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| Photo- The Nashville skyline from the river area with flags hanging at half-mast. |
DAY 119- Nashville…
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| Photo- Inside of the Ryman Auditorium. |
From the current Opryland area, I headed to downtown
Nashville where the old Opryland used to be the Ryman Auditorium. I took a day time tour of the Ryman and was
amazed at all of the talent that started out on this stage. The Ryman is second only to the Salt Lake
City Mormon Tabernacle as far as sound acoustics in any building and has been referred
to as the “Carnegie Hall of the South”.
I found myself fondly reliving through some memories as I watched Minnie
Pearl videos when she appeared on Hee Haw.
“HowdEE!”
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| Photo- Cases of wonderful memorabilia from costumes (like Minnie Pearl's dress) to instruments. |
Next, I walked over Printer’s Alley which is known as the
Blues and Jazz section of Nashville. I
went down the alley and there wasn’t much going on. It looked like it was mainly
open during the night time. In fact, the
only place that seemed to be open was a bar that looked like it was a topless
bar if the photos outside was any indication.
Hmmm… that would explain the looks I was getting as I was walking down
the alley. I took the next turn and
escaped from that alley.
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| Photos- Printer's Alley which is more of a night spot than day. |
I walked down by the river and got a view of the city with
the flags all flying at half-mast for the children of Newtown. I also enjoyed the view of the bridge going
across the river and the little park areas that run by the river. There were tons of bicycle stands where you
could pay to rent a cruiser bicycle and go around the city. Though, watching some of the drivers and the pedestrian
interactions I would question the safety of bringing one more into this mix.
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| Photo- All kinds of places that have LIVE music along Broadway in Nashville. |
I then walked along the famous Broadway Street of
Nashville. There was all kinds of
restaurants and bars where there was live music being played most of it was
country. I stopped here and there
outside the doors; looking in doors to see who it was that was singing out of
curiosity. There were quite a few
instruments being carried by people walking along on the sidewalk; most of them
guitars in cases. I looked like the
total tourist as I went along snapping my pictures. I even went by a place called Jimmy Buffett’s
Margaritaville which had a guy playing what sounded like honky tonk.
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| Photo- Here's Jimmy's Place! |
As it started to pour rain, I ducked into a souvenir shop
and found a bumper sticker along with a couple of postcards. When it stopped raining for a bit, I quickly
walked back to my car. It was time to
head on to the city park area to see the Parthenon. Yes, the one and only full scale copy of it
is in Nashville. Don’t ask me why but in
1897 it was built as an exposition piece for a fair. It was the only piece that remained
standing. In 1921, it was refurbished. Warning, it is not made of marble like the
original. This is fortified
concrete. I guess there’s an amazing
golden Athena statue that is inside but it was closed on Mondays. But it was rather impressive just going
around the outside of it.
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| Photo- A full size copy of the original in Nashville! |
Next, the clouds were starting to get very, very dark. I had considered visiting a southern
plantation nearby but looking at these clouds I thought it might be a better
idea to forgo that and drive to Memphis.
I was hoping to drive through the storm before it got into full
force. I also heard that there was a
ball game and a couple other events in the area that were supposed to make
traffic in the area almost unbearable. I
wanted to be out of here before that happened.
Well, I must have caught the beginnings of that because it took me
almost 10 minutes to move 1 block at one point.
Thankfully, shortly after that I was able to take a left turn and head
out of town. I could see the long lines
of traffic going into town. Whew! Good call on that one; and off to Memphis I
was…
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