The Stars of Nashville

Stompin' Tommy Gee

One never knows who you might see in Nashville or on the stage here at the Ryman Auditorium.

We are glad that we undertook this side trip as Nashville was great.  Broadway, the main drag in the District ran right down to where we were docked.  I won't get into the hour by hour goings on but will give you some of the highlights.

Of course bars and country entertainment are what Nashville is all about.  We especially enjoyed The Second Fiddle and Tootsie's.  Both had the type of country that we liked best.  Honky Tonk, Bluegrass and Country Rock were just not for us.  Live acts started in the afternoon and I am told ran to 3:00 AM, some supposedly til 6.  Some of the streets were blocked off or had reduced traffic just to accommodate the number of people that were walking from bar to bar at night.  Everything was quite reasonable.  No cover charges and beers were only $4.  What surprised me most was that the entertainers were not paid.  These were not amateurs either; most had gigs elsewhere or performed regularly in other cities.  A jar was passed around periodically but no pressure.  In fact, we never had any qualms of throwing in some money because the groups were good, really good.

We also found two exceptional restaurants.  Joe's Crabshack became a favorite; we ate there 3 times.  We may have gone back so often because we craved seafood and here the crab legs were superb.  After trying King Crab, Snow Crab and Dungeness, the latter became our most favorite. The 2 for 1 beers didn't hurt either.  Monells restaurant was very special.  They serve family style so you are seated with others at large tables that seat at least 10 people.  That is only incidental to the quality of the food.  Everything was superb, perhaps the best that I have had on the trip.  Southern fried chicken, pulled pork, sausages and sauerkraut, corn pudding, german potato salad, and green beans were superb and of course it was all you can eat.  We stopped at Monells after spending the morning at the Farmers Market and after having a couple of beers at the Octoberfest tent in Germantown.  It was a good thing too because Monells was not licensed.

No visit to Nashville is complete without a visit to the Grand Ole Opry.  We could not get tickets to the 85th anniversary but we did get there the day before the celebrations.   It is an institution and is quite enjoyable even if you are not a country fan.  The only down side was the commercials.  The Opry is still a live radio show so it comes complete with commercials.  On Friday we saw Crystal Gayle, Whispering Bill Anderson, Joe Diffie, Roy Clark and Mike Snider to name the ones that I knew or remembered.  The new site (since they moved from the Ryman Auditorium) and the hotel are quite impressive.  The adjacent shopping mall however was still closed due to the floods in May.  Linda and I also toured the Ryman Center to complete our history lessons about the Opry.  I am so far behind in updates that you will have to look it up yourselves.

All in all we spent a very enjoyable 4 days in Nashville.