Nashville, Tennessee

Our drive to Nashville was non-descript, minus the downpour of rain we fought through. We got camp set up in our token KOA campground in the heart of Opreyland and got to work the next morning seriously exploring Nashville.

First off was taking care of DJ. We had a slow leak in the passenger side rear tire that needed to be fixed and so went into the downtown Honda dealership. We hunkered down in the waiting room, complete with free coffee, pop, popcorn, hotdogs (not yet cooking), wireless internet and the most recent newspaper. For people who have been travelling for ten months this is heaven and we almost considered just spending our day at Honda. A bit too quickly the inspection was finished and showed a nail pucture, requiring a new tire (though Cameron is adamant the tire could have been patched and they were scamming us...luckily the tire is warrenteed). They kindly shuttled us downtown to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum while DJ waited in line to get fixed up.

The museum was just awesome and we saw all kinds of old county music clips and videos...everything from Hank Williams to the beginnings of the Grand Ole' Opry to Roy Rogers to Taylor Swift. In usual form, Cameron and I are the slowest moving people through the museum and the Honda dealership thought we were nuts to spend the whole day there!

Look closely and you will see the cowboy themed changes made to the car...a saddle in the console, guns for the inside door handles. I forget who this car belonged to but it was some big wig country singer!

This picture is for you Dad!

The original blue suede shoes!

With DJ fixed we headed to Hog Heaven, another restaurant recommendation from Jaci and Larry's viewing "The Best Thing I Ever Ate"...and again, the turkey sandwich with white BBQ sauce came up gold! Back downtown to Broadway Street and spent a few hours listening to multiple bands at various pubs/lounges/bars. Nashville is amazingly musical and there is talent everywhere you turn..people come here to "make it" just like actors go to Las Angeles.

Have you picked up on the theme yet? We're eating a lot of BBQ.

Broadway is full of bars, music stores, and ratty tourist shops

We had a wander around downtown, touring another state capitol and learning how unique Tennessee is with some of its governing....now, I say unique, and I know it was unique but already I seem to have forgetten the details...ugh.

Look closely and you will see that sneaky Confederate flag on the desk.

We took in an evening show at the Grand Ole Opry. For those of you like me, you might recognize the name but don't really know what it is...the Opry is a live radio broadcast country music performance that started back in the '40s and have been happening weekly ever since. The show is a couple hours long and performers having 15 minutes a piece, usually enough time to do 3 or 4 songs. The night we were there had multiple old timers that have playing there since their hay day in the 50s (this included Little Jimmy Dickens**..the cutest, smallest cowboy you ever have seen...in his 90s now he still knows how to work the crowd!) and finished with Diamond Rio.

**please, if you never look any links, look at this one. He's ADORABLE!

Grand Ole Opry stage

Cameron lovin' the country

Having had two nights of live music we were getting hooked, and took in a third at the Bluebird Cafe, a long-running restaurant that hosts up and coming singer/songwriters (and also where Garth Brooks was discovered, along with many others). The night was perhaps our highlight of Nashville. The crowd was very intimate--while it was a "sold out" show (you don't actually have to buy tickets, just make reservations for a table) and they had two acts over the couple hours. The first started with 5 or 6 youngsters, ranging from late teens to early 20s, that were developing their music careers. They all had beautiful voices, great songs and basically blew our minds. Included in this group were American Idol discoveries, though we don't watch the show so nobody was recognizable.

That concluded our musical tour of Nashville and we were back on the road...five days to make our way to New Orleans where we would meet up with Bryce (remember him from NYC?).