So, in looking back to how I ended the post on our blog from yesterday, I included the picture looking out our window at an alley. Then, this morning I found out the significance of that alley, called Printers Alley.
"Printers Alley takes its name from its early connections with Nashville's printing and publishing industry then located in the immediate area. The alley also became the center of the city's nightlife and serviced the hotels, restaurants and saloons fronting on Fourth Avenue, which was known as the Men's Quarter in the late nineteenth century.
Nightclubs opened here in the 1940's, and the alley became a showcase for the talents of performers such as Boots Randolph, Chet Atkins, Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams, and Dottie West. This historic district's architecture includes elegant late Victorian style, Nashville's first automobile parking garage, and the city's first skyscraper." Apparently it still is a place many like to go to for their "nightlife."
As we began our day we found Elvis along the way.
The Hard Rock Cafe in Nashville is in this old building. (see pictures above and below) Back in the day, it used to be the Silver Dollar Saloon, and was a pretty rowdy place since it was right on the waterfront.
These are the old historic buildings along the waterfront. If these walls could talk....!
And then right across from these old buildings, and across the Cumberland River, is the football stadium for the Tennessee Titans. "Is that a baseball team?" asked Ben. *sigh* I'm not sure he will ever get it when it comes to sports!! But I still love you, honey!
Daren had us get ready quickly and rush down to breakfast so we could get to a trolley ride on time...problem was, his clock was on mountain time, and this is central time. We hurried for nothing, but it gave us a good laugh. The boys were very excited to ride in a trolley, and it was a great one-hour tour to get an overview of the city.
This is looking from one end of the Bicentennial Park up to the state capitol building. It is a really cool park with a lot of the history of the state around it. I'd love to go back someday and read it all.
There are lots of universities around, lots of churches around (they call themselves the belt buckle of the Bible belt!), and lots of medical research. And right in the middle of all this medical research...
...Krispy Kreme!! You gotta love it! (We went back to get some later)
We saw Musician's Row, an area of about four blocks where a lot of country music artists record their music. This RCA Victor Studio is where Elvis recorded many of his songs after RCA bought out Sun Records in Memphis, where Elvis is from.
Two words--Percy Jackson. Have you seen the movie? At one point they come to Nashville to look for a pearl in the Parthenon. Yes, there is a full-scale replica of the Parthenon from Greece right there in Nashville. They built it as part of their Centennial celebrations over 100 years ago, in 1897.
This shows how huge the steps around the building are.
I loved how ornate even the ceiling was.
Inside the building stands the focus of the Parthenon, a 42-foot high re-creation of Athena Parthenos. She is holding a small statue of Victory in her right palm,
and holds a shield in her left hand. It is really an amazing sight, and of course the boys loved it because they loved the movie.
Boys checking out marble statues, replicas of what was left over from the original Parthenon.
These are bronze doors, weighing 7.5 tons each. They are the largest matching set of bronze doors in the world.
After all that history, packed up and headed out to lunch. We wanted some good BBQ, and going on the recommendation of our tour guide, we went to Jack's. I'll have to say that it's no Pat's BBQ that's in Salt Lake (his is my favorite EVER), but Jack's was pretty darn close.
It was a fun place with some great food. It wasn't McD's or Wendy's, but the boys still liked it.
Down the street from Jack's was this guitar honoring the Honkey Tonk Heroes. Our tour guide said the difference between a bar and a honkey tonk is live music.
Daren went to check out the Ryman Auditorium, which was home to the Grand Ol' Opry from 1943 until 1974. They still have country music artists performing there quite frequently. The Oak Ridge Boys and Danny Gokey (from American Idol last year) will be performing this weekend.
We were torn on which way to take to get from Nashville to Branson, Missouri. Our GPS has failed us before, and mapquest.com showed a different way, so we decided to follow mapquest. Looking back, maybe we should have followed the GPS, but too late now. I love this sunset picture. Nothing but us and the truckers on the road!
We stopped somewhere along the way for gas, drinks, and batteries for headphones, and had turned off the voice of the GPS, and didn't realize we had gone the wrong way. We were 18 miles out before we realized it, and there was another road we could take that would eventually meet up with the first road, so we took the second. It would have been great during the day, but the 2-lane road was winding all over with hills up and down, and I started getting car sick. And then there was the storm. I don't know if I've ever been in a storm quite like that. I tried to get a picture, but it doesn't do it justice. The lightning put on a light show for over an hour, and the rain that came down was just as impressive. We finally pulled into our hotel at 1:47am. It's the next morning now, and at 11:21am Daren might still be in bed back in our hotel room. I've been at the pool with the boys for the last 2 hours while they have been getting their wiggles out. I think it's safe to say now, because I don't think Ben will read this before we leave today, but we are going to the Titanic Museum this afternoon. They are going to die!! Through all that has gone on on this trip, Titanic interest has still survived, so they are going to love it. Can't wait to write about it tonight.
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