While we were dining with Dr. Gangrene in Nashville, we asked him if he knew of any cool places to visit in Chattanooga. “Well,” he said. “A friend of mine told me about a place called Aretha Frankenstein’s. I hear they’ve got great food and atmosphere.”
He’d had us with the word “Frankenstein.”
On Thursday April 1, 2015 we were scheduled to get a tour of The Tennessee Aquarium but had little else on the agenda. Originally we were supposed to do Rock City & Ruby Falls but managed to take care of both the day before. Now we had some rare time to kill and what made that even nicer was that we were staying in one location without having to drive more than thirty minutes at a time. Still, it was April Fool’s Day, and what better way to celebrate than by having a couple of fools like us seek out one of the weirdest houses known to man!
One of the things we were most looking forward to on our 2015 road trip was getting the opportunity to partake in an actual ghost hunt! Ghost hunting has become a popular form of entertainment with such TV shows as Paranormal State, Most Haunted, and Ghost Hunters intriguing the public with their weekly stories of spectral encounters. If there’s one thing these shows teach us, it’s that the best locales for stalking spirits are those rich in history and lore. In that regard, the Civil War torn city of Chattanooga, Tennessee could very well be a paranormal smorgasbord and one we Terror Daves couldn’t pass up.
On Tuesday March 31st we decided to take a side trip from our hotel in Chattanooga to Atlanta and see their zoo & pandas. It made sense since we had our hotel for three nights and Atlanta was only about 90 minutes south. It was a decision we would not regret. Just six minutes from the zoo was a location setting used in the AMC show, The Walking Dead, “Terminus.” And, just like those zombie apocalypse-worn characters, we were determined to find it!
On Monday, March 30th we spent the day at the Nashville Zoo before walking the streets of the city like Rhinestone Cowboys. Neither of us is particularly keen on Country music so most of the local flavor was lost on us as we strolled right past the numerous amateur crooners (who seemed to be every twenty feet) in search of a prognosticating Elvis I found via Roadside America. Unfortunately, by the time we located the animatronic, fortune-telling “King of Rock n Roll” we discovered it was broken and had to settle for just a picture.
Both of us Daves are huge fans of Quentin Tarantino’s GRINDHOUSE films; Planet Terror and Death Proof! Though the majority of movie-goers didn’t quite grasp the whole concept, these films were a pitch-perfect homage to the cheap, drive-in movie exploitation films of the early ‘70s. Aside from that, both movies are the kind we both can (and do) watch multiple times even though they’re very different in terms of content. While searching for interesting stops on our 2015 road trip, I discovered that one of the black 1971 Chevrolet Nova SS 396’s used in the film would be only minutes away from the hotel we were staying at in Jackson, Tennessee. Consequently, we would become as obsessed about seeking it out as Zoe Bell’s character in the film was for a 1970 Dodge Challenger!
Terror from Beyond the Dave 