Nashvegas, baby!

Well, almost.

T's family decided to road trip to Nashville, and for reasons I can't quite fathom (other than that they had no idea what they were getting into), they invited me along.  But we were actually staying closer to Ashland City, which is a little outside Nashville. 

We headed down on Thursday, and I'll write a post about Thursday night shortly. It warrants its own.  You'll see why.

Friday morning we went back in history by visiting The Hermitage, which was the estate of President Andrew Jackson. There is the obligatory standard welcome center where you see an introductory video and pick up your audio tour, and then they set you free on the grounds.

The lovely grounds

T and I made the mansion our first stop.  It's quite an impressive place, with lots of original wall hangings and furniture still in place (but you're not allowed to take pictures inside).  Some of the imported-from-France "wallpaper," if you can call it that - it seems awfully fancy to be called wallpaper - has been hanging for over 150 years!  I especially liked the dining room, pantries, and kitchen, the last of which is in a building a little behind the main house.  How they managed to cook such elaborate meals with so few amenities bewilders me.

The front portico of the mansion

 

The back

 

A lovely shady place to sit

We strolled around the garden where both Jackson and his wife are buried.  It had been her garden, though she predeceased him by some years.  To hear tell, he walked through the garden every day after her death to visit her.

 

The Jacksons' burial site.  It's hard to read, but the President's stone merely says "General Andrew Jackson," with his birth and death dates.

The garden

 Just to the right of the President's and his wife's stones is the stone for "Uncle Alfred," a slave who lived on the estate and was the President's loyal servant.  Uncle Alfred remained on the estate, in his little cabin, after the President's death.

Despite the withering Tennessee heat, we braved the out-of-doors self-guided walking tour as well.  The first half of it actually wasn't too bad - if I'd paid better attention to the layout, I probably would have gone in reverse order.  Anyway, the first landmark was the spring house on a little creek that runs a good distance behind the main house, down a long hill.  Cool, fresh spring water was collected there, and slaves carried it up to the house for cooking and washing.  We followed a trail through the woods that ran along the creek, and found an opening in the trees where you could wade in.  The creek was cool and refreshing.  I walked as far upstream as I could - until I reached the barbed wire they had strung up to prevent people from doing exactly what I was doing - and thankfully the water was about calf deep at that spot.  I stood and enjoyed the cooling effect of the water before T insisted we continue.  So off we went.

The spring house.  It's dark inside, but the reflection of the window shows that it's full of water

Me, in the water

Several of the other buildings that had been along that track have since been destroyed, but we did stop in at the original log cabin that the President and Rachel lived in while they were building the estate house.  It was a simple two-room place, although the audio tour kindly informed me that it had been two stories when the Jackson's lived there.  Apparently they felt a two-story cabin would be too grand when used as quarters for slaves, so the top level was removed.  We returned to the oh-so-wonderful air conditioning of the museum for a quick spin through there, which was all we needed; much of what was on the placards had also been part of the tour.

Lunch was Steak 'n Shake, which was about what I expected, although I was a little disappointed by the quizzical look I got from our server when I asked here if they had lime freezes. Am I the only person who remembers the lime freeze? Were they a St. Louis thing?  Anyway, it doesn't look like they make them any more.  The only thing I can find on their website is the orange freeze.  Not quite a national tragedy, but close.

The afternoon and evening consisted of wandering the strip, aimlessly poking about in shops as tourists are wont to do.  What I loved, though, was how there was music - mostly country, a bit of Elvis, and some other stuff too, pouring out the front door of every restaurant, bar, and decently-sized shop on to the street.  I imagine under other circumstances that such ruckus could have created a massive sensory overload problem, but I was totally ready for it and loved every minute.

We stopped for dinner at a place called Big River Grille & Brewing Works, which seems like an exceedingly long name for a restaurant that reminded me of Applebee's minus the kitsch.  The beer was actually pretty darn good - I had the Sweet Magnolia American Brown Ale (another long name), as was my dinner - hummus and goat cheese salad.

Are we in Nashville or what?

 You can see this guy right at the beginning of Blake Shelton's video for "Kiss My Country Ass"

The Strip

Saturday was a bit more low key.  After a slightly-later-than-intended start, we ventured down the road to Marrowbone Lake for some fishing.

[Here, I interrupt my blog post to bring you this classic quote:
Norman: "You're late, Neal."
Neal: "Yeah, yeah, I didn't get in until late."
Paul: "Well I didn't get in at all, but I was here."
Norman: "Neal, Paul.  Paul, Neal."
Paul: "Neal, in Montana there's three things we're never late for: church, work, and fishing."
And now, back to our regularly scheduled program....]

Getting fishing licenses at the little bait shop there for seven people was a bit of an ordeal.  For starters, there were seven of us, along with two other unlucky guys who happened to arrive a few minutes later, and I'm pretty sure that is the most people that have ever occupied that little bait shop at one time.  It was cozy.  And second, there was something wrong with their machine, so the lady was on the phone about it, and kept talking about "not getting the download," and saying that "it's not printin' TWRA numbers" (but you have to pronounce it right, George W. Bush style: tee-dubya-are-ay).  Eventually, TWRA numbers or no, we were all (possibly) legally permitted to fish.  And for all that trouble, I caught one little sunfish in the couple of hours we spend out there.  Although I think there was only one other fish the whole day: a bluegill caught by T's brother.  So at least I held my own, relatively speaking.

On our way back to Nashville proper, T and I demanded a stop at Bolton's Spicy Chicken and Fish.  We learned on Thursday night that apparently hot chicken is a big thing in Nashville, and we heard specifically about this place.  I had never heard of hot chicken before, but it is exactly what you'd think: spicy chicken.  Fried (duh - we were in the South!).  Not much more to it than that.  Although I had been craving some good homey barbecue, so I got a half-rack of ribs.  So I got my BBQ, and T was kind enough to share his meal with me so I could try the title dish as well.  And it was great!  One of those places that you're sure probably wouldn't pass the county health inspection, but that also makes some of the best home cookin' around.

The big plan for the afternoon was the Country Music Hall of Fame.  We went audio-tour-free here, which was actually okay because there was so much music playing everywhere.  They have a lot of stuff jammed into that museum!  I imagine as more and more stars come along, they just keep on cramming more stuff in.  There are a few places where it seems a bit overwhelming, but mostly it's laid out well and is navigable.  I especially liked the video with interviews from artists who did particularly controversial songs (Loretta Lynn, The Pill; Martina McBride, Independence Day; Toby Keith, Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue; Merle Haggard, America First); another video which highlighted country music's role in pop culture, specifically television; and the wall of gold and platinum records.

Gene Autry's guitar

Famous suits of

...Hank Williams,

...Merle Haggard,

...and Porter Wagoner, as well as the cars of

...Elvis Presley and

 ...Webb Pierce.

The wall of records

At the end of the tour through the memorabilia, you get to the actual hall of fame, whose inductees include Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Little Jimmy Dickens, Don Williams, and Emmylou Harris.

We relaxed by the fire pit on our back porch on Saturday night, and I made a significant dent in the pile of magazines that had stacked up, and managed to get to bed early enough to get up for a bike ride on Sunday morning before the heat got too miserable.  Some members of our party were dead set on this one particular pancake place - I missed the hype about why it was so great, but I'm pretty sure I've never turned down a good breakfast (which is far and away the most under-appreciated meal of the day). We found the place, but typical of great places, the line was out the door, and all the way down the block.  No dice.  We also failed at our attempt to take a totally touristy trolley tour (say that ten times fast); a trolley left right as we arrived, and tickets were sold out for the next two and a half hours.  So instead, we cruised the strip one more time for posterity before we headed out of town, but not before enjoying the outdoor A/C which just happened to be pouring from the vents outside the Patron Club.  And we weren't the only ones!  As T and I stood there enjoying the cool air, locals walked by on two separate occasions and commented on how we had found the best spot in town!

 

Motley Crue's trucks outside the Patron Club, where they were getting ready for their July 4th show

The drive home was a little bit tough due to the pouring rain - you know the kind: the stuff that you really hate to drive in - but we left early enough that there was still a significant portion of the day left when we arrived.  Always nice to have a chance to unwind after a weekend away - at least until you get thrown into the pool.

(See why it's taken me so long to write all this?  This post took about three hours of post writing, photo editing, and caption writing!)