Naaaaaaaaaaashviiiiiiiiiiiiille!

After the lengthy coach trip from Chicago, with stop-overs at Gary, Indianapolis and Louisville, we rolled into Nashville at approximately 5:30am. Again, you should never judge a city by its Greyhound terminal, for if we did so then I really wouldn’t want to visit Indianapolis! However, Louisville looked quite good and maybe a place to visit sometime in the future. Having planned the overnighter earlier in the trip it seemed like the best option as it would give us extra time in Chicago as it was a later departure time. However, due to the relatively short (10 hours?!) journey time, it got us into Nashville very early in the morning, and over 8 hours before we would be able to check in to our hotel. As the Greyhound terminal was in (and usually always is...) a slightly less affluent area of the town, we could find no good cafes, or ones that would be open that early, so we had to bunk down on the hard metal mesh seats and use our luggage as makeshift pillows to catch a few more hours sleep. 

After a few hours had passed and after we had witnessed all manner of characters within our makeshift bedroom we headed out to grab a cup of coffee at a local truck-stop. A cup of hot brown and a few games of cards later we had seen even more characters pass through the truck-stop: a middle-aged guy trying to buy booze at 10am without a state ID so he had to leave empty-handed, a bunch of traffic police, numerous truckers, and a guy who thought we were doing magic tricks. Our recently-adopted trick of booking a place to crash as near as possible to the Greyhound stop had seemingly gone out of the window as we lugged our gear into town, across a busy bridge, underneath two more busy bridges and finally to our destination near a busy intersection. Thankfully though, our accommodation was bob on. Two double beds, a private bathroom (with bath!), cable TV, a fridge and a micro-wave! There was also a pool outside and an owner that supported Liverpool FC. The room was about 8 “Vanderbilt rooms” in size and was fairly quiet, save for the occasional truck or goods train passing by.

We had planned in a longer stay in Nashville to recharge the batteries after the intensity of the first two weeks, so on Day 1 in Nashville we headed out into the mid-day sun to briefly explore the local surroundings and get some supplies in from whichever over-priced deli store we would come across. And so the day ended with my first “meal” in Nashville being a slightly-undercooked Shrimp Cup Noodle (eaten with a broken plastic spork) and a couple of cans of 5.9% Natural Ice beer. Nice.

A HOT day in Tennessee!

The second day in Tennessee was to be a struggle. The complimentary breakfast, although not as good a spread as the one in Greek Street in Chicago, put us in a good position for a days sight-seeing in Nashville. The wander over the big bridge after brekkie was warm, producing a mild sweat on the way, and the first stop was at the Bicentennial Park. A reasonably-sized mural to country music, a circle of columns with famous country ‘n’ western stars names etched into the marble, stood at the end of the park, with the Capitol Building at the opposite end. Names such as Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton adorned the marble all around, and quite a stunning sight too. And then at 10:00am the columns sprang into action and the previously unseen bells at the top of the columns chimed out a variety of tuneful ditties in homage to the names surrounding them at their base. Elvis’s Love Me Tender was my personal favourite, and the unknown one that came on after that was the signal for us to head to the Capitol Building at the end of the park.

Elvis has left the building...

As the building was closed for renovation we decided to amuse ourselves by staging a bigger, better, faster, stronger version of the video clip we filmed in Chicago outside the Natural History Museum. The premise of the video was me sliding down not one, not two, not three, but four handrails. So off I climbed to the top of the steps, past the man who was sleeping, with his socks laid out next to him, on the bench at the second set of steps. I set off on my descent, and all was going well, until the third handrail on which I overbalanced and fell arse-under-head below the rail, looking like what I can only describe as a canary doing a backwards loop-the-loop on its perch. That kept James amused all day. And will probably do so for the rest of our trip...

The rest of our trip took us into the Military Museum (if anything just to get us out of the sunshine), Broadway with all the good bars and music spots, and Mike’s Ice Cream’s...that do a great Tennessee Fudge Chocolate Dipped Waffle Cone, you can be sure of it! That afternoon the temperature hit an all-time record high – 109^oF or 43^oC. So we made numerous stops at the drinking fountains and stopped off at Fort Nashborough to scrump some apples from the trees as they were plentiful, and then headed back to the comfort of the air-conditioned hotel. The leaflets in the Knights Inn reception offered a hearty meal of BBQ pork at Jacks Bar-B-Q on Broadway so off we went, for a jumbo Tennessee pulled pork sandwich with potato salad on the side. Delicious! And then the night got even better when we headed into B.B. Kings Club round the corner. He wasn’t there himself, but it was a great place to go, with a fantastic atmosphere! James ordered a couple of Miller Lites at the bar and we settled into a relaxed stance at the bar as there were no tables left as it was clearly the “in” place to be in town! The chap drinking next to us at the bar enquired as to where we were from (something that is fast becoming a norm whenever we open our mouths around these American folk) and we struck up a conversation with him. He appeared to be on his own and he soon told us that he was on his way from Wyoming to Austin, Texas to go to Grad School. A few minutes of chatting followed and then the dialogue was abruptly ended mid-conversation when he had decided that he had done enough talking and wanted to get back to his beer. Fair enough. He was probably still a bit shell-shocked from going to Coyote Ugly next door.

In B.B. Kings bar

What happened next was probably the crowning glory of the night. Being the true British gentlemen that we are, we moved over the next seats at the bar so that the three people next to us could sit down too. We were very near the bottom of our $4 beers that we had been slowly supping at to prolong our evening, and then the waitress plonks another two beers down in front of us. We had not ordered these. Certainly not at $4 a pop anyway. Surely they weren’t re-fillable beers? Just what the heck was going on! Then the waitress let us into the secret – they were from the guy who we had moved over seats for. Amazing! Is that all it takes to get a couple of free beers?! We will try and move seats as much as possible if that be the case! These, added to the couple bought us by Chaz in Philly, brought our free beer total to 2-a-piece, and we certainly weren’t gonna argue with that!

After the free beers it was time to find a place with a more......economically-priced bar menu. That place was Big Shotz across the street. After us both showing ID to get in I ordered two $2 draught beers (not pints, put a decent sized beer in a plastic cup) and kept the change. They were already pre-poured, and probably watered-down anyway, so I don’t think that a tip was deserving. This bar was a bit more happening. No country music unfortunately, but there was a band playing American Rock music on stage, with a huge Star-spangled Banner as the backdrop. Proper American music bar. Even down to the drunk guys at the front, who were so crazy that they had turned their baseball caps backwards and were faux-moshing. A few more beers were ordered and another band set up and played a few good hits, including Creedence Clearwater Revival, and we called it a night just before 12, setting off for our still-very-warm-at-that-time-of-night trek back to the hotel. A top night in all, and hopefully more to follow in New Orleans in the next few days!