Day 4 - Nashville, TN

"If you only get to go around one time /

 I'm gonna sit back and try to enjoy the ride" 

Dierks Bently - Free and Easy Down the Road I Go

If I'm going to talk about Nashville, might as well start off with a little country music lyrics.  This will be short tonight.  We just made the long drive through Alabama and have stopped at a motel along Interstate 20 in a town called Meridian, Mississippi.  We have another 4 hours to go until we get to New Orleans.  

Today, was a day of history and tours.  Dad and I got an early start and took a ride over to the Hermitage.  The Hermitage was President Andrew Jackson's plantation and home for 40 years (minus the years in the White House) and was where he died and ultimately was buried.  The mansion on the plantation was neat to see, but really no different than any other old building I've toured in the past.  The garden was probably the nicest part of the tour.  Now the burial grounds for Jackson and his first wife, the gardens were a place of tranquility for his wife whose name was ruined through a particularly nasty presidential campaign.  

The Tomb of Andrew and Rachel Jackson

After the Hermitage, we drove the Element to downtown Nashville for a lesson in country music at the Ryman Auditorium.  This was the original home of the Grand Ole Opry, which is now located at Opryland in suburban Nashville.  After this move, the building became run down but was restored in the 1990s and still hosts musicians from all genres.  After the tour we stopped down to Broadway, a strip of "dive" bars and souvenier shops.  We stopped in an empty one, had a Hap & Harry's Tennessee Lager and listened to some live performances (apparently this is what all the country music hopefuls do in order to get their big break).  

We ended our time in Nashville with a trip to Centennial Park to check out the Parthenon.  One may be asking themselves why this would be in Nashville, at least thats what dad and I were wondering.  Built in 1897, the full-scale replica was the center piece of the Centennial Park as a nod to Nashville's nickname the "Athens of the South."  It's apparently referred to as this because of its prestigious colleges and universities.  Its an impressive structure, housing a 43 foot statue of Athena that is decorated in gold leaflet weighing 8 lbs.  The original statue in Athens had 1500 lbs of gold!  As you can imagine Mr Lehigh Valley Gold Buyer was eyeing up the gold. 

Overall, Nashville was nice, but we were anxious to get to New Orleans so we hit the road again, going down further south.

Stats:
Miles Driven: 1,380
States: PA, MD, WV, VA, TN, NC, AL, MS
Live country performances attended in a dive bar: 1
Live blue grass performances attended in a Chick-fil-a: 1
Value of Nashville's Athena's Gold (as calculated by dad): $150,000