Nashville 3

Downtown

Sunday was our day to visit the Ryman Auditorium, the home of Grand Old Opry for many years. We plugged the address into the GPS and Shirley took us downtown by a pretty efficient route. It was starting to rain lightly as we passed by the stadium, just as they were putting up the street barricades for an NFL football game with the New York Jets.

The town was buzzing with people in anticipation of the game. It is an interesting town and it didn't dawn on me at the time what it was that made it so different. I think it is the mix of buildings. The new buildings appear in the background. Old buildings still line the main drag. It's a neat concept.

Nashville's main drag. In the background is the AT&T Building.

The Ryman Auditorium was originally built as a church structure and was later used for many years as the venue for the Grand Old Opry. Eventually the Opry was moved to a new structure and the Ryman was left vacant for about 20 years. Fortunately, someone recognized the historic value of the building and its excellent acoustics and it was completely renovated. It is now used on an almost daily basis. Entertainers currently scheduled for the next three months include Ricky Skaggs, Alabama, Blondie, Lynard Skynyrd, ZZ Top, and Martina McBride. 

This is the photogenic side of the Ryman Auditorium. The main entrance is now on the opposite side.

Interior of the Ryman. 

After the Ryman tour we walked three blocks to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Lunch there was a hot dog and bag of chips at a table with white tablecloth. The Hall of Fame was large (and expanding) and was impressive enough, but after the tour of Ryman Auditorium it was almost anticlimactic.

Country Music Hall of Fame

A couple of unusual instruments in the Country Music Hall of Fame. The Whomper II is a homemade bass from the 1940s. The body is made of a bass drum. The triple-neck instrument features a six string guitar neck, an eight string mandola neck, and a ten string neck.

This visit concludes our sightseeing for our trip. Tomorrow we drive home.

Nashville 2

Antique Stores

Our second day in Nashville was spent antiquing in general. Our first stop was at the Nashville store of the American Pickers. We plugged the address into the GPS and Shirley headed us in the right direction. But as we were driving down next to the highway, it appeared to me that the road ended before we would get to our turn, so I turned early. We wound around a bit, but she finally got us there. The store was located in the old Marathon Automobile Factory.

I really wasn't sure of what to expect so my my overall impression was mixed. The store was tiny (and very crowded). They had some large ticket items which were for sale, and others which were not - mostly motorcycle related (which was understandable). Most of their sales appeared to come from souvenir shirts, hats, and other miscellaneous items.

AntiqueArchaeology, the American Picker's store in Nashville.

The three of us in front of the old Marathon Automobile Factory

Nashville 1

The Flea Market

The weekend that we are in Nashville is also the weekend for the monthly flea market at the state fairgrounds. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. So our (my) first priority is to go to that event on Friday.

It was a so so event - some old stuff, an awful lot of new things. Finally found a few keys, an old catalog, and then happened upon a booth where everything was advertised at $5.00. Looked over a couple of rings of keys and the lady noted that there were more in the other corner. Found one string of keys there, and put the others back. The lady mentions that there's some more individual keys in a display case near her. I glance at the display case and see one key that looks familiar - it's a Russwin key. Generally speaking Russwin keys are nothing spectacular for the automobile key collector. While Russwin was a large lock manufacturer, they were minor players in the automobile lock business. I have a few in my collection already and really didn't need another, especially at $5.00 a pop. But, like the searcher that I am, I ask if I can look at it. I pick it up and turn it over to find the flying goose logo of the Wills St Claire automobile. This is a pretty rare car key and I can't believe that I have just found it. I had been looking for one for the past 10 or 15 years. As I get ready to pay the lady, she says that if that's the only one out the case that I want, I can have it for $2.00. "No, I'll give you the five, because that's what the deal was." So I give her a ten for the one string of keys and the Wills St Claire key, and walk away elated.

This Wills St Claire key is from the collection of Maurice Onraet.  Don't have a pic of mine yet.

Was in a daze for the rest of the day.

New Orleans

I suppose that the New Orleans experience is going to be different depending on your age (and the age).

My first experience with New Orleans was in 1957 while traveling from Norman, Oklahoma to Pensacola, Florida for Photographer's Mate School. I had been traveling on the train with a group of miscellaneous military transferees and had to wait a few hours at the New Orleans train station to catch the "local" to Pensacola.

The first order of the day was breakfast at the train station. A group of us sat down at the counter only to be told that one of us was not welcome there. A female marine, who happened to be black. My introduction to racial discrimination in the south.

After breakfast we still had a few hours to kill so a group of us sailors decided to take a walk about the area. Now somewhere in the previous two or three months I had picked up a pair of cowboy boots and had decided in all my 18 years of worldly experience that I would wear them with my navy uniform. Oh, and with my dixie cup hat perched un-military-like on the back of my head.

It wasn't long before our group was stopped by the Shore Patrol. Shore Patrol? In New Orleans? Well, yeah. We soon discovered that New Orleans was Headquarters of the Eighth Naval District. And as the Shore Patrol chatted with us, I tried to maintain a low profile with my pointy-toed boots by facing away from them.

That was my first visit to New Orleans.

On this trip, almost 60 years later, it was purely as a tourist, and dependent on the AAA Tour Book for all of the high points. One of the first things that I wanted to do was have coffee and beignets at Cafe Du Monde. This notable place was mentioned in two different sections of the book. And Joyce's son, Tony, had mentioned the same place, so this was definitely a must for me.

We finally found the place and it was packed, both inside and outside. We found an empty table and got our order placed.

My coffee was served black and was made with chicory. I loved it, and the beignets were good and loaded with powdered sugar. Joyce brought me back down to earth when she noted that they were not much different than the sopapillas that we had in Albuquerque, but with powdered sugar instead of honey (or fry bread from the fair). After looking at the posted menu again and seeing that besides coffee and other drinks, the only food item was the beignets, she couldn't understand how this place could draw the crowd that was there. Maybe it was like Lindsay Lohan, just famous for being famous. At any rate the coffee was good enough that I went out of my way to buy a can of it.

Souvenir shopping and a drive down Bourbon Street completed our in town experience.

Driving down Bourbon Street

While looking at a map of the area, I had noticed a road that crossed Lake Pontchartrain, so I headed us in that direction for no other reason than to say that we had driven across a 25 mile bridge. Twenty-five miles later we had to find a way back without driving back across the lake (and paying the requisite toll, which we had escaped by driving across northward). We eventually managed to find our way back to the motorhome.

About halfway across the bridge over Lake Pontchartrain