We have had an adventuresome few days. We left Dyersburg TN early Saturday morning with the idea of covering a lot of ground, and also to make up for the rather late start of the day before.. But, we got onto TN 104, a Tennessee Scenic Byway, and it was SO nice and beautiful that we just kept following it. After all, it was heading east...Sigh, there are no scenic pull offs or park benches anywhere on these beautiful Tennessee Byways.. .. As we got away from the Mississippi the land got hillier, and we went from cotton to other crops. In Lexington, TN we had breakfast and picked up route 412, which was heading more east and less south than 104..
I noticed on the map that we were almost due west of Bell Buckle and Wartrace TN, where there is a small Civil War Sutler (shop) I knew about called “Blockade Runner”.. Unfortunately there didn’t seem to be any easy way to get there without heading up to Nashville and back down, so I let my Garmin Zumo take over with its “shortest distance” routine. .. Soon we were heading down narrow county lanes that were way off the beaten path.. The scenery transformed into horse farms!! Suddenly we were in Tennessee Walking Horse country. We would go around a bend on a narrow country road it it would be “Oh my goodness look at that” as a beautiful horse farm came into view. Some of these were so nice that I don’t think I could afford the fence around the farm. One farm had such beautifully manicured trees that I’m not sure I could afford the landscaping bill. Finally we pulled into a more blue collar area and stopped at the Hen House Café for some iced tea and two delicious sandwiches. The waitress’s grandfather had a family farm in Bell Buckle. She said there was lots of Civil War fighting there because they were always finding bullets and things. She didn’t know anything about a store called Blockade Runner, but she told us how to get to Bell Buckle by yet another shortcut of back roads.
We pulled into the “82 Market “ in Bell Buckle and asked an old man there if he knew about a store called Blockade Runner. He sure did, and admonished us to get into the back room where the real good relics are. He then showed us the road to go down and said ”you will have a sharp left turn, then a real sharp right turn, and the building will be set back on the right with a sign by the driveway. “ He repeated the directions over again and we were on our way.
Sure enough, a sharp left turn and a sharp right turn and on the right – a hay field. Then another sharp left turn and really sharp right turn and on the right – black Angus cows. Then another sharp left and right and – a school. A sharp left and sharp right turn and presto a building set back from the road with a nice lawn and a Blockade Runner sign next to the driveway. It was two thirty Saturday afternoon and they were open.. It is not a very big place but what a step back in history. Jeannine got to talking with a sales lady named Connie Smith, and it turned out she was the owner along with her husband Jerry.. Well, Jeannine and Connie got along famously and even though I kept mentioning how late it was getting, they were very busy discussing what was authentic or not authentic...
Then in walked two Confederate soldiers fresh from a re-enactment at Lynchburg.. One of them had a problem with his bayonet scabbard which they repaired right there. I mentioned that I thought one set of trousers looked just like Union issue. “Yup, got ‘em off a dead Yank. He didn’t need ‘em no more.”.. These guys weren’t strictly hard core, but they said “We’re as Southern as we can get.” The re-enactment was mostly in a freshly mowed hay field. Do you know how sharp hay stubble is?? These guys said that a lot of the Southerners went barefoot to be authentic. They both admitted they wore their shoes and couldn’t imagine running across that field barefoot… It had to hurt..
In short, we stayed until closing... Worth the visit!!!
Sunday morning we got up pretty early and set out east using our Zumo once again. We went back through Wartrace and headed east, getting onto route 30, another Tennessee Scenic Byway, and also the route of the Cherokee Indians, part of the Trail of Tears. We were just east of McMinnville, there was not another vehicle anywhere and the road was unusually straight. It was so beautiful and peaceful , undulating from hilltop to hilltop in the morning mist and lifting fog . As I looked around this beautiful landscape I could almost see these Cherokee Indians slowly walking west, downtrodden and dragging their meager possessions with them. If you believe in ghosts from the past,and if you were on route 30 on Sunday, June 28 around 9:30 in the morning , your beliefs would have been confirmed….
Harris and Jeannine
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