Nashville

I’m starting this post at a Starbucks again (I’m nothing if not predictable), near West Palm Beach. This is stop one to get a snack and kill some time on my way up to Universal (I can’t check in until 4 pm).

So this is state 5, TN. I made it to my hotel, and it had everything I needed, including a microwave and mini fridge. I have missed baths so far, but I’m holding out for Universal! Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of this one, I reminded myself to several times and kept forgetting. I went to Nashville to see the country music scene so that was my main focus. I had booked shows for all of the 3 nights I was there. I was umming and ahhing over whether I wanted to do the Opry & the Ryman. However, when I saw that Charles Esten was one of the players at the Opry it was settled. So that was Wednesday night – the Grand Ole Opry radio show, live at Opry House. I pre-booked parking – as a side note parking is really expensive in the US – I’ve spend a lot of money on parking so far! However, this parking was probably worth it as it was a nice easy walk over a bridge to the theatre.

The Opry was great. I think it was 8 different performers, who did or 2 or 3 songs each. Except one who was a comedian, who in general was very funny! I really enjoyed all of the performers and am glad I decided to go. Charles sadly didn’t reprise his role as Deacon or sing any Nashville songs, but he did talk a little bit about the show. I definitely like his original music too. An interesting fact was that he doesn’t do all of his guitar work on the show. He does all of Deacon’s vocals, but apparently a lot of the guitar playing is done by somebody else, which I didn’t realise!

After this it was back to the hotel, some food and then sleep. My throat was definitely hurting now and I was hoping this cold would hurry up and go away. (So I’m at Starbucks again, Fort Pierce this time. What!?! It’s a good place to kill time and while I’ll probably get one at Universal I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss out on my Stawberry Açai Refresher. Although with the new Starbucks coming to Perth I may not need to travel for these anymore! I digress.) Thursday morning woke up and I definitely knew a had a cold – cue the incredibly annoying cough that I’ll probably have for the next 6 weeks 😠. I decided rest was in order, so I spent most of the morning and some of the afternoon in bed. I spend a good deal of that time trying to prioritise. The things definitely on my list were the Johnny Cash Museum and the Country Music Hall of Fame (as well as the Bluebird Cafe, but it was already booked). Thursday night I had booked a show at the Ryman and when I found the Johnny Cash museum was a short walk away and open late I thought it made sense to do both together.

So I once again paid a decent amount for parking, just across from the Ryman and went down to the Cash museum. In short it was great. I knew some of the story from seeing the Cash movie, but the memorabilia and extra info was really interesting. I took a lot of photos! A lot of the may need zoom to ready – I wanted to commemorate some of the info.

Then it was back to the Ryman to see the Del McCoutry band. This was a bit of a let down. No that it wasn’t good, but I think a combination of now knowing their background, not knowing their music, it being country music that I like less (a bit more honky tonk) and the fact that I was coughing a lot didn’t make is a super enjoyable performance. It was my leasts favourite of the three I went to. Also, the pews in the Ryman are not comfortable! One of the highlights was before the show started, one of the background music songs was I Saw the Light which David Crowder played back when we went to Passion in Sydney circa 2009. I appreciated the close parking and headed back to the hotel, stopping to pick up dinner. I decided I should probably try American Taco Bell so that’s what I got this time, a Chicken Quesadilla and Nacho Fries – they were good! Bed Time.

This post has got long, especially with the photos so I’ll end here and do Friday in a new post.