Days 3, 4 and 5- Nashville

Good Morning People!

Well we are now 7 states and 950 miles down…

Our drive from D.C. to Nashville was very long (12 hours) but very beautiful. We spent most of the day driving through Virginia and it was gorgeous. The leaves were changing colors and there was a lot to see. Tony did all of the driving which left me lots of time to look at leaves… 688 miles and many car games later we arrived in Nashville.

We ended up staying at a B&B in the 12South area of town. We originally were trying to stay in downtown to be near “the action” but couldn’t find anything. I have to give a shout out to Catherine, our inn keeper, at this point.  We found her via Trip Advisor ( #1 rated B&B in Nashville) but had no idea how amazing she would be and how lucky we were that we ended up with her in that super cool neighborhood. Divine intervention indeed! If you are ever in Nashville you must stay with Catherine at the Linden Manor B&B. I will miss the fresh baked cookies she put in our room every night.

Since arriving so late we decided to spend the first night  in our neighborhood and had the most incredible meal at a local fish restaurant, per Catherine’s recommendation. The manager was from the Bay Area and spent a bit of time drinking wine with us and preparing a list of all the “must do’s” while we were in town. Southern hospitality for sure!  On day two we walked downtown and headed straight for Jack’s, the local barbeque joint on our must do list, with high expectations. For the second time on our trip the “actual” didn’t live up to the expectations. We both agreed we’ve had better barbeque in NYC. Darn- foiled again! We then proceeded to go “honkytonking”. For those of you who don’t know what that is let me explain:  There is a 6-block area of downtown Nashville that is full of Honkytonks (actually says it on map). Honkytonks are bars with live music all day and night, for free. The quality of the music varies greatly but the style is primarily country. The acts play from an hour to 4-hour spots if they are the “headliner” for the night. So basically you can just go bar to bar and hear live music, staying longer where you enjoy it and moving on quickly it it’s not for you. Super fun! Oh  and of course lots of drinking . These Honkytonks are the platform for all of the hopeful music acts and individuals trying to make it in Nashville. And although neither Tony nor myself are huge country music fans we found ourselves buying a CD of our favorite act, Brandi Thornton, by the end of the night. The music sounds better the more you drink. We found it interesting that in the honkytonks all of the older folks sit towards the front, near the stage and the youngsters sit at the back as they are more into the party than the music. Where do you think we sat???? In the front of course- we are serious about our music! And at 10:00 pm things really change. All of a sudden it’s just drunken youngsters everywhere and it becomes much less enjoyable. Who knew I would find myself in the old farts camp? Before my trip to Nashville my only association with the word “honkytonk” was Mick Jagger. We spent our last night in town at the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman theater. That was really interesting. Did you know it’s the world’s oldest live radio show? Running since 1896. To see it all happening was pretty cool and some of the music was good too. Again- we’re not huge country music fans so couldn’t appreciate all of the old geezers who performed. We did enjoy the newcomer, J.T Hodges. A bit of a Colin Farrell look alike in tight black jeans. What’s not to like??? I must mention that there are also 2  blues venues (compared to about 50 country) in town. We went to both but really enjoyed Bourbon Street Blues and Boogey Bar. We were there before the Opry and caught the most amazing act. Just a guy and his guitar performing great blues classics.  We didn’t want to leave to go to the Opry but had already bought tickets.

All in all a great time in Nashville.  Beautiful countryside with lots of great people and things to do.  Surprisingly, most of the “locals” were not from Nashville or even Tennessee. I kept an eye out for Nicole and Keith but never did catch a sighting. We liked Nashville so much we actually stayed a night longer there and are cutting one night from Memphis.

We are on our way to Memphis as we speak and hope to get there in time for some serious barbeque  (not giving up on the dream!), Graceland and the Civil Rights Museum.

Keep On Truckin’

Gina