Friday, June 9Th

Friday june 9th

Needless to say we did not get up at the crack of dawn today. As the lineup during the day wasn't that exciting, we decided today would be a "tour around Nashville day! "We hopped in the car and cruised over to the Waffle House for breakfast. This is not going to be the healthiest trip we have ever been on! We had a nice grand slam breakfast and then headed over to the West side of the city to Vanderbilt University to look around at all sorts of unique buildings including the Parthenon. During the Worlds Fair in the late 1890s, an extremely rich man who owned the RailRoad decided to build a giant Parthenon building as part of the Tennessee World Exposition. 40 or 50 years later it had to be fixed up but it still stands today and is a huge museum for people to go in and experience Greek and Roman culture. We had had a lot of this in Europe last summer so we just walked around all the parks and admired the beautiful trees, flowers and foliage while getting some much-needed vitamin D.

We drove around Music Row and saw the numerous recording studios and music industry offices that had everything from writing to performing. Each of them had posters and banners advertising their award winning writers and performers. 

We returned to the East side of the city and went to the Grand Old Opry! The Opry itself isn't very large but the resort next to it is incredibly huge. It made the entire Graceland project look like a drive in motel. Country music is big business and history is very important to them here in Nashville.

Randy and Jeanette dropped us off and went to the outlet mall beside us while Krista and I went for the tour. Going to the back of the building to see where everyone enters and looking through all the dressing rooms with hundreds of photographs and memories of performances over the last five or six decades was quite amazing. We took many pictures and then got to go out on the actual stage itself. It was quite spectacular as it was all lit up on the stage as well as the 4000 seats of the auditorium. We got to stand on the wooden circle centre stage and have our picture taken. It was a very cool thing to do!

There are only three Canadians who are inducted into the Grand Old Opry. Stu Phillips, Hank Snow and surprisingly Terri Clark! We even got to see how the television series Nashville is recorded and produced using this facility and took some pictures with some of the paraphernalia around the building.

Once we finished up there, we walked over to the outlet mall and proceeded to buy a Jean jacket for myself and a pair of boots for Krista as well as some trinkets for the kids and some friends. We grabbed a quick bite of Chinese food and then headed back to the hotel after stopping for some beverages. We had an hour to relax before our shuttle driver Jerry arrived to pick us all up and transport us for supper to an amazing Mexican restaurant north east of downtown called Rose Pepper.

We were a little worried after hearing we would have a 45 minute wait but after ordering a couple beverages and appetizers we were quickly seated 15 minutes later. Several plates of amazing food arrived that we shared and were stuffed when it was time to go. We found another Uber driver to drop us off at the stadium for six dollars and away we went.

It was a lot easier to find where we were going tonight on our second night and got to our seats quickly. On the way up the escalator I recognized Joe Dakin from the Colorado Avalanche and had my picture taken with him! Being a BC boy he wasn't too impressed with my Riders Tshirt but his wife is from Swift Current so she tuned him up and was loving it!

The night kicked off with Trace Adkins rocking out some old tunes from the 80s followed by Rascal Flatts who ripped the roof off the building with all of their summer party music. One guy named Dustin Lynch came out and sang one song and then disappeared and we never saw him again. That was odd.

The next performer with Sam Hunt, a real pretty boy who came out and crooned while all the girls in the audience swooned over him. He has a few very recognizable tunes and was quite enjoyable. Kelsey Ballarini came out and sang all of her happy girl tunes and was very thankful to all the performers and people who helped her along the way get to where she is - she is a local girl from Knoxville Tennessee just east of Nashville. Then things got serious with Eric Church who came out and entertained for a good half an hour. There are some serious country music fans who know every single word to every single song who come to this festival. And then there's us Who occasionally will say to one another "oh yeah I've heard this song before"

Apparently we have a little more work to do to become more serious fans.

The last performer was the ever so talented Blake Shelton, who came out and sang his set, ever so humble, polite and very funny. He remarked how surprised he was that there were so many pretty girls in the audience but wondering how on earth some of these guys ended up with these pretty girls. He closed the night with my favourite song - his first big hit – Austin - it was a perfect ending to the day.

I thought we might be going out on the town for a while but there was a general consensus to call it a night as it was approaching 1 AM. We called our driver Jerry and he hustled on down to pick us up and away we went home in a flash. Another fantastic day of adventures in a beautiful place. I cannot say enough about how clean Nashville is and a wonderful place to visit.