This time we really ARE going to Nashville - Day 4 - Nashville Zoo, East Nashville and Pub Crawl

[Redrach1903]

Monday 4th September

Happy Labor Day y'all.

We were up at 6.30am and I felt surprisingly fresh considering the amount of booze I’d thrown down my neck the night before! We got ready for the day and then FaceTimed Chris's Mum and then my sister and Abi (who was being super cute as ever).

The plan for today was Nashville Zoo! First though, we were going somewhere very familiar and exciting for breakfast! Cracker Barrel! Woo! I had used my ninja planning skills and tracked one down near the zoo We ordered an Uber and by 8.55am we were on our way to pancake heaven Our driver was Edward and I don’t recall him being particularly chatty!



It seemed very busy (not surprising given it was a holiday), so we had a 10 minute wait for a table. We used the time to browse the lovely gift shop. I was quite surprised to see full on Christmas displays! It was the first week of September for goodness sake! Cute stuff though!





I don’t think it even took 10 minutes to be shown to our table. Woo!



Chris was straight in about the golf tee game. It's like Groundhog day with my TRs, isn’t it?



We had a look at the menu and I decided to go rogue and deviate from my normal Momma's Pancake (or French Toast) breakfast! I spotted this special and thought it sounded lovely!



Chris, on the other hand, stuck to what he knows and ordered Eggs in a Basket! To drink, I had a hot tea and Chris had coffee. I seem to remember our breakfasts taking a while to come out, but they were worth the wait, as always.







The total for breakfast was $32.59 plus tip. I also bought my usual tins of Cracker Barrel mints for myself and my sister at the counter! We then requested another uber to take us to the zoo. When I originally looked at the location of this Cracker Barrel I was sure we would be able to walk it, but it turns out it was actually about 3 miles away! Not walkable in the heat!

We arrived at the zoo at 10.07!



We went to buy our tickets and were pleasantly surprised at the price. $16 each! We also opted to buy an attraction ticket bundle so we could do the zip slide later! It was $20 total for that.



We both went to the loo before entering and I was impressed with the tiles!



Upon entering, we felt a bit of an Animal Kingdom vibe! The theming was really good!









Duck.



They have this cool area for kids to play in…



We came across an old farm house. The property was originally owned by William Simpson. The land and home stayed in the family until the Croft sisters, Margaret and Elise, struck a deal with The Cumberland Museum of Nashville. The museum took over tax payments and would receive the property upon the deaths of the two sisters, who had no heirs. The museum took over the property in 1985 with several conditions set forth by Margaret and Elise. The sister’s love of animals prompted them to make sure the property would forever be used for animal education. They also did not want their beloved family home to be torn down so it and the family cemetery remain intact as per their wishes. (yes I copied that from google – my memory isn’t THAT good).



We got to go inside and have a look around.



CREEPY ROOM





Taken from the upper balcony.





We then had a look around the grounds.



Shed where they would have hung their meat back in the day (boke).







The house and grounds was a really cool and unexpected part of our visit!

Right, didn’t we come here to see animals?! Oh look owls! Oh. Owls getting jiggy with it!



Looking embarrassed. Sorry, we didn’t mean to interrupt!



The next thing we came across was a field of cows! If you follow me on Instagram, you will know I have big love for cows I have never seen this breed before, they were so cute! Loved their big fat stripe!





So fluffy and cute





Dem lashes!



While we were looking at the cows we spotted a fuzzy wuzzy caterpillar!



More cattle



Hello Mr Sheep!



There were donkeys in this bit too, but they had their backs to us and nobody wants a photo of a donkey's ass

Before we left the farm area we had a look around the gardens.



And my photography skills were on point. So chuffed with these!





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[Redrach1903]

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We passed the zip line ride and thought we had better get in the queue now before it got much busier! We still had to wait around half an hour though. No Fast Passes here folks! BAH!











It was fun!

Next we saw some white rhinos…





Followed by some super cute giraffes.









Go home giraffe, you're drunk!



We stopped for some Dippin Dots at this point. It was SO VERY HOT today. I had Banana Split and Chris had Mint Choc Chip. Mine were the nicest





Walking to the next part we spotted this horrendous spider web in a tree. Stuff of nightmares or what?!



I believe this is some kind of stork?



Next we went to the Unseen New World exhibition. I'm not a fan of these indoor parts of zoos because a) they are always uncomfortably warm and b) it's where all the horrible creepy crawlies are! Anyway, we headed on in!







And so begins the horrors!



Actually, he was quite cute. I kinda like frogs.



Back to horrors!





I don’t like these frogs so much. Cos they could kill me.



I have NO idea what this is, but he looks funny!



Spotted ray



There were also spiders, scorpions etc, but I took no photos of those beasts and retreated back outside to safety! More Animal Kingdom vibes….





It was now time to see the kangaroos! You had the opportunity to pet one too! Only if they were already on the path though, you weren’t allowed to go to them if they further away. Chris has done this before when he was working in Australia, so wasn’t too worried if we didn’t get to, but I was very much hoping I would get to pet one !





Thankfully this guy was lying lapping up the sun and all the attention! He was so cute and SO soft! I loved it!





We then came across a petting zoo which is very similar to the layout at Rafiki's Planet Watch!



Yay for brushing goats Such fun!







This guy though What a cutie!



Bleezin



Those fringes are just wonderful! Haha! Alpacas crack me up!





A man and his goat <3 I actually love this photo! So sweet!



After we had washed the goat off our hands, we watched these flamingos get into a disagreement! In the end one of them stomped off, it was quite funny! I wonder what they were arguing about? Shrimp?





We then walked through some sort of bamboo garden.



And saw some cheeky red pandas!



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We then saw these adorable clouded leopard cubs! Aren't they the sweetest?!





Ring-tailed lemurs! I always think of King Julian from Madagascar when I see these! Hehe!



Siamang ape! Another fabulous fringe!





Porcupines!



I sincerely hope this tapir was sound asleep and not dead!



And now for what I think was my favourite part of the whole day! We got to pet and then feed tortoises! It was ace! We actually ended up using the rest of attraction ticket bundle to feed them a few times!

Awww smooch!











Here's a wee video I took. The crunching noise is very satisfying, don’t you think?



And that was us done! We loved the zoo, it had a nice feel to it. All the animals looked to have plenty room and are well looked after. It's not too big either, so you can easily get round it in half a day! We requested an Uber to pick us up from the car park. I watched in bemusement at the wee car on the map going all over the place, seems the poor guy had gotten lost! Haha! Anyway, he wasn’t long and he picked us up about 1.30pm. Now, we had discussed going to that Labour Day BBQ we had been invited to the other night, but decided we still had stuff to see, so asked the driver to take us over to East Nashville. Our driver was Eric and he was very nice, was asking all about Scotland and telling us all about his life. In fact, he chatted so much that he was distracted and got lost again! LOL!

That looks to be in the right direction, let's go there!



We finally got to East Nashville at 2.10pm and were hungry, so went to a place called Drifters that was recommended to me by our friend Fiona. It's a BBQ joint.





It was a lot quieter over in East Nashville. They don't have live music on all day like they do on Broadway. They had golf showing on one of the many TVs, so Chris was happy with that! To eat I ordered hush puppies (it said they came with jalapeño pepper pickle, but I presumed they that was on the side) and pulled chicken sliders. Chris went for wings and a BBQ brisket dinner.

When our appetizers came I was most distraught to see the jalapeños were actually IN my hush puppies. I don’t do spicy food very well, but I tried them and they were actually ok. A wee kick, but nothing major! Phewf! Chris said his wings were lovely.





Then our mains came and unfortunately I didn’t enjoy mine. I think I am just not a fan of pulled or smoked meat! Not my bag. The fries were good though! Ha!



Chris really enjoyed his brisket!



The total was $39 which was pretty decent for 2 courses! We then had a walk along past 5 Points which is a popular area in East Nashville apparently! This is where Clayton sings on the street in Nashville Season 5!





We walked round to The 5 Spot which is where Avery played a few times, especially early on in the series!

, on Flickr

Unfortunately it wasn't open until night, so I had to settle for photos of the outside!





Now we had a bit of a walk ahead of us. There was really only one reason I wanted to be in East Nashville and that was to find Deacon's from Nashville's house! It took a good twenty minutes, but we finally reached his street! Le squeal.





There it iiiiiiiiiiis!



Oh it was so strange being there after having seen it on TV so many times!



There didn’t look to be anyone going about, so I chanced my luck with a few photos on the steps and at the door







Bye bye Deacon's house!



Bye bye Deacon's street!



We walked to the end of the street and then requested an Uber back home. We got a nice young guy from Philadelphia who had recently moved to Nashville and was loving it. He wasn’t very complimentary of Philly at all! Anyway, we got home about 4pm and for once we didn’t nap! We just chilled for a bit and then got ready for evening! By 6pm we were waiting for our Uber to head back out again! Our driver had zero chat and also had no air con on, it was stifling! Bah!

Anyway, we were soon back on Broadway and ready to hit dem Honky Tonks Broadway was A LOT quieter than it had been over Labor Day weekend, it was much nicer actually!





We were stopped by a poet as we were crossing to the road who proceeded to make up a lovely poem about me and then ask to be paid for it. Hahahahahahahahahaha. No.

SMASHVILLE!



We decided to head to the roof top bar at Tootsies









We headed inside to watch the band that had just finished setting up. We noticed that the girl playing the fiddle was Siobhan from Day 1 when we were downstairs in Tootsies. She noticed us and gave us a wave!



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[Redrach1903]

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Tootsies y'all!



Take my money



I liked this band, they were good! We decided we were gonna do a bit of a pub crawl tonight, so we only had a few here and left. But not before taking more roof top pics!









Next up was The Stage.

But first we were accosted by The Booze Man. He was pretty hilarious. He was like "I'm not going to lie to you, if you give me money I'm going to buy booze" haha. He asks people to sign his shirt and give him a few dollars. We obliged.





Legend!



Anyway, back to The Stage. Have any of you seen the movie "Country Strong"? This is where they filmed the scene where Leighton Meester's character sings (badly, bless her) while Tim McGraw's looks on from the balcony above. It felt very familiar! I've seen it a few times!





We went up to the balcony to have a look!



See? Told you!



From there we went up to the roof top bar for one more drink!







We were hungry by now, so we had a walk along to Acme, Feed & Seed for some grub. Here's a terrible photo of the place. Soz.



We ordered a selection of snacks to share. Tortillas chips & dips, chicken bites and mac n cheese. I asked for a water and it came in a box! I was amused by that!









Everything was really tasty and we were full up! We decided to have a walk to the pedestrian bridge and get some photos of the city all lit up







It all looked so pretty!









On our way back over the bridge we someone shooting a music video! Right! Back to the pub crawl! Next on the list was Layla’s Bluegrass Inn.





As the name suggests, the music here is Bluegrass.



I think we only had one drink here and then moved onto Legends, which is next door to Tootsies. I’m not sure if it was here or one of the previous bars, but we got a Honky Tonkin’ hand stamp somewhere and this is where it appears in my photos! I guess this is just to show that your ID has been checked since you don’t pay to get in.



The band playing here were very good indeed. I neglected to take a video though. Soz.



Chris spotted some bagpipes up on the wall!



There was an amazing old wifey in this bar having the BEST time. She was dressed as Lady Liberty and dancing with everyone who would have her! Bless! She came over and spoke to me, but I have totally forgotten what she said and I didn’t write it down. She was hilarious though.



The last bar of the night was to be Wildhorse Saloon. This is round the corner near Coyote Ugly’s.





The bar is HUGE. It’s another one that has been featured in the show Nashville.



There was a band called Cumberland Run and they were really great.



I took a video of them doing Chicken Fried You can see folk line dancing to it which I just loved watching!



We had a couple of drinks in there and then decided to call it a night. We grabbed a cab on the street and were home by 11.30! A lot more civilised than the previous few nights!

Thanks for reading along

Steps today – 18,711

Tomorrow we do a bit of day drinking (again) and then do Madame Tussauds followed by the Grand Ole Opry

Day 5 is here

[RachelM]

Brilliant day x

[Seeley]

Loved that you found Deacon's houseLove Nashville!
Great report and pics

[disneytrio]

Excellent day, loving all your photos of the zoo and Deacons house is great!
What a great pub crawl, I'm guessing tomorrow will be a slow start, lol.

[Redrach1903]

Originally Posted by RachelM

Brilliant day x

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Thank you xx

Originally Posted by Seeley

Loved that you found Deacon's houseLove Nashville!
Great report and pics

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Was so cool seeing his house

Thanks for reading xx

Originally Posted by disneytrio

Excellent day, loving all your photos of the zoo and Deacons house is great!
What a great pub crawl, I'm guessing tomorrow will be a slow start, lol.

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Thank you We actually weren’t too boozy for once haha! Xx

[HelenJNT]

A fairly early night but still a LOT of bars! Everything in Nashville seems quite...neon, doesn’t it?

How have I never seen Country Strong? Seems right up my street.

Love the pilgrimage to Deacon’s house. Sad he wasn’t home for you.

Also, what a great zoo! I’d have loved to have petted a kangaroo. Those tortoises definitely did well out of you. A very satisfying chomp!

[Lisa_Lollipop]

Yet another of your TRs where I sit here wondering why we have never been to Cracker Barrel... the food looks so good!

What a great trip to the zoo... you know how much I love a trip to a zoo! Loved the giraffes, sad there were no penguins though! Amazing you got to pet a kangaroo, I have some major jealousy going on over that one! That zip line looked super fun too!

Love that you got to see Deacon's house, so strange to see you right outside having seen it countless times on the show! If only he had been at home to say hello! ;-)

A very respectable time to be home (I think missing out your daily nap is to blame!), I am sure this has to be a one-off and it will be back to your standard drunken late night behaviour in the next instalment!

Thanks as always for sharing, loving this! xxx