Tennessee: Nashville (by car)

Day 95
No Boat Travel

We raced around in the morning to get the courtesy car from the marina so we could drive to Paducah, Kentucky to pick up a rental car from Enterprise.  We reserved the courtesy car for 10:00.  Enterprise opened at 11:00.  The courtesy car had to be back at the marina in two hours.

We spent the first minutes of our drive to Paducah in a gas station putting air in the tires of the courtesy car.  Apparently all four were severely under-inflated, but even after Clark added air to all four tires, the idiot light for tire pressure continued to light.  We decided to drive the car that way but didn't feel safe driving the 70 mph posted on the highway, so we kept the speed down.  With the tire concern, the length of the drive to Paducah, and the time to sign out the rental car, we barely made it back to return the car to the marina in the 2-hour window allotted.

We drove both cars back to the marina (I drove the rental and followed Clark should something happen to the courtesy car), dropped off the courtesy car, and headed straight out for Nashville.  We allocated only part of one day to Nashville, so we wanted to make the most of what we had available to us.  The trip to Nashville from the marina took a full two hours of driving time each way.

Nashville, Tennessee

We decided to start with the Country Music Hall of Fame.  As we walked through the museum, I recognized a lot of names, but I had never heard of many of the artists.  The displays covered all the way through the years from Roy Rogers to Taylor Swift.  Clark felt that Taylor Swift got more space dedicated to her than seemed reasonable due to her length of time in the music business.  A special display area featured the works of Johnny Cash / Bob Dylan.

The displays were interesting and educational.  Elvis Presley's Golden Cadillac appeared in a prominent place complete with a television and a car phone in the back seat.  Of course we saw the plaques in the actual hall of fame as well as the displays for the many other noteworthy artists.

Country Music Hall of Fame

When we left the Hall of Fame, we hoped to visit the Parthenon next, but when we looked at Google maps, we found that the walk to the Centennial Park would take a full hour.  Okay, time for Plan B.  We decided to walk to the riverfront to see what we are missing by not bringing the boat to the city.

View of the Cumberland River from Nashville, TN

Titan Stadium in Nashville, TN

Though picturesque, we found the riverfront to be not-so-much pleasure boat friendly.  What we also found tied to the wall at the town dock was our old friends Ariel that we have not seen for many weeks.  Once we saw their boat, we just had to walk over the bridge to the other side of the river to say hello.   As we made our way to the far side of the river, we found many, many people going the other way across the bridge into downtown Nashville.  The game Indiana Colts vs Tennessee Titans had just let out.  Streams of people in blue jerseys - some Navy and some a paler blue streamed across the bridge.

Arial view of Ariel
(taken from bridge over the river)

View of Nashville, TN from the River

After our brief visit with Robert and Corinne on Ariel, we made our way back over the bridge and up Broadway.  We needed to make a restaurant selection for dinner, and a local told us that we had two choices - Broadway or 2nd Avenue for great places to eat and hear any type of music our hearts desired.  We found a nice restaurant on Broadway where we sampled some local cuisine.  I had corn soup which tasted nothing like any corn soup I have ever had before due to an unusual flavored seasoning that neither Clark nor I could identify.  I ordered broccolini but could not eat it due to the hot spicy flavor, so I sent it back to the kitchen.  I devoured their homemade sourdough bread and flavored butter.

We like strolling around parks, and we still wanted to see the full-scale Parthenon replica in Centennial Park, so we decided to walk back to the car and drive there as our next stop.  The sky gave us a brilliant showing as we drove across town.

Sunset over White Castle
the view as we drove across town to the Centennial Park

Too bad we could not get to the park earlier in the day.  A 3-day craft fair occupied a huge portion of the grounds in the park.  By the time we got there, however, the tents remained but the crafty owners had packed up their wares.

Parthenon Replica in Centennial Park

Sunset at the Tennessee Parthenon

After leaving the Parthenon / Park, we decided to go visit the Opryland Hotel we had been told was a must see.  We found the hotel, but circled the complex and failed to find a place to park.  At one point we saw two parking options - valet parking (no) and self-parking $23 (absolutely no).  In the end I told Clark to abort the hotel plan and head back to the boat which we did.

We had a "taste" of Nashville and enjoyed it very much.  We were glad we took a portion of our trip to visit this exciting, musical city.

Back on the boat, relaxing after a full day, I read a Facebook message from my daughter-in-law Devon "Guys, go look at the sky!"  I read it to Clark who immediately took off to see what he could see.  Earlier in the day we had too much cloud cover to see anything, but at some point those clouds had scattered.  When Clark went outside, he could clearly see the moon halfway through the full eclipse.  He came back and got me and we stood outside watching the eclipse until it was time to call it a night.

Proof we looked at the moon the night of the eclipse!