We headed into town from Dickson about ten this morning. We had a few places on our agenda, The Hermitage: Home of President Andrew Jackson, Belle Meade Plantation and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, but we hadn’t figured out the exact order yet.
I suggested we go to Belle Meade first because it was on the west side of town and we would go past it on our way in anyway so might as well. Belle Meade means “Beautiful Meadow” in French. It was indeed a beautiful house, but we were not allowed to take any photos inside because they have some very expensive items in there and their insurance company won’t insure the house if people can take photo’s of the spendy stuff. It has a ton of history, to read all about it, go to www.bellemeadeplantaion.com/people/people and you can get a great history on the people and horses that lived there. The plantation was mainly used for the breeding of thoroughbred horses which were then raced and tended to bring in a bit of money. Many presidents and high ranking army officials frequented the estate when it was still being used as a residence. It was a very impressive place to be. After the tour of the mansion, we walked around the grounds. There were slave cabins and things to look at. They also have a winery there, and Toto and Josh and I got to do some wine tasting (the guy there pretended Josh was 21, either that or he couldn’t do math at all). We tried the four wines they make there. They were all good but we bought two bottles of two kinds for ourselves, because they were good enough even Josh loved them.
After Belle Meade we went across town to the Hermitage which was the home of the seventh president of the United States, Andrew Jackson before and after his presidency. It was primarily used for growing cotton, as well as some other stuff. To look into it more check out http://www.thehermitage.com/ and read up on some of the interesting stuff that happened there. It too is a beautiful home, but it is nearer to the Cumberland River so when the recent flooding happened in Nashville, it was affected more than any of the other places we went this week. There were areas of the house which we couldn’t access. Again, no photography was allowed inside, and by this time (this having been the third plantation house we visited in two days) Toto’s “trigger” finger was itching pretty bad.
We headed into downtown after we were done out at The Hermitage. We got to the Country Music Hall of Fame right before they closed, so we decided to not pay the full admissions fee for 20 minutes of walking around. We did however browse through the gift shop and obtain a few souvenirs.
Since the CMA Fest was still going strong, we walked around outside for an hour or two. We visited little shops, saw Cowboy Troy singing by the Hard Rock Café on 2nd and Broadway, and tried to not die of heat exhaustion. I spoke to a Metro Police Officer while sitting on a flower pot waiting for a motor home to back into a parking lot (Toto and Josh were on the other side of the street and couldn’t cross because of said motor home) and the officer told me this is the hottest day of the year. Joy. Good timing on our parts. Every time we would be in a bar or shop or in the car, we would get sort of lulled into this false sense of security that it was cooler outside than it really was. Like at home, its 95 degrees one moment and then it is 60 for the rest of the day. Not here. That’s not how it works.
We decided to go back to the car and head back to Dickson because my feet were killing me, and on the way a little bar called the Whiskey Bent Saloon caught our eye. We went in and Toto and I had a couple of frosty beverages while JD had five or six cokes, and we watched a singer/comedian do his thing on the stage. He was rather entertaining. His name was Buck McCoy (http://www.mccoysound.com/buckmccoy/ to check him out, but be warned, he looks a lot like a Tim McGraw copycat). When we left in search of pizza, we didn’t make it a block before running into the two people we know in this town: Jeremy and Becky. So we went to a bar with them and had a few drinks. It was fun. Mom decided she was ready for pizza even more so we went up the street to this bar that was supposed to have great pizza (Legends Corner) and ordered some. While waiting, Josh ordered a few beers and a shot and apparently they couldn’t do the math either. He loves flashing his military ID card. Then we discovered there were five or six guys at the other end of the bar that were all getting deployed to the Middle East next month, and they had on white shirts that said “leaving on a jet plane…” and people had been signing them. One of them bought Josh another shot of Jack, and I went over and shook their hands and signed their shirts. Toto did as well.
Then we got our pizza and headed back to the hotel.
Toto and I sit here on our bed (Josh has one all to himself) typing away on our computers (Toto is doing work and I am blogging obviously) and then Toto has a revelation. “I know why God made our fingers different lengths!” She says to me. “Uh, why?” I ask a little bewildered. “Because if they were all the same length and our knuckles were all the same level, they wouldn’t fit together!” She says rather enthusiastically. “Oh. Ok Toto.” I say. Then I laughed, and she did too.
That was our day. It was a little long, but we had a ton of fun. I can’t wait to come back to Nashville, I think it is somewhere I am going to visit many times in my life, but I will pack more shorts. In Becky’s words, “It is a bad ass town.”
Sean
License Plates Seen
Maine
Vermont
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