Hashing around Nashville

It’s been a few days since my last entry and I’m not entirely sure why that is. I had access to the Internet in Nashville, though I suppose I was distracted with fellow foreign travelers and all the nightlife. Time flies when you’re having fun. So I guess that means I have something to relate.

I got into Nashville about 4:30 Sunday night and I had figured out that there was a pretty cool hostel in the city, so I wanted to stay there. The problem was that, Google Maps gave me the worst directions to find the place. I also was not overly intelligent and didn’t write down the address. Since I was unsure of the name and didn’t have the address I had to book it to the library to get on Internet before the library closed. I got in with about 10 minutes to spare and got on through WIFI. With address of both the place I was looking for and another hostel outside the city, just in case the first one was full, I got ushered out the door of the pretty marble structure by some librarians.

Sweaty and slightly stress out that I would have crash on my car again, I headed over near the neighborhood I had been in previously and looked for the hostel. I found it in no time with the correct address, that’s a real shocker, eh? It’s called the Music City Hostel, on Patterson St in Nashville and I would recommend it to anyone. It was a really good time and if anyone is stopping though Nashville soon, it’s a great cheap place to crash for the night and Ron the owner is a pretty cool guy.

Though one of my complaints was that when I headed over to place called Swett’s I had heard about in one of my guidebooks, he made me overly nervous of heading to that part of town. I had to cross Charlotte St in Midtown Nashville, which I didn’t know before then is a dividing line “or other side of the tracks.” Swett’s is a soul food place and as a result in the Black section of town. Granted I had not known any of this when I selected the restaurant and had I been aware of it, I think I still would have done it. I headed over there on foot, because I’d spent the rest of the day in the car and needed to stretch my legs. It was good walk, I definitely went by some streets that looked a little weathered, but no one gave me any problems on the way over. I grabbed some dinner at the cafeteria, which had some pretty decent fried chicken and completely awesome sweet-potato pie. After I had plowed through my meal, I was far from short of hunger and thus headed back across town, as the hostel was less then a mile away. Like the trip there it was completely uneventful, with little to report about it. It was a good trip and even though it was more expensive then buying dinner, it was worth it for the whole experience and the sweet potato pie, hmmm.

The rest of the evening was spent hanging about with my hostel mates only one of whom was from the US and she didn’t want to talk to me. We started the night with a long walk to a bluegrass jam session that was only ok. It was a place called the Station Inn and is apparently where I lot of old acts originally played back in the day. We had a few beers and learned about people where doing and where they were traveling. A surprising number were taking Greyhound, which sounded so awful to me. It was a good time and then we headed to “the District,” on Broadway to check out a few other bars. We had a few brews there and listened to this cover band that fronted by a guy who thought he was Elvis, minus the wig.

I spent the rest of the next day sleeping in and going to a rather disappointing museum called the Country Music Hall of Fame. I was glad to learn about the trials and tribulations of the founding people of country, but it wasn’t really that thrilling to see some tacky Cadillac that was once owned by “the King”? I suppose I’m doubting the American brand, but the museum was only interesting in the respect I learned a lot about the history of how country got to be what it is today. Though as much as the memorabilia was not that exciting, the old time country sure was and I did enjoy the history, if not the mementos.

That evening we headed out again, but this time we headed to a club off the beaten strip. A place one of the ladies at the hostel had a friend playing at. We listened to about 8 bands play in about 3 hrs. It was a real good time hanging and listening to music that was only sometimes good. After that we hiked over to the Printer’s Alley, a local hot spot where we pretty ruled the place we ended up. There was literally no one in there when we showed up and we chilled listening to this guy play blue and funk covers. I liked it and if I was in Nashville again, I’d go to both those venues again.

The next morning I lounged about not wanting to hit the road, but eventually got my butt out the door. I didn’t really drive far, reflecting that reluctance to leave, and ended up at Mammoth Caves National Park. I spent last night there and took the “Grand Tour” of the place this morning, which is 4 miles underground and kind of 4hr ordeal. We went pretty slow and made a lot of frequent stops that I didn’t really need, but with 80 people things usually go slowly. Despite my complaints I really liked the place, it has the largest cave system in the world with sections of the caves only being recently discovered. It was a really neat place carved out of the limestone rock by the Echo river. It was a great trip and even though it was pretty pricey I really did enjoy it.

From there I hit the road and made some progress toward Chicago finally stopping for the night at a little hamlet outside Indianapolis called Lebanon at a cheap hotel. I have mixed feelings about getting hotel, it seems to break the whole spirit of the trip which is to experience some of the tourist sights, but also to meet people along the way. I suppose I could have looked up another couch surf for this area or looked up some people. I just spaced prior to leaving Nashville. I need to plan more ahead; I hope I can keep at that. I’m going to have time to some scheduling with all the time I have scheduled for Chicago and Minneapolis provided I’m not too much of a burden of as a houseguest.