I spent my last weekend in Kentucky...in Tennessee. Nashville. Lonnie and Kim (from Waterloo) picked me up Saturday morning and we made the 3.5 hour trip to Nashville where we met 4 of their classmates. If you're keeping score, that's Waterloo 6, Pacific 1.
After unwinding for a while in the hotel room, Kim and the girls visited the mall and the Grand Ole Opry (but found that night's show sold-out). Meanwhile, Lonnie and I ("the guys") had lunch at B.B. King's Blues Club. I had a delicious fried shrimp po' boy. After that, Lonnie had a hankerin' to fire a handgun, so we went to a firing range. While Lonnie was on the firing range, I went next door to browse the latest DVD releases at the adult video store. Just kidding. But there really was an adult video store next door.
Then we went back to the hotel to drop off our souvenirs. Me a glass and t-shirt, Lonnie paper targets full of bullet holes. I also left my camera at the hotel which is why I have few pics of my visit to Nashville. After that, it was off to Paradise Park. The food was good and the live music better. Only later would I realize the live music scene everyone was talking about was nothing more than house bands playing the same 20 standard tunes.
We met Kim and with Lonnie's car safely parked at a downtown parking garage, I was set to walk 20 blocks back to the hotel while the other two attended a Nashville Predators hockey game. Only at the last minute, urged in part by a full bladder, did I decide to spring for the scalped hockey tickets. We bought 2 tickets together in the upper level and 1 "better" ticket on the second level. With 3 people, it was easy to rotate turns in the closer seat (there are 3 periods in a hockey game). I say "better" in quotation marks because the seat wasn't much better and cost $40 more than the other seats. My first NHL game ended with a winning goal scored with 20 seconds remaining. Very exciting.
After the game, we set out for the bars. Lonnie insisted on visiting Lonnie's Western Room for obvious reasons. It's a karaoke bar, but turned out to be the best bar of the night. From there, we walked to Jesse Zane's Nashville Nights. It's a dance club with karaoke 5 nights a week and live music on Friday and Saturday. Here is where I began to figure out that bands in Nashville were playing the same few songs over and over. The single band we saw at Jesse Zane's even had the guts to repeat songs it had played earlier. Anything goes as long as people keep dancing and drinking, I guess.
It was at Jesse Zane's where 3 of the girls from Waterloo met us (the 4th stayed at the hotel with a headache). After a few dances, we moved on to a couple more clubs and bars. One we just entered, looked, and left (good thing there's no cover at Nashville's bars). We were lured into one club by a couple young gentlemen while standing in line for another. I have a suspicion that they were really working for that club. Kinda underhanded to pull people out of their neighbor's line. Anyway, no line, small crowd. It was a good rest.
When we finally made our way into the crowded club next door, I kept thinking about how claustrophobic someone could get there and how we'd all die if there were a fire. Anyway, the band mixed a few more modern rock tunes into their set. Very refreshing. Lots of people were dressed in Halloween costumes, not just here, but everywhere that night. When the band was done and the lights went up, it was 2:30am. They seem to serve alcohol until 3:00am in Nashville, which was strange for most of us.
We got a couple suggestions for "after hours" clubs from a local, but after talking with another local, found we were being steered towards strip clubs. So, we got a cab and headed back to the hotel. Lonnie and Kim were amazed that I was still awake at the end of the night. I was sober, and they claimed the only thing keeping them awake was the booze.
Housekeeping woke us up at 9:00am because none of us had bothered to put out the Do Not Disturb sign when we got in at 3:30am. I briefly looked at the clock, mumbled something about missing the continental breakfast, served 6-9am and went back to sleep for a little longer. Still, I was the first to wake up in the morning. I walked around the area for a while before stopping for a bite at a popular fast food restaurant (hint: antenna balls and fake tacos). That franchise had done some heavy advertising at the hockey arena the night before. I got a free t-shirt with their logo. Jack was also presented with a Nashville Predators Jersey and rode the Zamboni.
Anyway...I returned to the hotel, we checked out, we had breakfast, we left Nashville. And here I am in Kentucky for 5 more days. Oh, and on the way out of town, we passed a deli called Noshville, which I thought was funny.
Church St. and Gay St.?!
1 comment:
Sounds awesome Joey McIntire. I'll be hoofin it through Nashville on Monday. I was looking for live music that night. You know, checking out to see who would be playing in town, but all that I could find was a band called Breaking Gourds, or something like that. Might have been Kicking Crooknecks, or Slammin spaghetti squash. No wait, I remember... Smashing Pumpkins. Boy, I wonder about my memory sometimes. I think they are some kind of rock band. At least that's what my grandma told me. She's heavy into the music scene.
Good luck with your last day of clinic. Don't blind anybody with your BIO. I'll be watching for your Pontiac on the highway as I head east, and you head west.
Later.
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