Going to the Tennessee State Penitentiary

A bizarre detour on a road trip in the South

Around 10 years ago, my wife and I were driving from Memphis to Nashville, mostly on minor roads, so we could see how people live. It was a long hot day and we stopped in a few places like Hampshire to explore some of the awesome roadside markets, where we couldn’t buy much of anything because we were going to have way too much luggage to take back to New Zealand.

We had been driving for what seemed like hours on a hot summer’s day and around 12:30 we thought we would look for somewhere to stop for lunch. For a while, we were on I-40 and like most inter-states, there is nothing, just blacktop, and more cars. So I started looking for somewhere to stop for lunch.

As the song goes:

The road is long, with many a winding turn.

That leads us to who knows where.

Who knows where indeed! By around 1:30 we were starting to despair and I saw an exit coming up with a town name that meant nothing to me, so we decided to give it a try. We took the turnoff and the road started to narrow quite quickly.

We traveled for about 15 minutes, and all we saw were houses that were spread quite a way apart. We decided there must be something, otherwise, why have a signpost, so we carried on.

As the road continued to narrow, we started to see more houses. Each house had a flagpole out the front flying the Stars and Stripes. A number of the houses had someone sitting on the front porch who would give us a friendly wave, which we happily returned, but still no town, no cafe or bakery where we could get some food.

Suddenly we came to the end of the road, facing tall razorwire fences and what looked like a prison. There were no signs of a cafe or food store as I parked the car and got out, wondering where the hell I was.

I got out of the car, and like any self-respecting tourist, I got out my camera and started taking some photos.

Well, before you could say Johnny Cash, a platoon of SUVs turned up, surrounded me, and somewhere between 8-10 men jumped out in combat gear with semi-automatic rifles and told me to drop to the ground, barking questions about what the hell I thought I was doing.

My wife was in the car still, and phoned my daughters on her mobile, thinking we were in some serious trouble and wondering what she would do if I was arrested. She ran a commentary to my daughters back in New Zealand, as I had some quick talking to do.

At first, when I explained that I was looking for somewhere to get some lunch, it looked like I had a credibility problem. I mean who drives 30 minutes off an Interstate to a state penitentiary to get some food and a coffee, and then starts taking photos and recording video?

This was starting to feel like something out of Alice’s Restaurant. If you haven’t seen the movie, you can watch it for free on YouTube via this link.

First of all, they didn’t believe I was a Kiwi, so I broadened my accent, instead of using the semi-American accent that I use over there because they don’t easily understand the New Zealand accent. They took my passport, rang the Sheriff’s office, who rang the Police in New Zealand, who confirmed that I was who I said I was.

Then they wanted to confiscate my Canon SLR and my video camera, where I had been recording images because they thought I must be trying to take photos to help someone plan an escape from jail. Sadly after some negotiation to let me keep my cameras, I had to delete all of the photos and videos I took, other than a couple of photos, that I didn’t tell them about. They watched as I deleted them.

I would have loved to have kept some that I took of their friendly group welcome, but their offer was a different kind of hospitality than the friendly waves of the people up the road, who turned out to be mostly prison wardens and staff. I didn’t want to find myself seeing the inside of the jail, I had to comply.

I could see their side of the situation. A random stranger drives up to prison and without authority starts taking photos. That is pretty suspicious.

Eventually, the situation became amicable and we had a bit of a laugh about it, although the laugh also came with a warning, “Don’t ever turn up here again, or the outcome will be different.” We gave the locals a friendly wave back, as we drove back to the interstate. We never did find anywhere to have lunch, and arrived in Nashville at rush hour, relying on my TomTom maps to make sure we got into the right lanes on the freeway early, because it was packed.

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