Nashville and Middle Tennessee

No visit to the Nashville area is complete without a trip to the Grand Ole Opry .... so, even though I know nothing about Country Music, I felt I had to enjoy this experience at least once.

There were a few surprises .... I booked the ticket to see Clint Black, but he was a no-show.  The Opry is very explicit about no guarantees regarding performers ... subject to change without notice, so this was not the surprise.  What I expected when I arrived was a large ornate building ... something like Dolly with too much makeup .... so I thought my GPS had another brain cramp when it told me to turn into a shopping center!  Yep, the building is behind the center and you use the mall for parking.

The next surprise was the seat ... they weren't individual seats ... it was a long bench seat for the entire row.  Much more comfortable.

And, since I hadn't had time for dinner, the third surprise was dinner .... I ordered the chicken tender meal .... REALLY good chicken (4 big pieces), a bag of Sun Chips and a drink (Pepsi, but you can't have everything) for $13.00.  The second drink for $4.50 was a killer tho ....

The show, as you probably know, is live, which was cool knowing "you" were on the radio.  Each performer sang 3 songs and there was a Korean comedian, Henry Cho, who was pretty funny.  The show, with intermission, lasted 2 1/2 hours .... and the music was pretty good.  Some of the performers were John Conlee, Dailey & Vincent, Chris Janson and Easton Corbin.

The stage from my seat

It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive from the the Opry to the campground, so I didn't get back until almost midnight .... only to find that my gate code did not work.  I tried everything I could think of, from walking up to the ranger station to calling the emergency number, but couldn't raise anyone to help me.  As a last resort, I called the sheriff in hopes that he had a master code ... which he did, but he had to come out to verify that I was "legit" .... another hour down.  Unfortunately, I had a dentist appointment the next morning, also in Nashville, and I had to get up at 6:30am to drive back.  Short night ....

The second thing you must do in Middle Tennessee is visit the Jack Daniels Distillery.   Needless to say, I took the "dry" tour.  ha.

Each of these barrels contains 53 gallons of whiskey

A couple of interesting facts:  Daniels died from an infection, a complication from a broken toe he sustained when kicking his safe because he couldn't get it open (not a patient man) ... it is believed he may have been diabetic and that's the reason for the infection and the toe not healing.  Here is a picture of the safe -

Each of the barrel houses (there are 9) contain about 1 million gallons of whiskey.  They pay $13.50 per gallon in Federal tax; about 60% of the price of each bottle is tax to state, federal, etc.  Here is partial picture of one of the barrel houses ...

I was glad I got up early to drive to Lynchberg for the tour as it was very crowded by noon when I was leaving.

I saw other cool stuff while driving around .... The center part of Tennessee is called "Middle" not central ....

The Historic Rock Castle was built in the late 1780s, as the home of Daniel Smith and his family. The house was "one of the first permanently built homes on the Tennessee State Frontier".

Tennessee State Capitol

The world's only full-scale reproduction of the original, Nashville's Parthenon houses art galleries featuring the Cowan Collection of American Paintings and other works from the permanent collection. 

Centinnel Park is a large, delight place and would be very pleasant to spend a couple of hours just walking around or rent one of the bikes.

Castle Gwynn in Arrington, TN is actually a replica of a 12th-century Welsh border castle. Unfortunately, it was closed and I couldn't get close enough for a good picture.


The Geographical Center of the State ....

the Geographic Center of Tennessee, first derived in 1834 and preserved with this historic marker.

The Sam Davis Memorial home was built in 1810 by Confederate spy Samuel Davis. Though Davis was hung in 1863, when he was caught by the Union army, the home was basically frozen in time. Today, visitors to the history home can see the house, much in the same way that Davis left it.

I went in search of The Madison Pink Elephant statue, but later found out it was moved to Florida.  The giant pink elephant stands with its trunk in the air.

I did find this though ...  at the Shady Lawn Truck Stop - a giant chicken statue. The chicken wears a chef's hat and even has his own carving knife and fork.



GM makes the Saturn here.  The plant is huge and I wanted to take a tour, but they weren't giving them ....


I passed on Loretta Lynn's Ranch .... the museum is closed and it was a far drive just to tour the house.


Traffic is really bad in Nashville and it doesn't seem to matter what time of day.  Nashville drivers are pretty crazy - they just whip in and out, even where there is no lane  ...

It also takes longer than you think to get anywhere, so I've started setting my GPS to show the time rather than the distance.  It takes about an hour to drive 30 miles.

As you can tell, I decided to combine a couple days of sightseeing together in one blog entry, rather than break it up as I usually do. 

Tomorrow I'm headed back to Huntsville, Alabama to the Space Center and I'll tell you all about that.  I have another day of see the sights before I drive the Natchez to Mississippi ....