We love America. Everything that is good and great about America is embodied in all things found in Nashville. Sure, it can be a bit gawdy, a bit tacky, a bit boozy but if you look past that you see the heartland and the purity of the American dream. These people are the ones that will protect that vision and dig their boots in for America.
I find a coffee shop not too far away that opens at 7 am. Not bad. We take it easy in the morning as there is no hurry and the weather is a bit dodgy. Gonna be -1C overnight. We decide to walk downtown, it’s about 25 minutes. We can Uber later, if necessary, but biking doesn’t seem attractive.
Our part of town is a bit ex-industrial, perhaps a bit stabby but seems safe. We go right past the Nissan Center and over the footbridge to downtown Nashville. We were thinking of going through the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum but it is just too expensive to justify. It’s not about the money, it’s about the egregious money grab. The souvenir shops at the museum are really ridiculous. US$60 for a t-shirt? I said, hey Carmen, let’s go downtown.
Broadway is waking up and it’s good to be back here. The first time I saw it a few years ago I thought it was a bit phony like a certain street in New Orleans. But it’s not – this truly is the place people come to hear country music played in a 1000 bars 20 feet apart.
We walk around a bit and decide we should eat before drinking – what a concept. Christy is a bit indecisive (I’ll eat anything, anywhere, anytime) so I delegate the restaurant decision to her. She picks a nice-looking place just off Broadway – Cerveza Jack’s – that turns out to be awesome. Of course there is a guy playing guitar and of course he is superb. After every song he picks people out around the bar and asks for a request. Whatever they ask for, he plays. We ask for Lyle Lovett and he only knows one song – If I had a boat – that’s the one we wanted to hear. Food is really good too.
After a while we head out to Broadway – it’s only 3:30 pm for gawd’s sake. We stop in a place or two but eventually end up in AJ’s where this awesome 5 piece band with an amazing female lead has everybody singing and some dancing.
What a great town.
We stroll Broadway, check out the best hat/boot store. As soon as we get our horse ranch in Carabelle we’ll come back here and suit up. Meanwhile, big hats make me look like a nail.
The sun actually comes out for a bit so we swing into Tootsies for the ultimate in tourist watching.
3 floors (4? who’s counting?) of honky tonk bracketed by the neighboring bars that also have 3 or 4 floors of the same thing. On the 2nd floor there’s a band that allows almost anyone to get up and sing. They asked me but I declined.
We decide to walk around the Tennessee State Capitol buildings which are on top of a big hill and pretty impressive.
Stroll back through the ‘hoods, check out some places but we’re headed for the Wild Horse Saloon as a certain wife of mine wants to shake a leg. We stumble our way there – a big place with big live bands and pretty crappy food but great people and everyone having a blast, including us.
Band is very good and getting everyone into it. Nice thing about this place is it is family friendly – every age group here and everyone having fun. In between sets the MCs do line dancing lessons for the newbies in the crowd. We have a couple beer and learn 3 line dances – ok, sorta learn – we’re having a hoot. If the song is too fast I get lost too fast but otherwise we manage to join in the fun.
Next year we’ll learn the two-step.
We decide to walk home, the area we walk through is dodgy enough that we know we are safe cuz no mugger would expect to come across anybody wealthy walking through it on a cold dark December night.