A complete tour guide to the Volunteer State from the highlands of the Smoky Mountains to the banks of the Mississippi River. Tennessee is a state of endless diversity. It boasts breath-taking scenery, the homes of three presidents, and the birthplace of legendary frontiersman Davy Crockett. It is the birthplace of the blues and the home of the King of rock ‘n’ roll. It offers a wealth of opportunities for hiking, canoeing, fishing, and wildlife viewing in state and national parks, recreation areas, and forests. From mountain highroads to delta lands, this comprehensive guide invites you to the best of Tennessee’s bed and breakfasts, museums, historic sites, restaurants, antique shops, and such attractions as: The Great Smoky Mountains National Park The National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough The South’s favorite outlet shopping in Pigeon Forge Coker Creek, the site of Tennessee’s gold rush World-class whitewater rafting on the Obed and Ocoee Rivers The Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area The Chattanooga Choo Choo and the Tennessee State Aquarium Civil War battlefields like Stones River and Shiloh The Jack Daniel Distillery in Lynchburg The Natchez Trace Parkway Musical venues from the Grand Ole Opry to Beale Street The largest Middle Woodland Indian Mound in the southeast A half-mile-long reproduction of the Mississippi River Traveling Tennessee does more than get you where you want to go. It also educates you about the state’s heritage, excites you about its vacation possibilities, and entertains you with accounts of the authors’ own experiences.

What do miniature golf, the Cherokee alphabet, country music, the atomic bomb, and the long-lost State of Franklin have in common? They were all born in East Tennessee, of course. Author Carolyn Sakowski drove over three thousand miles to update routes and directions for this second edition of Touring the East Tennessee Backroads. Though she didn't much care for filling her gas tank, she loved reacquainting herself with the region's rich history and unforgettable personalities. Readers of this popular guide will meet frontier legends Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, and Sam Houston. They'll encounter a pair of future presidents-the hotheaded, gun-toting Andrew Jackson and the fugitive Andrew Johnson-at decidedly unpresidential moments in their lives. They'll witness where John Sevier assembled with the Overmountain Men during the American Revolution and where William Thomas's Cherokee legion fought in the Civil War. They'll see Rock City, visit sites on the Trail of Tears, and travel to the courthouse where Clarence Darrow battled William Jennings Bryan in the Scopes Monkey Trial. They'll enjoy the best East Tennessee has to offer, from its mountain passes and TVA dams to its historic homes, churches, and gravesites. The thirteen tours are amply illustrated with black-and-white photographs for the benefit of vacationers and armchair travelers alike. Book jacket.

The road less traveled is not in the best shape, and that's okay, because it leads to gold. Follow author Jerry Winnett on his photographic adventures across the state of Tennessee as he searches for abandoned roadside gold. No building is ever truly abandoned. People still frequent them and leave evidence of their passing, such as bottles of beer, graffiti, trash, furniture, and campfires. These treasures--old boats, empty houses, silent graves, and more--are all out there, just waiting to be explored and give up their ghosts. So, take a day and take a chance. Lose yourself in what was and discover the beauty in the forgotten.

Looking beyond the Highway is an examination of road history and roadside attractions specific to the South. Focused in part on numerous aspects of thematerial culture landscape of the Dixie Highway, the essays consider the politics of roadbuilding, roadside entertainment, the buildings and businesses one might encounter along the road, and regional adaptations to the needs and desires of northern tourists. Following the Dixie Highway from southern Illinois to Florida with sidetrips down other southern roads, the essays cover a wide variety of subjects, many of which will resonate with anyone who has ever lived in or vacationed in the South: Harrison Mayes's “Get Right With God” signs; the park-and-pray craze of outdoor drive-in church services; the rise and demise of brick highways; the fierce political battle over the route of the Dixie Highway; beach music and the evolution of motel architecture in Myrtle Beach; Florida's early tourist towers; and the commercial development of Tennessee caves as tourist attractions. Covering a landscape that includes Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Indiana, Virginia, Arkansas, Ohio, Kentucky, Alabama, and Illinois, the anthology shows that there was and still is a distinctive southern culture and how roads have influenced that culture. As lively as they are diverse, thearticles provide a solid background for understanding roadside ephemera that have disappeared or are quickly disappearing. Ranging from the serious to the light-hearted and including descriptions of American road and roadside icons to kitsch, the book will appeal to anyone with an interest in road history and roadside architecture.

North Carolina is a traveler’s dream, from the Great Smoky Mountains to the Outer Banks’ historic lighthouses, wild horses, and charming fishing villages; from battlegrounds of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars to the “heart of motorsports”; from rolling wine country and golf courses to stately plantations and rustic settlements. Whether you travel North Carolina for its historic treasures or natural beauty, this handy guide will help you find the Old North State’s most spectacular sites and secret treasures. The book charts weekend adventures and day trips along back roads and scenic routes, into the state’s many mist-shrouded mountains--the Black, the Blue Ridge, and the Great Smokies--and down to its ever-changing shores. Sumptuously illustrated, with maps and all manner of interesting detail, Backroads of North Carolina is a page-by-page pleasure, as well as a passport to the more off-beat delights of the Tar Heel State.

#1 New York Times bestselling author John Feinstein returns to his first love--college basketball--with a fascinating and compelling journey through a landscape of unsung, unpublicized and often unknown heroes of Division-1 college hoops. John Feinstein pulls back the curtain on college basketball's lesser-known Cinderella stories--the smaller programs who no one expects to win, who have no chance of attracting the most coveted high school recruits. To tell this story, Feinstein follows a handful of players, coaches, and schools who dream, not of winning the NCAA tournament, but of making it past their first or second round games. Every once in a while, one of these coaches or players is plucked from obscurity to lead a major team or to play professionally, cementing their status in these fiercely passionate fan bases as a legend. These are the gifted players who aren't handled with kid gloves--they're hardworking, gritty teammates who practice and party with everyone else. With his trademark humor and invaluable connections, John Feinstein reveals the big time programs you've never heard of, the bracket busters you didn't expect to cheer for, and the coaches who inspire them to take their teams to the next level.