Guest Author - Amanda Masoner

What do Davy Crockett, Al Gore, Aretha Franklin, Dolly Pardon, and Elvis Presley all have in common? I’ll give you some hints. It’s not a deep-rooted love of the environment. It’s not the ability to tame the wild frontier. And it’s not really, really big…record sales. Much simpler than that. They’re all from Tennessee! Toss Morgan Freeman into that list (he’s from there too!) and you’ve got yourself a hall of fame! Something good must be in that Tennessee water.

Lots of people must’ve agreed with me because this state has had a lot of foot traffic. The original inhabitants were several thousand years worth of Indian tribes. After that came the settlers from all over Europe. The adventurous, explorer types were drawn to this area as well. Most notably, Daniel Boone!

That all happened way before 1796 when the first President of the United States, Mr. George Washington himself, admitted Tennessee into the union as the 16th state.

This state is known as the Volunteer State. The reason for this being that Tennessee sent the largest number of volunteers to fight during both the War of 1812 and the Mexican War.

The capital of the state (and the music industry it seems!) is Nashville.

If a state could claim the raccoon as its official state animal, Tennessee has.

The mockingbird is the state bird. Some people dig this bird-I just can’t get there. There are too many here in Kentucky that sound like they are schizophrenic for me to really enjoy them. So go Tennessee for claiming them!

I’m happy to see that the state gem is the freshwater pearl (my favorite) and my dad would be happy to see that the state mineral is agate (his favorite)!

Farming used to rule as the main employer but nowadays it’s industry. This mainly began in the 1930s and has continued to grow ever since. The state’s four main metropolitan areas, Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga, employ half of the state’s industrial workers.

To list all Tennessee has to offer by way of arts would be a completely different article. Suffice it to say that each major city has its own orchestra and there are enough music, art, and writing festivals to keep you rotating from event to event year round.

In amidst all your traveling around the great state that was trampled on by the feet of Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, don’t forget to check out the incredible wilderness this place has to offer. I figure if it could keep those two satisfied with plenty of hiking, camping, and canoeing, we should be able to find plenty to do there.

Granted, we didn’t have the kind of vast wilderness they were faced with, but they didn’t have Dollywood or the Grand Ole Opry either!