaurant was a block building that was part of the 6-unit motel.”

Their story continues, “The motel units quickly gave way to becoming dining rooms…. Through growth and success Mr. Bill’s became more dining rooms for Patti’s 1880’s Settlement. Today Mr. Bill’s has the same food, same servers – everything is the same except for the room size.”

While there, we picked up a brochure, Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area Kentucky/Tennessee. I saw information about the Homeplace 1850’s Working Farm. We had just enough time to hightail it and visit!

Homeplace 1850’s Working Farm

We headed to Dover, Tennessee a 40-minute drive. We arrived with barely an hour and a half to tour this amazing farm that shares what life was like on an 1850’s farm. The Homeplace represents a two-generation farm. The farm offers a variety of buildings. There is a blacksmith shop, chicken house, corn crib, double pen house, fences, front field and crop fields, hog lot and crib. There is a mule pen and pasture, orchard and more!

We watched interpreters dressed in period clothing. They were bringing the animals up for the evening. fun! While we didn’t see mules, we saw sheep, horses, very lazy looking hogs, and chickens.

The cabins were my favorite places to view besides the lovely scenery! There was also a museum that shares living by the seasons, Tabacco farming and more! The tobacco farming fascinates me. At the museum they explain the process of dark-fired tobacco’s curing process where farmers “fired” and “cured” the crop by using smoldering fires in floor trenches of the barns. While being used in the 1850’s, a decade later, it was a major crop. Once while traveling through Kentucky with my mom, we saw smoke coming from the top of a tobacco barn. Being unfamiliar with the process, we stopped and called 911. I think the dispatcher got a kick out of the north of Dixie line Do-Gooders.

The Homeplace 1850’s farm preserves agricultural history with rare options of before the Civil War and before tractor power was an option.

Onto Nashville

We arrived at a hotel in Clarksville where we stayed the night. This is a town I dearly love. Here, antiques and architecture reign supreme. We are going back for a visit this July and I can’t wait to see what’s new in this lovely city! We headed to the Tennesse Agricultural Museum where the Spring Crank Up 2024 was being held. Along with the Tennessee Agricultural Museum which is located in a former horse barn, there is also an heirloom garden, three historic cabins and a one-room schoolhouse.

Thanks to friend and tractor collector Buddy Woodson for the invite to the Spring-Crank Up 2024, antique tractor show. This was an educational event with antique tractors, a touch a truck event for young collectors, and kids’ activities that helped those from the urban environment learn about agriculture. 

Buddy Woodson of Eagarville, Tennessee retired from the Tennessee Department of Agriculture, where he worked for 40 years and is now on the board of the museum.  “This show is to bring awareness to the museum,” Buddy said. “There are so many that don’t know about it. So, they can come, and then share about it with their family.”

Dr. Elaura Guttormson, Tennessee Agricultural Museum Director said, ““This is our 2^nd annual spring crank up. We welcomed antique tractors and engines from across the state. This is a free event although we take donations for the Tennessee Agricultural Museum.” Those wanting to donate can find a link on their website tngamuseum.org. “We have over 4,000 artifacts (from pre-electricity) showing rural life in Tennessee. We love being a steward of history, and offer many educational programs.”

The Road trip to the Show

On our way outside of the museum, we saw a gentleman hauling a 1933 F30 on a trailer through the Nashville traffic. Keith said we should just follow him! The driver was Ron Brown from Joelton, Tennessee, a 92-year-old retired dairy farmer. After battling gridlock, he deftly parked and waited for his son John to unload. John, who lives in Greenbriar, Tennessee brought his Farmall F20.

Ron was even kind enough to let me sit on this original beauty! Look for a story about the Brown’s in an upcoming issue of Red Power!

This was the 2nd annual show at the museum, put the 3rd one on your calendar for 2025! The Tennessee Agricultural Museum has trails to walk, artifacts to see, and during April, one of the first shows of the year.  Buddy Woodson said it best when he added, “This is the best kept secret in state government!”

Stop in Kentucky!

We headed to Indianapolis, Indiana to watch our granddaughter play in a volleyball tournament. On our way, we stopped in Fairview, at a historic site in Kentucky, the Jefferson Davis Monument State Historic Site. We had driven past the monument once before and could only see what looked like the Washington Monument jutting out of the landscape. This trip we had a bit of time, and we were able to stop at this site that commemorates Jefferson Davis’s birthplace.

Details of the monument

The monument is a 351-foot (107.0 m) concrete obelisk that is often compared to the Washington Monument. According to America’s Park’s, ” Jefferson Davis State Historic Site is a memorial to the famous Kentuckian born on this site on June 3, 1808. Ironically, just eight months later, and not more than 100 miles away, another great Kentucky statesman was born, Abraham Lincoln. The two men were destined to become Civil War adversaries: Union President, Abraham Lincoln, and Confederate President, Jefferson Davis. Although Davis is most well-known for his service as President of the Confederacy during the Civil War, he was actually a reluctant secessionist.”

Jefferson Davis story

The America’s Parks website continues, “Davis distinguished himself as a military and political leader not only during the Civil War, but also as a West Point graduate, Mexican War hero, Mississippi congressman and senator, and Secretary of War during the Franklin Pierce administration. The 351-foot monument to Davis constructed on this site marks Davis’s birthplace and rests on a foundation of solid Kentucky limestone. Our visitor’s center features exhibit detailing Davis’s political life before and after the Civil War, and offers Kentucky handcrafts, souvenirs, books and Civil War memorabilia.”

His personal history is interesting. Born here in Kentucky, Davis went to Transylvania College in Lexington, and also attended West Point.  His first wife was President Zachary Taylor’s daughter Sarah who died a scant three months after their marriage from a fever. Davis married again to Varina Howell, and they had six children. He served the Union a Senator, but also as the Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce.  He was serving as a Senator when on February 18, 1861, he took oath of office as the President of the Confederacy.

Did you know there was a Confederate Whitehouse in Montgomery, Alabama? I love Civil War history and have had the chance to stop at the place of the final Civil War surrender in North Carolina.

A Confederate general Simon Bolivar Buckner came up with the idea of the Davis monument. The idea was arrived at during a 1907 reunion in Glasgow, Ky. of the Confederate Orphans Brigade. It took decades to before the monument was completed. It was stopped during WWI, and then because of lack of funds. On June 7, 1924, finally completed, a dedication of the Jefferson Davis State Historic Site took place, and it became a part of the Kentucky State Parks system.

Comparison

They had just completed repairing the elevator but had not signed off yet, when we were there, so we were unable to go up in the tower. I’d love to come back and see the view from the top. Here is a comparison of the Jefferson Monument to the one in Washington DC.

It is amazing what you can see and learn while on a road trip!

We headed on to a hotel in Indianapolis and stayed the next day to watch our granddaughter play. There are lots of fascinating places to stop in the city of Indianapolis, and I need to plan a return trip to see the Benjamin Harris home here! The next day on the way home we stopped at another of Keith’s favorite places, The Beef House! We shared a filet, and headed home full of good food, good times, and memories of a wonderful Southern Road Trip!