The Epic
28 days · ~4300 miles · from Memphis (loop)
The full perimeter: Delta → River Road → Cajun country → the whole Gulf → up the Atlantic from St. Augustine's kitsch to Blackbeard's inlet → the Civil War quadrilateral → the Valley → the music mountains → home over Lookout Mountain and Shiloh. Leave Memphis on a Friday so day 9 is Fred's Saturday — the other music nights are noted where the weekday math gets honest. Four weeks, fourteen routes, zero interstates. The greatest Southern road trip.
This trip chains: The Blues Highway · Grant's Vicksburg Campaign · River Road & the Felicianas · Bayou Teche & the Cajun Prairie · US 90: The Creole Coast · The Forgotten Coast · Golden Isles & the First Coast · Kings Highway & the Lowcountry · Outer Banks & the Sound Country · Bull Run to the Bloody Angle · The Valley Pike · The Crooked Road · Blue Ridge Parkway & the Smokies · Highway 64: Shiloh to Lookout Mountain
Lorraine, Sun, 61 south, juke night.
Dockery, B.B., Till sites, Johnson's grave — Greenwood.
Tamales, Onward, the bluff.
The 1863 day, Champion Hill narrated.
Windsor's columns, Longwood, Forks of the Road.
The Felicianas: Port Hudson, the Myrtles.
Whitney, Oak Alley, the two capitols.
Rest day one. Beignets count as rest.
Fred's → Savoy jam → Liberty Theater. The full calendar.
Tabasco island, hot bread, swamp light.
100 Men Hall, median lighthouse, Anderson's room.
Africatown, Fairhope pier, Bamahenge, the line-straddling honky-tonk.
Dune lakes, Truman's streets, oysters.
Phone-booth PD, worm grunting, Wakulla's monsters — rest at St. Marks.
Across the Big Bend backroads (US 19/441 corridor) to the blackwater: night boat under dark skies.
The Funnel's trains, A1A north-enders reversed: oldest city, oldest kitsch.
Mayport ferry, boneyard beaches, the millionaires' ghost club.
Smallest church, Sapelo if booked, Bonaventure at close.
Penn Center, Sheldon ruins, Angel Oak, Bowens Island at five.
Sweetgrass stands, Georgetown, Calabash, one ironic mini-golf round.
New Bern's Pepsi counter, Harkers decoys, the rum-barrel grave.
2¼ hours across the sound to Blackbeard's island. Rest day-ish.
Hatteras's moved light, Chicamacomico, Jockey's Ridge, Lost Colony.
Edenton, the Dismal Swamp canal, US 17 to the war's crossroads town.
Sunken Road, Chancellorsville, Manassas, US 50 west into the gaps.
Winchester to Lexington: Patsy, cadets, the cave organ, Lee & Jackson.
Parkway to Floyd and Galax — honest math: with day 9 pinned to Fred's Saturday, tonight lands midweek, so trade the Friday Jamboree for the Crooked Road's markers and Bristol's rooms, or bank an extra Valley day to buy the Friday. 58 west to Bristol.
Smokies over Newfound Gap, US 64 west: Ocoee Gorge, Chattanooga's Rock City, Lynchburg whiskey, Shiloh at dusk — Memphis. Done. Tell everyone.