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| Family Photo |
We started out with a private memorial at my father’s
gravesite. He passed away last March and
is now situated in a plot next to my mother near Huntsville, Alabama. We had an opportunity to visit with my sister
Debbie several times and also to have dinner with my brother, Jerry and his
wife Sandra. I have Debbie to thank for
pointing us to some of the more interesting sides of Nashville.
I have to admit that my expectation of music on lower
Broadway was a disappointment. There
were more honky tonks that you can visit in one night. We chose to go early in the evening on one
night and the places were already hopping.
My disappointment came in the lack of original songs that were
played. Basically everyone sounded the
same.
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| Corey Jackson at Tootsies |
We did manage to go “The Listening
Room” where we heard 4 song writers play/sing their songs. The night we were there, it was four guys
playing and singing their original songs.
No country here… more pop, rock and blues. The most enjoyable part was hearing the
writers talk about how they came to write their song.
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| Ryman Auditorium Back Stage |
We also visited the Ryman Auditorium and took the back stage
tour. The original use of the building was
as a church. Interestingly, this church
was built with pews set up in a circle around the preacher who stood at center
stage. When the building was converted
to be used for entertainment, they halved the building. In essence, the back half began to be used
for the back stage and dressing rooms were added. Also, there was a second tier of seats added
that the original church didn’t have. I
would highly recommend this tour if ever in Nashville. It’s much more that just about country music.
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| Statue of Athena inside the Parthenon |
We visited The Parthenon.
This is a full-scale replica of the one in Athens, Greece. It was originally erected for the 1897
Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition. It was only supposed to be a temporary
structure for the exhibit, so it was made of wood lath, brick and plaster. It eventually became an eyesore. In 1920, the city authorized that it be
reconstructed but with permanent materials and was reopened in 1931. It is quite something to see. I was most impressed with the structure of
Athena inside on the upper level (the lower level is fine art). The gold gilding contains 8 pounds of 23.75
carat gold. This was also well worth the
visit.
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| Historic House, Franklin, TN |
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| Historic House, Franklin, TN |
The town of Franklin will take you back in time. We took a walking tour to see and read about the
historic homes in the town. I’m sharing
just a couple that we found most interesting.
Plus the downtown was very quaint with a lot of shops and
restaurants. It reminded me a little of
Bend except it had a town square in the middle, a very traditional Southern “thing”.
Before leaving Nashville KOA North, we got a rock chip in
our new windshield we had just replaced.
Because of the heat, it immediately split and was not repairable. We had
two replacements in less than a month, a very costly but unavoidable expense.
On July 20th we uprooted and started heading
west. Our first stop was Paducah, KY. Why Paducah?
Just across the board north of Paducah is a scenic byway in Illinois,
Shawnee National Forest. There we made
stops at Garden of the Gods, Cave-in-Rock State Park that we could access due
to the flooding of the Ohio River, and the Illinois Iron Furnace.
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| Garden of the Gods, Shawnee NF |
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| Cave-in-Rock Path into the Swollen Ohio River |
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| Illinois Iron Furnace, Shawnee NF |
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| Downtown Paducah |
The downtown area is very active. It has a great history museum and a number of
good restaurant and pubs. The town touts
3 breweries. We were surprised that most eateries had musicians play in the
evening. Most of what we heard was
blues. On the last day we were there we visited Paducah Beer Werks and talked
to the bar tender. When we mentioned the
blues he said that he writes and plays music when not tending the bar. He told us that Paducah has quite a plethora
of songwriters and musicians for a town of 25,000 people.
As of two days ago, we landed in Mountain View, MO at Ozarks
RV Park. But we’ll save this visit for a
later date.
Until then, we wish all our friends well.
Katherine and Mike
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