Nashville

I’m not a particularly big country music fan, but Chan grew up with it playing in the background and everyone likes a bit of Johnny Cash.  Chantelle has also been watching the eponymous TV series of late,  so we spent a few days in Nashville. We rented an apartment over on the east side of town, next to Shelby park.  Because Tennessee isn’t finished making me feel foreign, I went for a run one morning in the park and startled a black vulture from whatever equally odd dead thing it was pecking at. 

There was also a farmers’ market in the park shortly after we arrived, from which I made another abortive attempt at cooking an economic meal.

“Seriously, Gareth, McDonalds only costs a fiver” – The cosmos

Anyway, Nashville is another relatively small city in that it has a population of only about 700,000, although that is predicted to double in the near future as you can now get 2 years of free community/tech college education if you’re local.  As it is, they are throwing up hotels and apartment blocks at a rate of knots.  The hotels that there are are wildly expensive because of near-constant popularity from tourism (foreign and domestic) and a running shortfall of rooms. Hence the construction efforts and why we rented through Airbnb again.

The building on the left with the spiky ears is the AT&T building. They call it the Batman building around here. Wait, what’s that on the right?

 
Someone explain counting to these people

We got on a hop-on, hop-off bus and got given the tour of the town. First thing we visited was the Johnny Cash museum, which is small but well presented.

   

Yeah, I only really found out anything about him after that Joaquin Phoenix film too. I made the mistake of downloading his entire back catalogue from Bittorrent once (don’t give me that look), it’s huge.  I don’t recommend it by the way, not unless you want 50 albums of gospel tracks that all sound the same.  That said, check out his version of Nine Inch Nails’s ‘Hurt’ on YouTube: it’s lumpy throat viewing. Trent Reznor wrote that very personal song about his own struggle with substance abuse and concedes that Cash came along and utterly made it his, both musically and emotionally – which has to be a hard thing to see as an artist.  Still, if your work is going to be co-opted by anyone, you can do worse than Johnny.

Some of these aren’t gospel

As is required, we visited the Country Music Hall of Fame and recognised at least several of the artists featured.  Taylor Swift has built an educational wing there; I know who she is, at least.  Even ignoring the Country and Western musicians featured, it’s a fascinating museum of the evolution of 20th century music and culture, showing all the cross-pollination of slave, hillbilly, blues and rock’n’roll music from either side of the Atlantic.  It also has some rather eclectic exhibits:

Handmade Banjo made from woodchuck hide:  There is no instrument more redneck than this

 
This car looks very necessary

  
The triple-necked guitar is also a bit dubious

A walk down Honky Tonk Row was also obligatory.

  

All the bars are called saloons and they all have live music, as the agents for the major music labels are constantly skulking about, searching for the next big name that I’ve never heard of.  The band will talk to you too, which is a bit unsettling. Normally In the UK I ignore live music while drinking until it goes away.  Over here it interacts with you because you’re drinking in the middle of the afternoon during the week and there are only two other people there.

”Where you folks from? England? Guess you win this bar’s furthest from Nashville award!”.
 
Indeed, now leave me alone to sip my beer and awkwardly regard the tips jar while pondering whether I can take change from it.

Couple of interesting things: Nashville’s main income generator is not music but healthcare, with 300 healthcare companies based there.  So there you go   Another thing is that it has a Parthenon, which was unexpected.

We wandered about the Bicentennial Mall, which features a 1400ft granite wall detailing the history of the state from 1 billion years ago ‘till today, with dramatic breaks and cracks denoting conflicts. Another couple of cool things were the Tennessee Map plaza, where they’ve carved a 200ft wide map of the state-and a plaza with 50 columns containing a 95-bell carillon (representing the 95 counties of the state) which periodically plays music important to the state (like “Crazy” by Patsy Cline).

  

And Chantelle still loves how they all talk.

Kurzfassung auf Deutsch: Wir haben Nashville besucht. Country-Musik ist mir egal, unabhängig das Hall of Fame war recht interessant.

Tennessee Bemusement

After the battlefields and before Nashville, we stopped in Pigeon Forge, TN.
Chan and I struggle to describe this place.  It’s in the shadow of the Smokey Mountains and seems to exist as a tourist town, being predominantly constructed of novelty hotels, themed dinners and other attractions. They have a Titanic museum with half a scaled-down Titanic outside, which was unexpected. The overall feel of the place is a bit Vegas-y without the gambling or maybe a bit like Blackpool minus the burnt chip fat and post-apocalyptic barbarism.  We also drove past a bible-themed dinner show. I cannot vouch for the authenticity of the cuisine.

If you like bread and fish, it could be a winner

Naturally we stayed in a hotel where it’s Christmas every goddamned day of the year.  This could be described as either magical or horrific depending on whether Chantelle or I write this post, respectively.

    
Delightful, I’m sure

There is perpetual glockenspiel Christmas music playing in the foyer and played over the rest of the hotel via the PA system.  It’s like insanity is waiting to claim you around every corner if your vigilance wanes for even a second.
They do have free cookies by the front desk, though.  My soul can be bought.

Don’t look the dolls in the eye

Demented hotels to one side, the big reason we were here was so we could go to Dollywood - Dolly Parton’s own theme park, for the  unaware.  Frankly I had no idea what that would look like and could say in all honesty that I had no preconceptions to confound.  I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did, however.

  

It’s a theme park, with your standard ride and concession setup, only people were really, really nice.  The whole place feels so pleasant.  Chan was smiling like a simpleton the whole time because she liked how the locals talked. 
We did catch the park at the back-end of the season so it was relatively quiet, and many of the attendees were of an age and condition such that they were unlikely to congest the queues for the rollercoasters, so everything could be got on with minimal waiting.  Once we had elected to get wet at the end of the day, they let us ride the log flume until we had to politely ask to get off. The rides were of a decent standard too, with at least a couple of rollercoasters in the Busch Gardens league.

 

Food was very southern, and not bad at all for that:

 
Pictured: Obligatory Chicken-fried steak. Look it up.

It’s the first theme park I’ve seen with a church, too.

This was not a shock to find

There is a shop where you can buy any of Dolly’s outfits in ‘Your size’.  I did not see any of the inevitable horrors birthed by buffet-lines and blind optimism, but the facility is there if you need it, ladies.

Just imagine

They also have an eagle sanctuary (which is apparently very successful and has released several breeding pairs into the wild, which is nice) and a steam train for rides into the hills.  And since I can’t punch Mother Nature directly in the face personally, I’ll have to settle for this trip’s recurring theme of burning solid fuel to get nowhere in particular.

Dioxins, y’all

So yeah, I was largely baffled this whole couple of days. Although, aside from occasionally waking up in a 3am cold sweat with Santa/Satan’s own festive tinnitus haunting my dreams, a good time was had.

Kurzfassung auf Deutsch: Dieser Staat ist seltsam.

Civil war isn’t

I’ve acquired some internet on a port call in Mexico, so here’s an attempt at an update. Update on the update: the Mexican Wi-Fi didn't hold up, so this is being posted with everything else after the cruise.  This makes no difference to you, but just in case you care that I tried.

Having collected das Auto (from our hotel, which we somehow almost missed anyway) we set off for a tour of the American civil war battlefields in and around the area.

We don’t get taught much about the US civil war in the UK, as we can’t fathom internal conflicts that don’t involve cutting the head off a monarch of some description. Bit of context we learned: Nearly as many Americans died in the civil war as in every other US conflict combined (up to and including Vietnam). 

Which, given the relative size and population of the US at the time, is pretty bad.

Pictured: unpleasantness

We stayed at one B&B up near Gettysburg, which wasn’t the final battle of the war (I always thought it was), but rather the breaking of Robert E Lee’s string of victories for the south, so more the beginning of the end.  We visited the battlefields there and drove downstate via Manassas, site of the 1st and 2nd battle of the Bull Run.  I’m vaguely familiar with those conflicts as Bernard Cornwell (of Sharpe fame) wrote a few books following a captain in the Confederate army in those fights (the Starbuck chronicles).  He lost steam when he realised all the books after that one would involve his protagonist losing most of the time, which makes for terrible TV adaptations.

Stonewall Jackson. Shown in his true ‘Adonis’ form

Reb sharpshooters snuck into this house and harried the Union cannon in this exact location.  The house was rebuilt after the very predictable happened.

We then drove down to Virginia and stayed at another B&B in Richmond (the “Historic Fairfield Inn” - we stayed in Confederate General Jeb Stuart’s room, apparently) which was the capital of the Confederacy.  You can tell if your lodgings are legitimately 19th century because the stairs are totally on the piss.   While here we popped over to Williamsburg, which has been maintained as a living museum of revolutionary (read: traitorous) era America.  So they have all the artisans going about the trades of blacksmithing, shoemaking, brickmaking etc. using authentic materials and techniques.  I half expected it to be all renaissance fayre tackiness, but it was actually very insightful.  And there is a bloke there who will make you a musket if you want one, which is good to know.  It was good to be back in the familiar territory of being the bad guys, too.

  

It’ll never catch on

A woman addicted to chocolate and swears profusely when denied it? That narrows it down.

Governor’s mansion: boo hiss.

After all this we drove through the Blue Ridge pass to get to Tennessee.  Not before I was pulled over by the local plod for speeding.  I wasn’t driving any faster than the locals (but still faster than legal – Chantelle) but evidently driving a Mercedes with New York plates attracts the attention of the West Virginia constabulary. You don’t have to go to court if you pay ahead (including a 4% convenience fee), so that’s nice of them.  Sheriff’s Deputy Williams did his part for the county coffers that evening. It was cruise control set to the limit for the duration of this leg.  Pricks.

Kurzfassung auf Deutsch: Ich bin in Mexiko und ein wenig betrunken. Wir sahen einige Schlachtfeldern und verlor mehr als für das Schnellfahren gezogen, weil wir eine überlegene Deutsch Autofahren.