Early anniversary trip to Nashville! We left early Thursday after moving my parents' old couches to the curb. Because, you know, I have changed my life to visit my parents a couple times a week now! We left after I decided to leave my laptop. Because, well, I'm a workaholic.
After a 3 hour drive, we stopped in Franklin. I had been checking out BBQ places, and found a place called Hogwood BBQ that looked like it had good reviews. It was great but ended up being a chain, of course. Trust Yelp to not designate that info. I got spicy cheesy grits and also a Colorado sandwich while Randall got a pulled pork sandwich. Afterward, I wanted to drive to downtown Franklin and look around. I drove us by Landmark Books, which is the bookseller that the book "The Bridge" was based on. This book is by Karen Kingsbury who writes Christian fiction - but if you read one, you pretty much have your plot. Regardless, I have read several and had some appreciation of her. So we stopped in and looked around, and I chatted with the man at the front. He proudly declared that he and his wife were the inspiration for the couple, but the book was nothing like his real life. He said the "Ted McGinley" character was based on him. We talked shop a bit and Karen had been in the shop recently, signing books. Apparently she lives in Brentwood and stops in quite a bit. So, of course I had to get one of those books. Next we walked around downtown for a while and I showed Randall all of the places we went to when I had been there for a girls' trip. We found a book by Ben and Erin Napier, who we had watched the night before. Randall was busy trying to figure out who shopped at all of the "high-priced" boutiques. Ha. We drove to a little park by a nice stream, took a few pics, and stopped at French's Boots. I tried to get Randall to buy some boots but he didn't take me up on it. Instead, I bought shoes. Of course.
We started making our way to downtown, but drove lazily through several high-priced neighboorhoods, even Cheekwood. We also went to Kroger to get waters and snacks which allowed us to get to the apartment right on time (4 pm). 5003 Georgia Avenue was an older house but it was in great shape. Nancy had all of the amenities you could ever want! It was a cute place and in West Nashville, which I learned was in an up-and-coming area. We got settled in and decided to eat at Hattie B's Hot Chicken. I got "HOT" while Randall got the not-hot Southern flavor. For some reason I got greens, which are not my favorite, and I also forgot how much fried food makes me crazy. But I limited the heat by taking off the skin. Randall seemed to enjoy his. We also got peach cobbler! We stopped at Nations Bar and Grill, but the fried food made me a bit queasy. So, we decided to walk around that evening. We saw a church that was converted to a bar. Sadly, they had a freaky picture of "The Last Supper" which I thought was in poor taste. Lots of people walking, lots of fun places to visit. I even took a picture by a giant Scrabble board! But after that, we stayed in and watched "Remember the Titans." Classic movie.
The next morning, after a satisfying cinnamon roll, we left for a 10:30 appt with Kaysie from "Experiencing Nashville" travel. We walked around for a bit to get the lay of the land and met her at Ernest Tubb's Record Shop. She gave us a very thorough tour around downtown. We stayed in Legends Corner for a while to look at all of the memorabilia. We past many of the honky tonks, Bridgestone Arena, and the GooGoo Cluster shop and walked to the Country Music Hall of Fame and looked at all of the stars there. I don't think she took much of a breath that whole time. We were with a couple from Michigan and another from Wales. They were as amazed at her volubility as I was, I think.
After that we went to Ole Red. I was determined to get in one of the honky tonks for lunch, and we decided on Blake Shelton's place. No wait, yay! And a table right by the band. We saw a girl named Sophia Bollman who was a great singer. She even tried to get me sing but I was aghast and shook my head. We had some interesting tater tots covered with cheese curds and pork. Pork would be a theme on this trip. We also got to dance a bit there. After we ate, we did some more walking, picked up some sweets and Savannah's Candy Kitchen, but then left for the Opry area to see what they had there. Parking: $14. Thankfully we found free parking at the Opry Mills mall but we had to walk a lot to get to the Gaylord hotel. I knew from Kaysie's lecture that the Gaylords were very rich and had saved the Ryman from extinction. Their hotel was like an island. Randall and I walked all over that thing, but we really didn't do much there. We decided to walk to the mall to see what we could find to eat before our nighttime Opry show. Of course, we went all the way to the end of the mall and went to Rainforest Cafe'. Randall had never been there but we split a delicious lemon chicken sandwich and some sweet potato fries. The waitress said it was her first day!
We finally "moseyed" to the Grand Ole Opry. I was wearing my cowboy boots and was pretty proud of them. However, they weren't quite as comfortable to walk in as my sneakers. We took pictures and went to the gift shop. Our visit wasn't long and soon we were in the theater. Nobody was super famous but it was fun to see the radio-style format. There were four segments broken up with different hosts and different singers. There was even a comedian (Dusty Slay). We were on the first floor in a back row seat, which really wasn't bad. We both agreed it was a fun night!
The next day, we decided to go to the Frothy Monkey for breakfast. Randall got a very large biscuit and gravy and I got a bagel with egg and feta. It was so filling! It was a bit rainy but we still decided to do another day in downtown that day. First we stopped by the Nashville Farmers Market. I tasted some great basil pesto, met two French women, a woman who sold sprouts, and walked past several people that I would have bought from - but I had no way of keeping things cold. Afterward we drove through Music Row. We also stopped by and looked at the Parthenon and Vanderbilt. Finally we went to the city, and parked in the wrong building! Oh well. C'est la vie. We spent time at Jason Aldean's restaurant and listened to Stevenson Everett. He was really good, and we stayed more than two hours. Randall even got him to play Dixieland Delight. We left there and then walked over the pedestrian bridge and got some good views of the river and where they would hold the NFL draft. We also went to the Wildhorse Saloon and watched a bunch of teenagers learn how to line dance. That was not the memory I had of that place! But Randall and I got to have our second dance there. We left there and headed to the Ryman for our second show. John Crist, a comedian who lives in Nashville, headlined the show along with two other comedians. Randall had never heard of this guy but I had from Facebook videos. One word: hilarious. It was the best thing. We didn't even spend money on souvenirs! The facility was small, but beautiful. John's jokes about Christian girls, Christian growing up, and just being real with Christians was so great.
We left there and decided to try to go to a honky tonk. We ended up at the Stage on Broadway and listened to Conner Sweet. He was a local boy with a great voice. One thing about Nashville, everyone had a great voice. We actually found a table on the balcony and perched there for a while. It was 5 o clock, and it was already getting raunchy. People were definitely drunk, so we just decided to listen to music. Randall knew it wasn't his scene but was a good sport. We left after a couple of hours and headed to Acme Feed N Seed. We got some delicious shrimp and grits and more sweet potato fries (verdict: Jason Aldean's was better). After getting the food, which was on the bottom floor with a really loud folk band, we headed upstairs and found a couch to sit on. Back story: the Nashville Predators had a playoff game THAT NIGHT (two blocks away) and everyone was watching it. So we got to watch the game winning goal with a bunch of Preds fans! Sort of. I distracted Randall from watching it, telling him he needed new shoes. We stayed for a while longer and then headed back towards the parking area. We made pit stop at Ernest Tubb's record shop, looked at Loretta Lynn memorabilia, and decided to head home. Randall pretended to be surprised that we were doing that, but I had enough of the drunk crazies. Especially since I had not been drinking. Ha ha. Parking: $25.
We got up and watched the Masters, and I scoped out the area to see where we could go to church because it was raining again. I finally settled on Immanuel Church. This is Ray Ortlund's Acts 29 plant and we enjoyed it, but it was long and we were ready to go. His sermon was on my favorite verse from Romans 8. It was a good message to hear. We headed back but had one more stop: Big Bob's BBQ in Decatur. Although the waitress and hostess seemed tense there (Sunday church crowd), the food was great.
