GEORGIA, ALABAMA and a little of FLORIDA

You can't leave the state of Tennessee without a trip to the Lynchburg - Jack Daniel's Distillery! A free tour that leads you through the history of the small township of 5,740 residence and the worldly distributed whiskey that is produced solely from Lynchburg. They hold an inventory of 3 years supply of Jack Daniels here in their cellars. Australia being their 3rd largest importer! Ironically the town lies in what is called a "Dry County." This means that the governing body of this jurisdiction prohibits the sale of alcohol from the premises.

Crossing over the border into Sweet home Alabama (State # 31). Very pretty country side from the minimal amount we saw before we headed to our motel for the night. VERY strong southern accents!

Over the border, crossing our last time zone for the trip (Eastern Time Zone), into Georgia (state # 32).
Headed straight for the big city of Atlanta. Home to the 1996 Olympics and 5 MILLION people! This city is so big the highways are 14 lanes wide (7 lanes going each direction)! Headed to the Coca - Cola Museum! Very cool! Atlanta is the home of coke.

3 floors of Coke history and memorabilia. Top floor - taste testing!! Coke products from around the world - the old 'Tab', 'Mello Yello' & 'Root Beer'.  Awesome - Thailand, Asia, North America, China etc. In April of 1985, Coca Cola announced that they were going to change the original recipe altering the world famous taste. It was met with a firestorm of complaints & objections from callers to the head office, letters and protesters in the street, that the 'new coke', which they did launch, was only on Grocery store shelves for 79 days before it was never to be produced again.

The Atlanta skyline was nothing short of impressive, however we did wonder where all these 5 million people were. Atlanta has an underground! Yes...not enough room on top of the earth, so lets go underground. Shops, restaurants, cafes, tunnels and subways - all below the street surface.

A 6 hour drive the next day saw us finally cross the long awaited state #33 of FLORIDA! We love it already. Compare it to Cairns back home in Australia so far. Weather is a little humid but pleasant. Have travelled down the west coast of the state so far. Scenery is very flat (all at sea level). Everything is very tropical, palm tree's, great looking beaches and rivers etc. Stayed the night at Crystal river, before we head on down to Naples. Atmosphere is VERY relaxed and the people are very welcoming so far. Looking forward to our stay here.

The entire East Coast of America (except for Florida) from the Carolina's upwards, at this very moment are preparing for the onset of Hurricane Irene. It touched down this morning in North Carolina as a Category 1, but does expect to strengthen as it moves north towards New York City by Sunday. We haven't really felt much more than a little wind here today. 12 states have been declared in a state of emergency of which some low lying places have already had area's of mandatory evacuation. We wish them all the best of luck for the weekend ahead.

That's about it from us. More on our Florida adventures soon, as we are here for two weeks - stay tuned, they'll be good!

Love Team Connor USA.
XOXOXOXOXOXO