I’ve wanted to go to Nashville ever since my trip to South Dakota changed my life in September, 2016. Really. South Dakota. It was there I found my people (though my friend and travel companion Suzanne would disagree). I fell in love with Deadwood, SD, saloons, and country music. I know. This former punk who used to get hives at the first sign of a twang embraced all things country. So it made sense that music city would be a high priority and trust me, it didn’t disappoint.
We stayed about 8 minutes outside of downtown in an Airbnb type place in East Nashville. The house was great and the company (June, my sister Linda and my friends Dana and Jerry from Georgia) was even better.
Downtown Nashville is a country girl’s nirvana. It’s got all the B’s. Bars, Boots and Barbecue. Start off with one Honky Tonk after the other with live music from morning til night spilling out of each one, sprinkle in a good amount of boot stores and a splash of barbecue joints, and you’ve got the recipe for both retail AND liver damage. There’s drinking. A LOT of drinking. We found that the weekdays were awesome and the weekends a little more than this 57 year old cowgirl could handle. In came the bachelor and bachelorette parties and Broadway became a slightly smaller scale Times Square. It was fun to watch the professional partiers on the “Off the Wagon” street barges and pedaling their way through town on the Pedal Tavern. Of this madness we did not partake.
I saw my 57th birthday in with great music Printers Alley’s Bourbon Street Blues and Boogie Bar and took in a burlesque show next door at Skull’s Rainbow Room. We ate delicious barbecue and Nashville Hot Chicken. I danced with a young man who clearly had a cat in his backpack (don’t ask). We took a line dancing lesson at The Wildhorse Saloon, spent a short amount of time in the ridiculously overcrowded Tootsie’s World Famous Orchid Lounge and took in The Grand Ole Opry at The Ryman Auditorium. We jumped on (but not off) The Old Town Trolley and saw all of what Nashville has to offer, including learning that artists don’t record their hits in tall glass office buildings, but in little houses up and down Music Row! And I bought two awesome pairs of cowboy boots!
Nashville proved to be all I hoped for and more!
Suggested by Me and inspired by beautiful South Dakota!
Completed 11/1/17