We took a couple wrong turns. Had to stop and ask for directions. Once we settled in to our hotel, it didn't take much wandering in the humid summer air to find the night side of Nashville. Word to the wise: if you think you're great at karaoke back home in front of the neighbors and a few of your co-workers....you're notsomuch here. Wannabe country music stars grab the mics in bars up and down the streets of Nashville, giving a whole new meaning to the word "amateur". My t-shirt smelled like cigarettes and bar-food by the end of our first evening like you might expect lots of places....you can still smoke in bars down there..........but my ears were filled with music like I've never heard from a karaoke mic anywhere else. I swear I sat and listened to Elvis and Reba and Willie Nelson all evening. Even though, of course, I know this is not possible since I've heard Elvis is working in a Git'n Go in Pulaski, Ohio.
The Country Music Hall of Fame is a great place. The architecture of the building itself is reminiscent of string instruments with windows that line up like the keyboard of a piano. Very cool. While some of us wandered around looking at the displays, one of us engaged a young employee in conversation about the beauties of living in the South. They are many. Escaping Minnesota winters being one of them, he explained, having relocated to Nashville from Minneapolis. While the gift shops are typically full of anything and everything you could possibly want to purchase with Elvis memorialized on it.....from pencil sharpeners to t-shirts to teddy bears and coffee mugs, the halls were filled with memorabilia from country stars past and present.
My daughter would want you to know this is "THE SHIRT that GARTH FREAKIN' BROOKS wore when he did the video for 'The Dance", Ma." Indeed it is. We love Garth.
Visiting Nashville was just a little side benefit of the trip to Tennessee.
The reason three of us traveled to Nashville was to meet up with my daughter, who works in Deer Lodge, Tennessee as a therapeutic counselor at resident youth camping program.
It's an amazingly peaceful, beautiful place.
Sara walks down this path to work from the cabin where she lives when she goes on duty.
We spent part of the weekend at a horse ranch where campers bring their trailers and horses for a weekend of riding and camping.
All around the ranch are campsites with corrals for the visiting horses. At night all the campers sit around the fire and share stories.
Wish you could see this picture better, but I have to include it because it reminds me of the evening around the campfire with a whole bunch of great people, chatting like old friends even though we'd never met before. Sara sang with her guitar with a full moon overhead, shining down on us all through the tall, tall pines.
Great memories.Great crew.
Great weekend.
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