Nashville, Tennessee (Yee-Haw)

 We made it to Nashville on Wednesday around 2pm and went to the Country Music Hall of Fame. It was a lot of fun to see country music through the ages. The old stuff interested me the most. They have stuff from the 20's on up; the history behind the music and all the different influences that the decades and people had on it. And we learned that the term 'hillbilly' didn't always have negative connotations to it. It used to refer to a type of musician and was used with a positive meaning.

This would be Elvis' car (or I should say, one of them). He was ahead of his time.  A TV in the back, an ice maker (really works!), an intercom system to communicate with his driver when the privacy glass is up. Here's the best part: the paint is made of crushed diamonds and fish scales. In case you're wondering, yes, it is shiny. He may have sung about a pink Cadillac, but he drove around in a gold-plated one. And a side note, his wife, Priscilla bought him a grand piano for their first wedding anniversary and commissioned someone in Europe to plate it in 24-carat gold. (yuck).

The Whomper. This guitar/banjo is made out of a bass drum. Really wanted  see how it sounded. But it's behind glass, alas... 

Platinum records

Clearly a snazzy fashion choice. Stacy and Clinton would approve.

One of Reba McIntyre's get-ups. This lady was my dad's all time fave. In fact, the first book I can remember him reading the whole way through was her autobiography. And if you look through old family photos, he can be seen wearing a T-shirt with her face on it for a number of years. I think it's in the rag bucket now...

Marty Robbins! I LOVE his music! My mom and I used to jam (okay, you really don't jam to 50's country. I realize this.) to his music on our mini roadtrips together. We had his CD that was converted from an old 45. And now she listens to him on Pandora. Oh, technology...

Downtown Nashville. In the Honkytonk District?

This is where we ate dinner. A man in stilts greeted us.

He made us hats! Mine is a shark fin and Josh's is a viking hat! The food was pretty awesome. I had a drink called 5 o'clock Somewhere. It came with its own souvenir glass. I also learned that I've been singing the words to Margaritaville all wrong for, well, forever actually. Apparently Jimmy is not looking for a large shaker and salt. He is looking for his lost shaker of salt. I assumed that he wanted to make a large margarita and rim it with salt. This is not the case. And we tried fried green tomatoes for the first time. They're actually pretty darn delicious. Of course, i think that any American can attest to the fact that if you dip something in ooey-gooey batter and drop it in a piping hot vat of oil until it's crispy, just about anything is good.

Just call him Thor! Man on Stilts made Josh a sword on our way out.  Note Stilt Man's legs in the left of the picture!

Nashville was fun. We enjoyed the city and the accents quite a bit. The hills....not so much.  We didn't stay long though. After dinner, we hopped back in the car and drove to Calhoun, Georgia. And yesterday, we woke up and drove another 9 or so hours until we hit Florida. We are now in St. Augustine, FL and loving every minute of this weather. We have two different people to visit in this lovely town. And I have a feeling that we might stay a little longer here than we originally planned. This weather is seriously killer. We went to the beach today to just soak up the sunshine. It's such a mood booster and we needed it after the pace we've been keeping on the drive. By the end of day four, we'd already accumulated over 1500 miles. So a few hours to lay in some sand was good. Now tomorrow, we're heading down the road to visit with Mary, a former customer of my parents' and member of our church. She has pets. I'm excited.