Out and About in Nashville

If you are a fan of country music, then Nashville is the place to be.  Unfortunately, we are not big country fans so Nashville was kind of "meh" for us.  We did enjoy walking around and seeing the sites, but I'm glad we didn't plan out more than one afternoon for doing this.  Our tour of Nashville began at the Visitor's Center- right beside the Country Music Hall of Fame.  We walked down "Honky Tonk Row" and found a little pizza place for lunch.

The one country music site that I actually did want to check out was the Ryman Auditorium  (aka The Mother Church of Country Music).  To me this venue is country music.  The Ryman was the original home of The Grand Ole Opry, and is still a much-used concert venue today.  On the day that we were there, they were setting up for a Josh Turner concert that very night.  We took the self-guided tour.  It was such a beautiful building.  I would love to see a concert here.  Anyway, we paid $10 to have the kids' picture made on the stage.  While we were trying to unzip Owen's jacket for the picture, his finger got cut by the zipper and it started to bleed a little.  The lady taking the pictures was so nice.  She went and got a band-aid for Owen.  He was crying a little, so she gave him a "Josh Turner" guitar pick.  I guess she had a few because of the concert that night.  Now Owen has no idea who Josh Turner is, but he was so proud of his guitar pick that he wanted to hang on to it himself and show it off.

It had been raining off and on all day, so after leaving the Ryman, we started to look for an indoor activity to do.  The man at the visitor's center had told us about the Tennessee State Museum- which he said was pretty good and free.  We decided to check it out.  It was pretty good (and free).  They had three floors of exhibits about the history of Tennessee.  My favorite thing was the old tobacco barn.  There was a little plate by the barn explaining how tobacco was strung and cured.  I was way more into this particular exhibit than the kids were.

 After leaving the downtown area, we drove to our hotel which was located in the vicinity of Opryland.  We ate supper at the Aquarium Restaurant.  This restaurant is owned by the same people who do the Rainforest Cafe.  This was the neatest place to eat.  As the name suggests, the restaurant is an aquarium.  There were over 600 fish swimming in a huge tank right next to our table.  The kids spent most of the time up next to the walls of the tank.  They only sat down long enough to gobble up their food, and then they headed right back up to the tank.  Our waitress was very knowledgeable about the different types of fish in the tank.  She even told us that the restaurant employees six marine biologists and a curator to take care of the marine life.  This was definitely a unique dining experience.