Monday April 6: Nashville

Our plan was to start the day off early. Alas, we're on vacation, and apparently getting up early is a difficult thing for us to do. So, we rolled out of bed close to 10am, had our showers and grabbed some continental breakfast. The hotel clerk thought it odd that we mixed our peaches with our bran flakes, but then he went on to describe how he only eats popcorn with ketchup. Sounds messy, if you ask me.

Once fooded up, we hit the road for Nashville. Our hotel is located about 20 minutes outside the downtown core, and with some skilled navigation from yours truly we arrived on Broadway street, where all the action is (or so we were told). Right off the bat our interest was piqued by a sign advertising "Wild Bill's Cajun Doughnuts" and we just had to go in and try some. The dougnuts were made right in front of us and reminded me a lot of the Dutch doughnuts (ollibollen) my dad used to make every New Years. Very tasty!

Now, for some music! The guy at Wild Bill's had recommended his favorite place, but unfortunately it wasn't open on Mondays, so we headed next door to a venue called Robert's Western World. There was a very friendly guy on stage named John Sheppherd who kept trying to elicit song suggestions from us. Since neither Chris nor me are very familiar with country music, his attempts weren't very successful. We asked the bartender if she had any local brews so she gave us a couple Yazoo Pale Ale's which were very tasty.

After enjoying some old Willy Nelson and Johnny Cash tunes, we headed out to find some more adventure. We happened upon a store advertising the Charlie Daniels museum with no admission charge, so we figured, why not? Again, neither of us were at all familiar with the singer, but it seems he's done some pretty impressive things. Tons of awards, citations from his time in the military, and pictures of him shaking hands with various presidents. The store also sold cowboy hats, which Chris insisted I try on. Pink's not my color, all I'm sayin'.

Wanting to hear some more live country music, we stopped off at the Legends venue. Some guy was on stage (we didn't catch his name) but he was pretty underwhelming and we quickly moved on. We ended up at The Stage which had just opened it's doors and a full country band was just starting a set. We ordered some coffees and sat back to enjoy. Again, we didn't catch the name of the band (if they even had one; the waitress didn't seem to think they did) but they were very good; the entire bar was filled with toe tapping, and sometimes dancing, patrons. The Stage had some odd rules about solicitation. The women there complied, being so subtle that Chris and I didn't even realize if any of them were trying to solicit us.

Unfortunately we were running out of time, so we hopped in the car and headed back to the hotel so I could throw up this post (and keep all of you people who are undoubtedly on the edge of your seats satisfied) and we could get ready for our visit with Cali. I'm so looking forward to it.

More later. Oh, and by the way, I did end up buying a cowboy hat. But it's not pink. =)