To start off, we took the red eye from Sacramento to Charlotte NC to Nashville. We had 10 minutes between getting off the plane in Charlotte and the start of boarding for the second. And the Charlotte airport was REALLY crowded. Nothing like racing through a crowd, with a suitcase and worrying about finding our gate. Yes, there was a bathroom stop because……well….. Cindy and Kris. Des has a horse bladder. The nice part of flying American Airlines is that you are assigned a seat! We made it in time. None of us slept more than 2 hours on the long leg of the trip. I got maybe 1.5 hours in two pieces. They kept waking people up to fix their masks (yay!) but that would wake me up (boo).
Once we got the car, we were off. Craziness for the next 3 days. We walked about 5 miles and mostly in the rain on Thursday. We found the Tennessee State Museum and it was really good and free! And we walked the WWII memorial, and the bells that represent diversity of music found in Nashville. But we were soaked. And, after walking all the way to the state capital, we found out there is soooooo much construction fencing, we couldn’t figure out how to get in. We might have not tried overly hard since it was Veteran’s Day and we assumed it would be closed! Since we couldn’t get into the house until 3 pm, we kept going. Sloshy shoes and pants and all. Des had the funniest “wet zone” due to her backpack – like a reverse peeing your pants. Her tushy was dry but everywhere else was very wet!!! Other than I worry about blisters, I was actually decently warm – thank goodness for wool socks!
We drove around a bit trying to dry out and then found out Kris has never been to a Cracker Barrel. When in the south…you gotta Cracker Barrel. So we got a late lunch and ended up sitting there for 2 hours planning our next days. The previous house tenants did not leave on time, and the electronic lock was broken, so we could not get into the house until after 4 pm. So we stopped at the grocery store for staples and finally went to the house. The cleaners were still there. Des managed to get all kinds of information from them while we emptied our shoes of water and we worked on adapting our plan to include Hendersonville where we were staying. We hadn’t known that it is quite the influential area since the Cash’s and Roy Orbison lived there back in the day! The other thing of note is that Des, as a really tired sleepy gal is a hoot! She couldn’t even talk. I think she was asleep by 8 pm (which is 6 pm body time!!). I think I made it until just after 10 pm (8 pm body time).
On Friday we went to what is considered the best breakfast in Tennessee – Biscuit Love. I believe it is my all time favorite breakfast ever. I had a biscuit breakfast – biscuit, ham, fried egg, and sausage gravy. AMAZING and I don’t really love gravy! Or biscuits! And then the bonuts – biscuit dough, fried, sugared covered in lemon mascarpone and floating in berry compote…..I’m drooling even now!
Then we were off again. Friday was about 10 miles of walking. We ran into a cute young guitarist/singer in the parking garage and went to watch her later in the day. First stop was the Ryman Auditorium. It felt churchy, which is what it was initially built as. The introductory video before the museum was really well done. I never realized how important the Ryman is too genre of music. Definitely one of my favorites from this trip. We tried to walk the “strip,” otherwise known as Broadway Street but the crowds were too much. We did walk over to Nissan Stadium where the Titans play. There we got a flyover by 4 military helicopters and they “nose downed” us. It was pretty cool! Then we went to the Parthenon – a recreation for the centennial celebration of Nashville. VERY cool. And finally we went to the Grand Ole Opry! What an amazing venue and I will definitely come back some day. The seats could be better and not quite so jammed together, but watching 8 artists who each do 2-3 songs was great. The transitions were cool too because it is live cast so the moderator reads off the commercials!
Saturday we started very bright and early since we all have a thing about waiting in line for breakfast! The Frothy Monkey was pretty cute and funky. Then we went to a rooftop bar (BEFORE all those thousands of hungover people!) and looking for murals. Every which way across the city looking for murals. We also stopped by the Nashville visitor’s center and spoke with an articulate young man about the Christmas bombing last year. And how much he wants to move to Irvine! Haha. So we went to the bomb site and it was quite sobering. The buildings are all brick and it took down one building but damaged at least 7 more. Blown out windows etc. In an area with a housing issue, that bomb took out a ton of downtown homes. So sad. And confusing. But we continued on to Printer’s Alley, old churches and more murals. Only 8 miles or so today!
Sunday we only had a half day so we decided to go see Jonny Cash’s house and the Cash’s grave sites in Hendersonville. And then we finished off a few of the Atlas Obscura items…including a cool dragon park and some very weird polar bears. We found music row and the RCA studios. And then a stop at Trader Joes for Des favorite gifts – bags with the city name on them. Actually quite cool.
We ended up walking about 26-27 miles over the three and a half days. Broke in my new boots, ate some really good food and laughed so much. In the airport waiting to come home we started our next list of places to go!!!
