This time we really ARE going to Nashville - Day 2 - Johnny Cash Museum, Exploring and Boozing

[Redrach1903]

Saturday 2nd September

I was awoken at 3.30am by a very loud horn that was going off constantly for five straight minutes. That doesn’t sound long, but it sure felt it! I figured it must have been one of those massively long trains you see in the states! Anyway, I managed to fall back asleep and we were both properly awake at 7am feeling refreshed after a (mostly) restful sleep!

We were most pleased to look outside and see that the rain had indeed stopped, as per the forecast! YAY! We went downstairs and had a pre breakfast of tea/coffee and mega stuf oreos. Living the dream



We then got ready for the day and left the apartment at 9am. Since it was such a beautiful morning we decided to walk into town! Now, the neighbourhood we stayed in was only 1.5 miles from Downtown, but it was definitely a little rough around the edges. We didn’t feel unsafe or anything, but we decided we probably wouldn’t walk home in the evenings! Just in case! We passed this car workshop place and laughed at these car lights. Go home car, you're drunk!



It took us about 20 minutes to reach Downtown.





A much prettier picture of the Batman Building today! Blue skies!



We cut down this street and onto Broadway.



Waaaa I miss this street!









New bar opening soon, owned by Dierks "Drunk on a Plane" Bentley!



Our destination for breakfast was a place called Pucket's, another diner I had read about. It was on Church St, so we cut up past the Ryman



It was on this street that we experienced our first beggar in Nashville. This is probably our only (minor) gripe with Nashville. We encountered quite a lot of beggars. However, once you say no they do just walk away rather than pester you.

Anyway, we soon found where we needed to be!



It was very busy (being a Saturday morning), so we had a wee wait at the bar, but it was no longer than 5 minutes! I ordered a fresh orange juice and Chris got a coffee.



We were shown to a table near the back of the restaurant which afforded a good photo op of the place!



I also spotted a good #usanumberone photo op which of course was sent straight to Helen (& Lisa). I think this was my first and last #usanumberone photo! What a failure!



For food I ordered French toast with bacon and Chris ordered a Breakfast Burrito. It was all very tasty indeed! Total was $25 + tip.







With very happy tummies, we had a walk back towards Broadway. We passed Printers Alley which was an area I had in my "must dos" list!



By the time we got near Broadway is around 10.30am and it was already absolutely HOACHING with hen parties! Apparently Nashville is the number 1 destination for "bachelor" and "bachelorette" parties in the United States. I can see why to be fair! We decided not to get sucked into the atmosphere that early though and instead opted to do the Johnny Cash Museum!



The Patsy Cline Museum was also in this building, in case you wanted to know! I recently watched the movie of her life "Sweet Dreams", but I didn’t feel the need to go to a museum about her. Anyhoo…. we paid to get in which was $19 each.



As I'm sure most of you have; I have watched Walk the Line a few times, so I know a little bit about the Man in Black, but this museum really told us lot more! We learned quite a bit. For instance, I didn’t know that he had to choose the name John because the US Air Force wouldn’t accept initials (he was named J.R. Cash) as his first name.



Here are some photos of the various displays.



The museum was absolutely packed with original items of Johnny's, it was actually sort of amazing!







A letter Johnny wrote to his first wife, Vivian.



Hanging out with Elvis…



I wonder how many guitars he had in his life time?



Snazzy boots!





Johnny & June's wedding day





This section of brick wall was actually from his former home in Hendersonville, Tennessee. He lived there until he passed away in 2003. It was then bought by Barry Gibb (of the Bee Gees). It sadly burned down in 2007. Gibb allowed the museum to excavate this wall from the room where Johnny filmed the "hurt" video. It was brought to the museum stone by stone and put back together again. Pretty cool, huh?

The furniture and personal belongings on display came from that house too.









This would have been a perfect #usanumber1 photo! DOH!



Outfits worn by Johnny & June…



Medal presented to Johnny by President George Bush.



A fair career!



A bit of Elvis memorabilia!



We also learned that Johnny Cash actually had a pretty successful acting career! He has been in LOADS of movies. Something that neither of us were aware of! Speaking of movies, they had a wee tribute to Walk the Line including dresses worn by Reese Witherspoon. As a side, can I just say that I think she’s a way better singer than June Carter?! Sorry June, but it’s a true story!





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[Redrach1903]

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There was a section with headphones where you could choose from literally hundreds of Johnny Cash covers by various artists. I can’t remember what I was listening to when Chris took the following photo, but I was enjoying myself





Oh, yes. It was a Charlie Daniels cover of Folsom Prison Blues! Thank you past me for the photo memory! Haha!



Next was a mock-up of a recording studio with touch screens to edit the sound. It was fun, we played here for a while!







Next to the studio was the Cash family piano!



And then we saw some unreleased photos of Johnny & June!







I thought this was sweet



The final exhibit was the chair that Johnny had sat on during the "Hurt" video. They had the video playing above it and it made me quite sad! Such an emotional song and video! Did you know that this was originally a Nine Inch Nails song? I did not! Mind blown!



Before we left we did the souvenir photo thingy! I'm not normally sucked in by these things, but I quite liked them, so I bought them both I didn’t write down the price, but I'm sure it was around $30 for both including a digital download.





We left the museum at I have no idea o'clock. Sorry. My note taking on this holiday really was not up to scratch! I am going to hazard a guess at 11.30? Anyway we crossed the road and started walking away from Broadway to see what we could find (and keep us from being drawn into a bar ) and we stumbled across the Shelby Pedestrian Bridge, so we decided to have a nice stroll over the Cumberland River! This is the bridge that Deacon & Rayna walk across on the first episode of Nashville and also where…..*SPOILER IF YOU ARE WAAAAAAAAY BEHIND*…..
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... Deacon proposed to her.











The views from here were lovely!



Chris spied a turtle in the river



Another bridge. Not sure what it’s called though, soz!



Posey posey!



Nissan Stadium, home of the Tennessee Titans!



Another city shot. Love it!



Chris’s turn to pose



We had to get a photo of him in front of the stadium too since he was wearing his NFL top!



Are you bored of the these shots yet? Haha! I think I took one after every ten paces!



Getting closer to the stadium. It’s got a really cool design! We decided to continue down and have a closer look. Chris was keen to see if there was a gift shop too!



See that big red structure? You can see it in a recent episode of Nashville. The one where Scarlet has a magazine interview with Mackenzie Rhodes and she crosses a line over a certain “scoop”. Well, the place they were meeting was right here and you can see Scarlet walk past that big red structure after it. We loved spotting things we had seen on the show!



The queue of people you can see above was for a World War II ship that was in Nashville at the time. I had to look up the name and it was the USS LST 325 and it was the last operational LST built during WWII! If the queue hadn’t been so ridiculous we may have had a nosey, but this wasn’t a Disney holiday and there would be no queuing

So, we continued walking along the river side. We spotted this sign and I noticed it was my birthday! Not my actual birth date of course, I’m not that old



We weren’t sure if we were allowed on the grounds of the stadium, but other people seemed to be doing it, so we thought we would too!







Unfortunately there didn’t seem to be an open gift shop, so we left empty handed! Oh well, at least we got to see the city from another angle! Haha!



As we were walking back along the riverside towards the bridge the tornado sirens started wailing! SAY WHAT? We were totally bemused! It was a glorious day! We looked around to see if anyone was panicking. They weren’t. Strange! We chose to ignore it and keep walking. When we passed a couple of guys on a bench Chris stopped and asked them if they knew why the sirens were going off. They told them that the test them every Saturday at noon! Mystery solved!

Heading back to downtown!





We saw this huge train go by and realised I was right this morning when I thought there must be a railway line nearby!





And back where we started!



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[Redrach1903]

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We saw LOADS of these going about with Hen/Stag groups on them! Looked a right laugh!



We found ourselves back on Broadway (oops) and spotted Donald Trump (not really).





We also saw loads of these Pedal Taverns! Lots of Hen/Stag parties were scooting about in them, drinking, peddling and blasting out music. The atmosphere was really electric!



We decided to pop into Tequila Cowboy for a drink! I had a Cowboy Punch cocktail and Chris had a Michelob Ultra. It was another huge bar with multiple levels, but only downstairs was open at that time. There was a guy playing called Stevenson Everett and he was really good, quite a mellow sound.



He played quite a variety of songs including "Your Song" by Elton John which I didn’t expect to hear in Nashville! The bit where he says thanks to someone was cos he asked for a volunteer to pass his tip bucket around and some kid did it for him If that was in the UK, they would have ran out the door with the cash!




Anyway, as I was looking around the room I spotted this creepy white face on the upper level. I legit thought it was Michael Myers from Halloween



Upon zooming in, it soon became clear that it was just a mask on the wall. Phewf. Still creepy AF though!

Chris had one more beer and then we left in search of food! I'd read about a place called Back Alley Diner (B.A.D) and I wanted to find it, so off we went! It was a 5 minute walk, along 4th Avenue, Church Street and literally down a wee back alley!







With so many yummy looking things on the menu and not being hungry enough for a big meal, we opted to order a variety of smaller dishes between us to try! We had:

B.A.D wings with BBQ sauce



Hummus and Pita Chips with assorted veggies



Buffalo Chicken Salad (I wanted NO part of this. Who has salad on holiday? Pfft)



Hush Puppies





Everything was SO good and I instantly fell in love with Hush Puppies. Where have they been all my life?! YUM! My sister said she has a recipe and is going to make me some Chop chop Emma!

We weren’t far from Printers Alley, so we thought we would go and check it out.



The first pub we saw was a British one. No. No thanks.



This looked like a much better idea



I have no words!



When we got into Bourbon Street Blues it was in full swing! There were 2 guys playing who seemed really good! We went to the bar and ordered a vodka & cranberry and a Michelob ultra. It was $9 for our two drinks which was considerably cheaper than down on Broadway where it averaged between $12 and $15 for 2 drinks.

Amusing tip jar….



The bar was pretty busy, but we managed to grab a table facing the stage!





After a while this dude came along and joined in. He was funny! Here they are singing Troubadour by George Strait, complete with some snazzy moves



It was the kind of bar you could lose a day in as the atmosphere was great and the singers were really good, but we did the sensible thing and left after 2 drinks. It was only around 2pm after all!

Back outside we noticed a sign for Public Square. It was Labor Day Weekend and I knew there were free concerts going on there all weekend, so we walked down to check it out! The first thing we saw was heaps of kids splashing about in the water features! I was totally wanting to do the same, but I refrained.



There was a band playing called Bahamas and they sounded really good. I don’t have any video to share though. Chris went live on FB, but I can’t download it from his profile. Soz!



Oh and for the Nashville TV show fans reading, you may recognise the above building from the scene were Deacon tackles Teddy after finding out some vital information in season 1

More splashing fun! It was such a great atmosphere!



A lovely part of the city, so pretty!



We went to one of the drink stands and got a beer for Chris and a bottle of water for me. I was worried I’d get dehydrated after boozing and then sitting out in the sun. Check me, being a grown up. We then had a seat on the grass and watched the band for a while. We also met a couple of puppies called Daniel Boone and Davey Crockett They were SO cute. The folk who had them were actually from some sort of shelter and trying to find people interested in re-homing them. Waaaaaaa I so wanted to smuggle one home! I had to settle for petting them instead!





At one point I really needed the loo and had to use a porta loo. Bleugh! I hate those things! After that we decided to head back towards Downtown with big plans to come the next evening to see Sheryl Crow. Hmmmm.

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[Redrach1903]

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On our way back we passed Coyote Ugly (you know, like in the movie - girls dancing on bars etc) and I asked Chris if he wanted to go in. No prizes for guessing what his answer was





The first thing we saw was a huuuuuuuuuge line of bras hanging over the bar and a sign saying “you may lose your bra”.



We ordered a drink (vodka & cranberry and Michelob Ultra – just for a change) and watched the crazies! The girls on the bar seemed to zone in on the female audience rather than the males which I thought was odd given the reputation. And they didn’t really do the whole dancing thing like they do in the movie, it was more singing along to/talking over whatever song was playing and walking up and down the bar top picking on folk by either getting them to dance on the spot, sing into the mic or pull them up on to the bar. Anyway, it was all a bit strange and definitely far too full on for 3 o’clock in the afternoon!



We finished our drink quickly and left! Haha! We then started walking back to the apartment for a bit of a chill out before going back out tonight. We got back at 4.30 and had very tired legs! We munched on some Lays and then went to bed for an hour. We are fans of the nap. Don’t judge

We were ready to go back out at 7.30 and requested an Uber. We got a guy called Robert. We asked him if he had any suggestions for dinner. He suggested going to the The Gulch which is a trendy area of Nashville. I’d read about it and was fine with having a walk around there, so that's where we were dropped off. After eventually figuring out which direction all the restaurants etc were in, we had a look around and read LOTS of menus, but we just didn’t fancy anywhere. It was all a bit upmarket. We just wanted something simple.

Anyway, here are some photos of The Gulch. The fountain and the big microphone are actually at the top of Music Row, which you’ll see more of later in the trip.







Two Old Hippies is another venue that is featured in the TV show quite a lot





Since we failed at finding anything in The Gulch there was nothing else for it, but to walk back to Downtown! It was about a 20 minute walk and we inherited a couple from Indiana along the way who had just arrived and were a bit lost, so they followed us to Broadway.

This is the Bridgestone Arena, home of the Nashville Predators (ice hockey team).





As you can see from above, their slogan is “SMASHVILLE” which became a bit of a phrase of the holiday Chris would say it (with an American accent and with great enthusiasm) every time we passed the Bridgestone or saw someone in a Preds top haha!

We were both getting a bit hangry by this point and just wanted ANYTHING to eat, so we went into Rippy’s. There was a ten minute wait for a table, but we figured everywhere would be the same. It was Saturday night and Labor Day Weekend, so it really was SO busy on Broadway.



After our IDs were checked and our short wait we were shown to a table. I don’t think I have mentioned this yet, but we got ID’d almost every time we bought a drink in Nashville. They are WAY cautious. We saw actual middle aged grey people being ID’d! Madness! Still, it felt good cos it never happens at home these days!

Rippy’s is another bar that has many different sections and levels. We were seated on the ground level, in the back bar. They had a band playing (obvs) and man they were LOUD! Chris really didn't like it in Rippy's and I wasn't really feeling it either. We planned to come back another night and give it another bash, but we never did.



Through there was the main bar where another band were playing.



We both ordered the chicken strips basket. It was very tasty and just what we needed! Not very exciting, but we soon realised that Nashville is more about grabbing food when you remember rather than posh meals! Well, for us anyway! Haha!



After we had finished our meal and paid up, we left. We then had a walk along to Swingin’ Doors Saloon. Again, it was VERY busy, but we liked it in there! The band were really good and Chris was in awe of one of the guitarists!









The only negative thing about this bar was that there was only one female toilet, so there was a big queue for it and once I got in it wasn’t very nice. Not a good day for toilet facilities haha!

After two drinks there we decided to move on. It was even busier now though with most bars having a queue to get in. We don’t do queuing for bars! We came across a place called The Big Bang Duelling Piano Bar which didn’t have a queue, but it was $6 to get in. We didn’t mind that, so we showed our IDs, paid the $ and went upstairs! We weren’t sure what to expect in here, but we are SO glad we went in because we had the best time in here!



There were 4 guys playing; 2 on piano, 1 on guitar and 1 on drums, but they would chop and change instruments. Such a talented bunch of lads! Obviously the idea was that people would give a tip and request songs and they would literally play ANYTHING. One minute they were doing Eminem and the next they were doing Celine Dion! So crazy good! I videoed a couple of highlights.

Someone paid $100 for them to do Golddigga!



There must have been other Scottish folk in the house as 500 miles was another request!



All the Small Things by Blink 182. Tuuuuuuune!



And of course there had to be a bit of country in there too! Friends in Low Places!



At one point I went to the toilet and got chatting to a heavily pregnant woman. Turns out she was 8 months pregnant with twins! I was like “you are crazy being out in a club!”, but she said she was at a bachelorette party and was the maid of honor so she felt she had to go! That is friendship right there!

Just as we were thinking of calling it a night, I think around 1am, this guy sat down and started chatting to us. Turns out he was the step dad of one of the guys in the band (Justin – the one in the red t-shirt). Soon enough his wife (Justin’s mum) came and joined us. They were from Rhode Island and had the most fabulous accent! They were both so lovely, so we stayed and chatted to them. They even invited us to their Labor Day BBQ/pool party and gave us their address and phone number! We were obviously a bit merry and thought this was a FABULOUS idea and were all like “of course we’ll be there” haha!

Then Justin and one of the other guys came over, so we of course got photos with them. They were so nice!







This one was taken by the Cheryl (the mum) and she text it to me the next day. What a nice lady!



I think it was around 2am when we finally decided we had better get home, so we grabbed a cab on Broadway. And I don’t remember anything else Haha! This was a belter of a day!

Steps today - a huge 24,307!

Thanks for reading! xxx

Day 3 is here

[redemma13]

Good day in party town Nashville!
I will make you hush puppies soon!
Epic food fails tho! Menu browsing and you didn't even have a proper meal?! Not how it's done! Lol!
Em
xxxx

[Pussycat Doll]

Sounds like a great day Rachael, all the better because the sky was blue! Xx

[disneytrio]

Sounds like an absolutely fantastic day, lively blue skies today! The Johnny Cash museum looks amazing!

[Lisa_Lollipop]

What an awesome day! Happy to see that pesky rain has gone and the blue sky is out in force!

That Johnny Cash museum looked brilliant, has got me wanting to watch Walk the Line now... I haven't seen it in years!

Glad you managed to try some Hush Puppies... they look much more appealing that the footwear version!

Right I know where I am going should I ever get a hen... I can totally see me, you and H riding around Nashville on one of the pedal cars!

The dueling piano bar looked so much fun, loved that they covered Blink 182... takes me back to my teenage years! Great photos with the band too (I particularly like the blurry ones... probably an accurate representation of your vision that night you drunken pair!)

Excited for the next installment, loving this report! xxx

[Redrach1903]

Originally Posted by redemma13

Good day in party town Nashville!
I will make you hush puppies soon!
Epic food fails tho! Menu browsing and you didn't even have a proper meal?! Not how it's done! Lol!
Em
xxxx

See more...

Thanks It was a super fun day!

Waiting patiently for my hush puppies!

Hahahaha it’s easy done there! Drink first, food later xxx

Originally Posted by Pussycat Doll

Sounds like a great day Rachael, all the better because the sky was blue! Xx

See more...

Thanks! It was fabby! Xxx

Originally Posted by disneytrio

Sounds like an absolutely fantastic day, lively blue skies today! The Johnny Cash museum looks amazing!

See more...

Thank you The Johnny Cash museum was v good! Xxx

Originally Posted by Lisa_Lollipop

What an awesome day! Happy to see that pesky rain has gone and the blue sky is out in force!

That Johnny Cash museum looked brilliant, has got me wanting to watch Walk the Line now... I haven't seen it in years!

Glad you managed to try some Hush Puppies... they look much more appealing that the footwear version!

Right I know where I am going should I ever get a hen... I can totally see me, you and H riding around Nashville on one of the pedal cars!

The dueling piano bar looked so much fun, loved that they covered Blink 182... takes me back to my teenage years! Great photos with the band too (I particularly like the blurry ones... probably an accurate representation of your vision that night you drunken pair!)

Excited for the next installment, loving this report! xxx

See more...

We were so happy to have lovely weather

Oh I know! Made me want to watch it again too and I watched it only a few months ago!

Hehehehe def better than shoes

The Big Bang was a brilliant night and loved meeting the guys. Felt a bit smug about it haha!

Glad you’re enjoying xxx

[EJSakaAnna]

Breakfast looks yummy! What a great day exploring, I had no idea Nashville was hen/stag central. The Big Bang Piano place looks & sounds amazing xx