Capital Visit Caps Tour of the South

WASHINGTON — We are giddy with anticipation as our trusty sedan swings onto Constitution Avenue into the heart of the nation’s capital.

“I am so excited,” 5-year-old Henri says, his face pressed hard against the back-seat window.

Washington, D.C., is one of the highlight destinations on our three-month, recession-style adventure around America. And here we are at last.

It hits us at once. There is a national treasure everywhere we look. Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson monuments and the White House. Green lawns, black limousines, Secret Service joggers and the “Star-Spangled Banner.”

Our whirlwind tour of Washington is the icing on a busy week of discovery that has taken us from Cable News Network’s world headquarters (Atlanta) to the town that Kim Basinger bought (Braselton, Ga.) and perhaps America’s most tourist-conscious Indian reservation (Cherokee, N.C.).

This leg of our trip begins on Interstate 40 through Mississippi into Alabama. The highway is lined with rich green oak and pine forests. Large white timber homesteads on neatly mown acreages alternate every few miles with trailer homes surrounded by broken-down cars, 44-gallon drums and wrecked machinery.

In the sticky heat, we find shade and clean bathrooms with showers at Joe Wheeler State Park.

Our camping days are filled with constant activity. Henri and Matilda, nearly 3, explore insect and plant worlds on nearby nature trails. We bushwalk (Australian for hiking), prepare meals, collect firewood, wet a fishing line and contemplate our next stop--CNN’s world headquarters in Atlanta.

Since the Persian Gulf War, the guided tours of Ted Turner’s empire ($5 for adults, $2.50 for children) have become one of the city’s fastest-growing tourist attractions. It is a warts-and-all, behind-the-scenes look from the newsroom to the on-camera news sets where, during our visit, one anchor powdered her nose and another sucked on his thumb between live shots.

“Any volunteers?” the CNN guide, Wendy Smith, asks during a demonstration of a blue screen used for weather reporting. Henri’s hand shoots up. He takes over as a CNN weather forecaster. “And over there is some white stuff,” Henri says, pointing to a patch of clouds and looking very Willard Scott.

The question most asked of the CNN guides is “Where is Ted and Jane?”

“Ted Turner has an office here and comes in regularly. Jane Fonda comes by now and then,” Wendy says.

We also ask the guide for directions to Atlanta’s Stone Mountain National Park--the venue for a nightly patriotic laser show. We join 5,000 locals on a lawn singing Ray Charles’ “Georgia” as lasers splash upon a three-acre carving of Confederate generals in the mountainside. At $5 a carload, this hourlong show is another recession bargain.

Our next stop is one of the stranger side trips on our journey: Braselton, Ga., better known as Kim Basinger’s town.

When the sultry star of “Batman” and “9 1/2 Weeks” spent $20 million “buying” Braselton a few years back, the locals were hopeful. There was talk of movie studios and tourism.

We pull off the highway to the tiny town and see advertisements for an upcoming rabies clinic. There is a modest office for a company called Braselton-Basinger Group. The paint is peeling on the Braselton furniture, hardware and grocery stores, the largest buildings in town. A run-down gas station and a beauty parlor share the main street with two grand Southern homes.

Lifelong resident Otis McLean, 64, has never seen Kim Basinger. “She’s been in town twice we think,” he says from the veranda of his junk store. “She does things I don’t approve of in her movies, but that is her business just so long as it does not go along in Braselton.”

“Is there anything for tourists to see?” we ask.

“Nope,” he says.

We pull back onto the highway and head east into North Carolina and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The road winds into the hills past country stores selling boiled peanuts, moonshine jam and fresh fried porkrinds. The forest thickens like a heavy green shag-pile rug.

We are stunned as we drive into the town of Cherokee at the base of the foothills of the Smokies. The town, which is on the Cherokee reservation, is overrun by trading posts with names like “Honest Injun” and “Broken Arrow.” There are live bears and pretend warriors to entertain the hordes of paying crowds. Indians standing on busy corners dressed in bright feathered costumes pose for photographs with tourists in exchange for tips.

“It’s just a job,” says “Chief” Dennis Wolfe, a Cherokee wearing a full headdress of feathers who stands cross-armed near a miniature tepee. “I’ve been doing it for 26 years.” Visitors line up, paying about $1 for each photograph.

A Cherokee store owner named Theresa says she wouldn’t dress up because it is “degrading.”

“If someone stood out on the street wearing the real Cherokee clothes, no one would want to take their photograph,” Theresa says. “We didn’t wear feathers. We never lived in tepees; it is all Hollywood.”

We do our laundry and enjoy an “all-you-can-eat” breakfast for $3.95 at Uncle Ben’s BBQ Pit in Cherokee. We have become addicted to the South’s biscuits and gravy.

Uncle Ben must load his with “expando” pellets; we are so full we don’t need to eat lunch or dinner, which is handy because it is raining and too wet to cook at our campground on Balsam Mountain in the national park.

“I don’t want to camp. I wanna go to a widdle house,” Matilda cries, as we take shelter from the approaching storm.

“Yes dear,” we comfort her, “just two more months of camping.”

The drive to Washington along the Blue Ridge Parkway linking the Smoky Mountains to Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park is said to be a scenic wonder.

We will never know. We are surrounded by thick fog, and the forecast is for two days of rain. We can’t see more than 30 yards on sections of the road, and decide to take the freeway and head for shelter at an inexpensive motel 25 miles from the capital.

First stop the next day is the Lincoln Memorial, where we read the Gettysburg Address to the kids. We have heard the words a thousand times before and they still give us chills as we stand beneath the marble statue of Lincoln.

We had picked up free tickets to the White House from the Eclipse National Park office earlier in the day and the tour was about to depart. “How old is George Bush?” Henri asks a secret service agent during the self-guided tour.

“I think he’s 70,” says the man.

“Oh . . . I’m 5,” says Henri.

It took both of us to stop Matilda from jumping on the State Room’s official sofa.

Our speedy Washington exploration ends with the new “Star Trek” exhibit at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Air and Space Museum. The fun exhibit includes Spock’s pointy ears, costumes and vaser weapons.

Later, we beam up to our trusty earth-bound sedan, pull onto the northbound freeway to Maryland and continue our journey around the great and completely discovered America.