Nashville, Tennessee

Johnny Cash's black suit

One of several wall of gold albums

Elvis' gold piano

December 31 we woke up in Hartsville at 4:30, quickly packed up and headed out for Nashville. I had the legs of our trek mapped out, I drove first. MaryEllen didnt last too long before she fell asleep and left me with a Dr Pepper and trail mix to keep me awake. Once the sun came up I was okay and not as sleepy. We made really good time and were in Nashville by noon.

A friend of ours recommended the Opryland hotel as a cool place to see so we went there first. So basically its just a gigantic hotel with a lot of courtyards. We thought it was going to be something different, like more country music displays and memorabilia so we were disappointed, mainly because we had to pay 20 bucks for parking. We then went to the Country Music Hall of Fame and toured around it for a while. It was fun, I liked all the stories about the history of country music. (before they called it country it was called hill billy music, ha) We saw a lot of memorabilia like Elvis' gold Cadillac, Carl Perkin's blue suede shoes and even a wig worn by Dolly Parton!

liked the museum, I am glad MaryEllen made me go! After the museum we walked around downtown seeing all the bars and clubs and hearing a different local band trying to make it big in Music City. We saw some commotion down by the river and investigated. They were setting up for a block party and concert to celebrate New Years. Ellen and I left and checked into the hotel then went to Barbie Cuties, a local barbecue place, it was good and quick.

After sitting around the hotel for a while we got bored and decided to go back downtown to the block party. It was freezing cold. We got near the stage and enjoyed the music of Rodney Atkins until the guitar dropped at midnight. After a little while of fireworks and more music we sped to the car to avoid freezing. MaryEllen's hands were ice cold and white from no blood circulation.

In the morning we checked out and went back downtown to look around some more. We went to Centennial Park, the only place in the world with a true to scale replica of the Parthenon in Greece. After that we went across the street to Vanderbilt University to walk around and see the campus, it was really nice and big.

My parents were flying into Memphis at 3 so we had to leave town to be there in time to pick them up. On the way out of town we stopped in Franklin and saw the "Nashville" temple.