Hitting the Road: Day 29 Nashville

One of the pleasures of working in education (and there are many) are summers! David and I have become very aware as we age, that life is short and “putting things off until we retire” seems like a stupid idea to us! There are no guarantees that you even get there. We have had so many friends denied the privilege. One of the defining moments in my life came from my friend Brendan who, when diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and planning a trip to Europe said to me, when I was lamenting the fact that we couldn’t afford to join a cruise that many of our friends had booked, “Oh you’re so right. You need to wait until you’re like me to afford things like that.” We booked that cruise and haven’t stopped travelling (one of our great passions) ever since! We now tell people that we dabble in a retirement lifestyle while still working! David consulting in the information age has also supported this, but every so often...today was a work day! There haven’t been many on the trip so I don’t even feel resentful as I sit in my (reasonably!) air conditioned trailer and blog, preview pictures and catch up on some house cleaning while David works. Besides it’s stinky hot out there so it’s not so bad not to wander!

At the end of the day we called Downtown Shuttle and requested a pick-up to check out Nashville at night. Downtown Shuttle did get us there and back but they are no GrayLine I’ll tell you. I wouldn’t bother again. We had heard about Dancin’ in the District and we wanted to experience Honky Tonk Row when the sun goes down. Well, we experienced it! I mentioned that even during the day the place was a little seedy. When the sun goes down the seedy factor goes up...way up! Maybe it was the particular night, maybe it’s our age, maybe it’s the lack of sunshine to make all things seem a little brighter, but while it certainly didn’t seem unsafe it was definitely not our scene!

The number of homeless people increased dramatically, many playing or performing (very badly) adding to the overall sadness. Bars here open at 10:00am and it was pretty clear some folks had been patrons since then! The music in the bars just didn’t seem as good as it had during the day which really surprised us! There is never a cover in any of the bars on the Row so we could wander in and out until we heard something we liked. We didn’t stop often. Our stop at Legends was interesting. Pretty sure the entertainers we heard will never be “legends” but we had a great chat with Nadine, the bartender from Calgary! She lives in Nashville now, came here to pursue a career in music. She works in the bar three nights a week because she likes the scene and the money is good! Asking her about the music in bars we learned that there are 12 bars considered part of Honky Tonk Row, six on each side of Broadway. Every bar has live entertainment, several with multiple floors so two or three acts at a time. Everyone books four acts a day – shifts run 10 – 2, 2 – 6, 6 – 10 and 10 – 2! That’s more than 48 chances to be discovered every day, and Legends (not sure about the others) is open 365 days a year!!! We asked what it was like on Christmas Day! She said she was usually in Calgary with her family but claimed it was a busy place with two kinds of clientele. The displaced who don’t have family to celebrate with and a larger group of tourists who come to Nashville to spend the holidays with family who want them out of the house on Christmas day so they can get the dinner on the table in peace! We stayed a while here watching some interesting people wander in, including Elvis, painted ladies, and a few interesting cowboys well past their prime. The music may not have been great but the entertainment was top notch!

Bad idea!! Lets's modify a bike. Put a full bar down the middle. Invite people to hop on a tractor seat (no back) and we will party and serve them shots as they peddle, we'll steer through Braodway traffic at night! Honestly who thinks of these things? Glad we weren't travelling with a large group of people so we weren't more tempted to join in! Pub group? Anyone?