Author: geoff

Today’s forecast was for fine and sunny. Not warm specifically, but not raining either.

We live in hope.

We had a Harlem Gospel Experience walking tour booked for this morning, so we had the opportunity of a sleep in.

The tour didn’t start until 9.00am.

They wanted us there by 8.30 – fair enough as people who are late hold up the tour.

To be honest, there are plenty of times I’ve given people who are habitually late a start time earlier than required in the hope they might be on time.

So we consulted Google Maps … if we need to be in Harlem by 8.30am, what time do we need to leave Brooklyn?

So here is a quick geography lesson. Brooklyn and Harlem are about as far apart as any two places can be in New York. We had to catch a b52 bus, then walk, then catch the 2 train.

So to get to Harlem by 8.30am, we needed to leave our AirBnB by about 7.15am.

Which meant a 6.00am alarm 🙁

Just so you know, 6.00am in NYC in December is very dark, and cold.

7.15am is only marginally less dark. And marginally less cold.

But we made it to the bus stop to play bus ninjas this morning in plenty of time. It wasn’t dark but not fully light either.

Dark enough and cold enough that I wished I was still somewhere else – like in bed.

We took the bus for about 9 stops, then switched to the subway so we could be subway ninjas too.

I’m standing like that because I’m cold, BTW, despite the 3 or 4 layers that I’m wearing.

We got onto the 2 train and there was a man stretched out, fast asleep on the opposite seat, and snoring like a runaway freight train.

There are a lot of homeless people in NYC, and it must be terrible to be homeless in this cold weather. The trains are warm, and once you are inside the train network, you could easily stay on a train all day or night.

While this man didn’t appear to be homeless – his clothes looked too clean and new – he certainly smelled and slept like he might have been.

Maybe he’d had a big Saturday night out and his friends were good enough to put him on the train home …?

We got to the location where our Harlem tour was due to start, and we were there with 25 or so minutes to spare.

The tour lady asked whether we wanted to use a rest room or get coffee before the tour started.

Now she either cannot understand english, or doesn’t appreciate Australian humour. The conversation went like this:

Tour lady: “Do you want to get a coffee before the tour starts?”

Me: “Is the pope Catholic?”

Tour lady: <smile> “Huh?”

Me: “Yes, coffee would be good …”

I’ve actually found something very similar happening every time we go into a shop.

Shopkeeper (after payment has been made): “Would you like a copy of the receipt?”

Me: “If you don’t mind.”

Shopkeeper: “Would you like a copy of the receipt?”

Me: “Yes please.”

Anyhow, we got coffee and used the restrooms as it was a 2 hour tour followed by a 2 hour gospel Harlem church service.

And all of the usual conditions were still in play to meet the requirement for a rest room stop: cold weather, coffee at breakfast, faulty plumbing.

You should actually expect that every time we have a stop to see something, it is accompanied by a rest room stop.

The lady who actually took our tour had a name that she said nobody would remember, and as expected, I’d forgotten it before I’d even finished the coffee. She did say, though, that we could call her “D” – that much I did remember.

So D gave us a really interesting overview of gospel music and how it evolved from slavery. She said that gospel music has 6 fundamental aspects. The ones that I remember are:

• Intonation (singing high and low to indicate happiness and sadness)
• Repetition
• Response
• Dance
• Percussion (clapping, stamping feet)
• and another one that I don’t recall.

She then gave us a bit of a history lesson about different styles of gospel music and how they evolved, such as negro spiritual music, through to jazz, soul, rhythm and blues, etc.

She then took us around the streets and showed us some black gospel churches and other architecture around Harlem.

Just for clarity, it is the congregations that are black, not the church buildings themselves.

D said that much of Harlem was originally an expensive white area, with many of the buildings designed by the same man who designed Grand Central Station, and the Empire State Building.

But after an economic depression in 1873, the rich whites lost all of their wealth and the buildings fell vacant, eventually being sold or used by the blacks – leading to the Harlem that we know and associate today as a black or coloured area.

She went on to say that gentrification is now occurring where wealthy whites are wanting to buy back into the area, and some of these homes are selling for $20M+.

She also took us past some large gospel churches. One in particular – the Abyssinian Baptist Church which has 3,000 to 4,000 people on their membership roll, and regularly get 1,000 turn up for Sunday services.

So here is a puzzle: If they get 1,000 people turn up and you assume that there is an average of 3 people in each car, there are 300+ cars – so where do they all park?

Answer: They double park. In the top photo, the cars with their brake lights on are trying to get through the street, often to drop people off at church.

The cars are parked so close together that you actually cannot walk between them.

D went on to say that the church also gets involved in politics by telling black kids their rights in the event that they are questioned by police.

After the walking tour, we were able to sit in on the Salem United Methodist Church gospel service at 11.00am.

Without trying to be disrespectful, it was very much like you would picture the service to be – music (electronic organ in particular) playing underneath everything that happened, lots of clapping, lots of dancing, lots of spontaneous calling out, lots of colour.

The service went for 2 hours, although I suspect that it was a special Christmas service.

After the service which finished at 1.00pm, MBW and I headed back downtown towards Times Square because we wanted to see a Christmas presentation that we’d heard about.

But we needed to eat.

We agreed that we would eat at the first place we saw – it didn’t matter if it was pizza, McDonalds, Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, whatever.

We were cold and hungry and needed fuel.

So the first place that we saw was a salad bar … and we agreed that salad wasn’t “food” in the context of being cold, hungry and needing comfort food, so we continued our search.

The next place we found was a pizza place, so we stopped there as we had agreed. It was the first place that we found that met our criteria.

MBW had chicken and BBQ, while I had chicken and mushrooms.

We only had one slice each – that was enough.

While we waited for the Christmas presentation to commence at C3.NYC, we had a bit of a browse around.

This building looked like a giant jenga game.

Notice the blue sky and fluffy white clouds? Don’t be deceived – it was still only about 7°C and a very cold wind blowing.

We finally got to the Christmas presentation which commenced about 3.20pm and it was very good, but very, very loud … or I’m getting old and cranky – not sure which.

It was a good day. We only really did a couple of key things today but they were good and we saw some interesting stuff.

Only walked about 11,000 steps today so I feel like I’m slacking off.

Today’s weather felt like it was very cold, with a top of about 8°C. Tomorrow has a forecast top of 3°C with a chance of snow, while Thursday – the day that we fly out of NYC and back to Australia – has a forecast top of -3°C.

Today I think I had on 3 or 4 layers, so tomorrow I’ll probably be wearing everything I have.

We grabbed some dinner on our way home and are ready for another big day in NYC tomorrow – Monday for us.

Tomorrow we see the Rockettes. Woohoo.

Can’t wait to tell you all about it.

Today’s song, and the title of today’s post celebrates the fact that the rain has gone and it was a bright, clear, sunny New York day: I can see clearly now (Jimmy Cliff).

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA2019

Our first full day in NYC.

It wasn’t as cold today – it started out at about 10°C and got all the way up to about 13°C before the mercury started its descent once again.

Unfortunately it rained again, which makes it seem colder, and definitely makes it just a little bit more complicated.

Last year when we were staying at an AirBnB in Brooklyn NYC, the guy who owned the space put some basics into the refrigerator to get us started – juice, milk, bagels, butter.

No such luck this time – the refrigerator was empty 🙁

So we started the day today looking for some staples – milk, bagels, jam, cereal. We went to the local Family Dollar (like a 7-Eleven) and got milk, jam and raisin bran … but no bagels.

We stopped at the local Clementine Bakery and no bagels there either.

We finally found some at a little deli (that we actually thought was called Brooklyn Brewery) … so we were all set for breakfast.

Breakfast done, dishes done, MBW had made herself beautiful, and a selection of jumpers, gloves, scarves and jackets stuffed into the backpack, we set off on our adventure.

The architecture in Brooklyn is quite different from Australia. Very few people have a stand-alone house – everyone lives in an apartment.

We hopped onto the subway at our local station – Classon Street – and played subway ninjas again.

Our line is an “around Brooklyn” line, so if you want to go anywhere else – Manhattan for example – you need to change trains somewhere.

We did the old swaparoo at Court Square subway station – which ironically was above ground – and took the 7 train all the way to Grand Central Terminal.

And it impressed us as much as it did last time we were in NYC!

Now there are a couple of funny stories here.

Firstly, when we were on the 7 train heading into Grand Central Station, there was a young guy dressed in a Santa suit.

When we got into GSC, there were a number of people dressed in Santa suits. It turns out that Santacon was in town today.

Nope, I don’t get it either.

But if you look closely at the top picture of GSC above, you will see a number of people dressed in red – the Santas.

The second funny story relates to MBW and her iPhone which has decided that she can no longer access the App Store. It happens that there is an Apple store INSIDE Grand Central Station so we went for technical support there.

Clearly the problem has something to do with an Australian iPhone, a USA SIM card …

The Apple guy tried lots and lots of things – all unsuccessful – and just before handing it back defeated, he suggested turning the phone off and on again.

Which he did.

Which reminds me of a Dilbert cartoon by Scott Adams …

Enough said, but the problem is now solved.

The guy who helped us said that he isn’t smart enough to be an Apple “Genius”, but he will always be a genius to MBW.

We spent the rest of the day wandering the city and enjoying the sites.

We bumped into a lady from the UK yesterday who was in NYC on a work trip, and was asking whether she should do the Empire State Building or the Rockefeller Building. We said go the Rock!

In reality, anywhere she went was going to have the same problem, but the Top of the Rock was shrouded in cloud for most of the day, so the viewing would have been disappointing.

We got to the Rockefeller Building and found the famous tree …

… which we understand has about 5 miles (8 km) of lights on it, and we found the skating rink.

There must have been thousands of people watching the 10 or so people ice skating on the rink, and then this kid did a face plant.

I mean, if you are going to do a face plant while ice skating, you might as well do it in front of several thousand people!

We did the subway ninja thing again and got to Times Square, which can keep you interested for hours.

There was a whole lot of Santa going on in Times Square today too.

After that we headed up to Columbus Circle to get ready for another walking tour planned for today – markets and Christmas lights.

Columbus Circle is at the South West corner of Central Park.

We saw lots of excellent light displays. It gets dark at 4.30pm here, so we get to see the lights nice and early.

Our favourite was probably Saks 5th Avenue. All set to music.

Honestly, it felt like the whole world was out looking at lights tonight.

And the NYPD were out in force keeping the people and the traffic moving.

We also saw some cars all lit up …

… and a truck …

We finished the tour at Bryant Park, where there is another ice skating ring for the great unwashed (ie those who can’ afford to skate at the Rockefeller Building).

And then back to Brooklyn for dinner.

A great day in NYC!

Almost 22,000 steps so the feet an legs are feeling a little weary. But a good weary 🙂

Tomorrow we have a another walking tour called a “Harlem Gospel Experience”. Should be fun!

NYC at Christmas is a magical place to be.

Here is Michael Bublé singing It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (Michael Bublé).

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA2019

It was a sad day today. We loaded up The Don II for the last time and headed off to DFW (Dallas Fort Worth) airport.

We dropped The Don II off at the Dollar rental car returns area, and he was whisked off to disappear into an ocean of other vehicles that were being brought back.

Last night we stayed at Megan and Byron’s place, and boy was that a disappointment.

Their AirBnB is advertised as a ”bed and bath”, and that pretty much sums it up. No refrigerator, no microwave, no tea and coffee making facilities, no chairs to sit on, not even a cup to drink out of … you want a drink of water? Drink it straight from the tap in the bathroom.

Let’s just say that the feedback we left them offered some areas for improvement.

And the other really weird thing was that they were in the house when we messaged them to say we had arrived, yet we never saw them from the moment we arrived to the moment we left.

Really weird.

Anyhow, we got to DFW airport, checked our bags, and had coffee and donuts for breakfast at gate E12, waiting for our flight to LGA (LaGuardia Airport, NYC).

Now I know what you are thinking … coffee and donuts for breakfast?

Well, we had some left-over donuts from a previous visit to Walmart, and we didn’t want to see them go to waste.

And besides that, when in Rome …

The flight from DFW to LGA was about 3 hours. I got a Coke Zero and a couple of packets of salted almonds (AKA “lunch”), and then we landed uneventfully at LGA in NYC at about 2.05pm.

That crazy, elusive hour … we’ve lost it going from Alabama to Georgia, found it again heading from Knoxville to Nashville, and now we’ve lost it again flying to NYC 🙁

And here we are in NYC! Cold and wet. Rain. We have barely seen that wet stuff falling out of the sky in the last 3 weeks.

We caught an Uber from the airport – approximately 15km that took us 1 hour and 7 minutes to complete. NYC traffic on a wet Friday afternoon is insanity!

We are now staying at Frances’ AirBnB in Brooklyn NYC for the next 6 nights.

We had a walking Christmas lights tour booked for tonight and they were planning to run it regardless of the weather … so we put on our thermals and headed straight back out.

We got our 7 day unlimited metro cards, so we are subway ninjas once again.

We grabbed a bite of dinner from Chick-Fil-A – like a chicken burger that was quite tasty but did nothing to offset the poor dietary choices from the start of the day.

The tour was nice, but it was hard to be enthusiastic when it rained constantly, and we got wetter and wetter as the night wore on.

The Christmas lights were very pretty though. If I understood our guide correctly, the owners of the $1M homes that were decorated actually pay for someone to come in and make their house better than everyone else’s in the street.

That can cost some thousands of dollars.

We caught the subway back home and that about wraps up the day!

Tomorrow we need to orient ourselves in the daylight, buy some groceries so that we don’t continue to eat donuts for every meal, and get out amongst it.

For those of you who are wondering, the entire driving around the South was exactly 3,650 miles or 5,875 km.

I’ve already told MBW that next time we need to also go through Kentucky, Oklahoma, Kansas, Virginia, Florida ….

I think I’m going to have to retire.

I miss The Don II 🙁

After 3,650 miles, today we spent most of the day sitting at the airport, on a plane, or in an Uber … and yet I still managed to clock up 17,580 steps.

So here we are in NYC, and loving it!

Today’s song is a bit of a Billy Joel classic, and one of my favourites … New York State of Mind (Billy Joel).

Strap yourself in and enjoy.

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA2019

Stretchy jeans. The person who invented stretchy jeans should receive a Nobel prize for fashion.

I’ll explain that in more detail later.

Have you ever heard of someone who has received an injury or a knock to the head, and when they next woke up they were speaking with a foreign accent?

I have had that exact experience. Well, not me personally, but someone close to me.

No, not MBW either.

Jolene. Yep, it’s like she has a new personality, and no speech impediment any longer.

Last night we stayed at Shannon’s place in Hot Springs Village AR. Hot Springs Village (or HSV for short) is a 26,000 acre private gated community, essentially for retirees.

Shannon has this amazing home in a quiet cul-de-sac. In fact, his house is the only one in the cul-de-sac and he has purchased neighbouring allotments to ensure complete privacy.

You could – quite seriously – go for a walk from his house and get lost in the woods, and not see another person.

While I appreciate that you would have no specific reason to disbelieve me, here is a Google Maps screenshot with the red placemarker showing the location of his house.

Shannon lives in an “apartment” up those stairs, and we essentially had the remainder of the house to ourselves.

Shannon was extremely easy-going, and nothing was too much trouble.

“Help yourself to anything in the fridge. There’s coffee and breakfast, and movies, and beer, and …”

All in all, a very successful AirBnB experience. A bit off the beaten track, but well worth the drive to get there.

There was one drawback though. It was very cold.

We got up this morning to -2°C again. The Don II was covered in ice 🙁

Lucky The Don II has seat warmers.

We headed off from Shannon’s around 8.30am because we had a long drive.

We told Jolene where we wanted to go to (Dallas TX) and in a broad American voice she gave us driving instructions.

She has never spoken like an American before! And better still, she can now say “Walmart Supercentre” and “Nashville” and make them sound right.

I do find it a little annoying when she says “turn onto Constitution Aven-oo”, but that’s the way that they say it here.

Apparently MBW set Jolene to talk like an American last night to see how long it would take me to notice …

As usual, the combination of cold weather, coffee, and faulty plumbing meant that we were looking for restrooms by 10.30 … and we found them in a place called Hope, Arkansas, at their local Walmart.

Specifically it was a Walmart Supercentre, and I’m going to miss Walmart when we come home. It has just everything you need, and stuff that you don’t.

You can get some really cool stuff there: Christmas clothes …

… hats to keep your ears warm …

… Santa and elf PJs …

… and of course, donuts. 58 cents for a glazed donut, and because we used their restrooms, we thought that it was only proper that we bought some donuts.

So we had donuts and coffee for morning tea. In Hope AR.

Hope AR is the place that little Bill Clinton was born, and his house is now an historic site.

We didn’t feel strongly enough to go and have a look at it, so we just had coffee and donuts, then headed off again on our way back to Dallas/Fort Worth to complete the road trip.

Now I’ve previously spoken about the big caravans that you see getting hauled all around the United States. We saw this one (below) as it went past us at about 85mph.

Not the biggest one that we have seen, but when you look at the back of it, it is almost as high as a semi-trailer.

Then we saw a bigger one – a triple axle affair.

Almost as long as a semi-trailer!

At Texarkana we crossed over into Texas.

There were a couple of clues that we had crossed into Texas – speed limits were suddenly raised to 75mph, and everyone started driving like they were possessed.

I had my cruise control set to 82mph (133km/h) and people were still flying past me.

Somewhere around the Texas state line, MBW said 7 little words that I never thought I would hear her utter.

“I’m tired of listening to Christmas music”.

A cold chill went through my body. That’s like Mrs Claus saying she no longer believes in Christmas.

Although, to be fair, we had listened to all styles and types of Christmas music for several days – country, Michael Bublé, oldies, newies, you name it.

The other thing that happened somewhere just after the Texas state line was that something started squawking and I was concerned that The Don II was about to have a breakdown.

But we both got this unusual message on our phones:

Apparently he had shot a Houston police officer and was on the run. There’s a reason not to pick up hitchhikers!

We had stopped in Hope AR for morning smoko, so where do you think we stopped for lunch?

What is the opposite of Hope? Despair? Close enough. We stopped at Sulphur Springs TX for lunch.

It sounds like a pretty depressing place, and it lived up to its name. We had donuts again to try and cheer the place up a bit. And fried chicken. Plus salad.

I could swear that The Don II is actually smiling in the first photo – he knows that he is back home in Texas 🙂

From there we had a pretty clear run through to tonight’s AirBnB in Dallas/Fort Worth. This one is a bit disappointing as they have obviously lost interest in hosting guests. Lucky we are only here for the one night.

We dropped off all of our stuff, went out to the local outlet stores to look for stuff that I’m not convinced we need and then came back home to repackage all of our bags ready for our flight to NYC tomorrow morning.

So that’s about it. The road trip is (almost) over – we just need to take The Don II back to the airport and give him back – and then the NYC bit of the holiday begins.

I mentioned stretchy jeans earlier.

You’ve possibly noticed that there has been an unhealthy bias in our diet towards fried chicken, BBQ, donuts, beignets …

The magic of stretchy jeans is that they fit you no matter what you’ve eaten or how much weight you put on … so you can continue to feel good about yourself 🙂

And that of course is the link to today’s song. “Oh baby you (donuts, BBQ, fried chicken…) got me in the shape I’m in …”

Today’s drive was a long one – but that was expected: 330mi or 530km.

Here is today’s song: Shape I’m In (Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons).

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA2019

I felt like the Michelin man when we went out this morning. Somewhere between the Michelin man and a Sara Lee pastry.

There was just layer after layer after layer. All necessary layers though because we started the day at 2°C, and it only ever hit a top of 3°C.

There were thermals, then jeans, a long-sleeved tee-shirt, a flannelette shirt and a jumper, then a jacket, scarf and beanie.

And I was still cold.

I have to say that it made going to the bathroom very complicated, making sure that everything got tucked in back in the correct order.

But it was all worth it because it snowed. Not exactly a blizzard … in fact there was not even enough snow to see it in a photograph, but it was undeniably snowing.

And you can believe me when I tell you that the seat warmers got a good workout today.

We started the day with a trip out to Collierville. MBW had done some research and identified that Collierville has been voted the prettiest main street in Tennessee. And it was a very pretty little town square.

I tried my hand at being Santa …

… but I don’t really have the whiskers for it.

Collierville is about 40km or a little over half an hour south east of Memphis.

Honestly, I felt like I was on the set of Heartland, popping in and out of these little shops in this tiny township.

But it was very pretty. We stopped and had a nice chat with the guy who ran the cowboy boots and jeans shop, and bought a few things from some gift shops. We had a nice coffee at the local coffee shop before heading back into Memphis.

From Collierville TN we next headed towards Graceland – the home of Elvis Presley.

Now before you get too excited, we didn’t go in. It was more of a “drive by” kind of thing.

Neither MBW or myself are huge Elvis fans, and I have a particularly low tolerance to things that are an obvious tourist trap where you pay extortionate fees for everything from parking, to seeing very limited parts of the house and everything else is (ka-ching) extra co$t.

And from all reports, it is not even a particularly well-rated tourist attraction, and located in a particularly grubby part of town.

So we spiced the whole thing up by parking illegally, taking a couple of shots of Graceland on maximum iPhone camera zoom, and racing off again.

But we still put enough planning and effort into the operation to claim “Graceland” as our song for tonight because we did go to Graceland, we just didn’t go IN to Graceland ..

“… I’m going to Graceland, Graceland 
Memphis, Tennessee 
I’m going to Graceland …”

And besides all of that, Elvis isn’t really dead anyway … he’s just pumping gas somewhere on the I-40.

Next stop was Bass Pro, which is like a combination of BCF and Kathmandu on steroids. Seriously.

They sell everything from clothing to fishing gear, guns, boats, quad bikes, 4WD buggy’s … everything!

And like everything else in America, everything is HUGE!

It doesn’t look so big there … is that what you are thinking?

I checked out the gift shop …

After all of that excitement, we decided to walk to Arkansas. Yes folks, you heard me … we walked to Arkansas.

We walked halfway across the Harahan foot bridge that crosses the mighty Mississippi River from Tennessee to Arkansas.

Now in the interests of full disclosure, we didn’t set foot on the Arkansas side of the river.

It was absolutely freezing out there on the bridge, with a very cold wind blowing off the river, making the reported 2°C feel something more like -10°C.

I was pretty sure that I was getting frostbite on my fingers and toes, so we made it to the Arkansas side of the state line marker and scurried back to The Don II to crank up the seat warmers and go find some lunch.

We had been told that Central BBQ is the place to eat in Memphis, and so we went and had a vegetarian’s worst nightmare – half a rack of ribs, smoked turkey breast, smoked brisket, plus sides.

Please believe me when I tell you that it is worth the trip to Memphis TN, even if it is just to eat at Central BBQ 🙂

Last stop of the day was a 3.30pm guided tour through Sun Studio: The birthplace of rock and roll.

The story is that Sam Phillips was a very popular DJ in Memphis and recognised that there were many talented musicians in and around Memphis that had no way of cutting their own record.

He set up the Memphis Recording Studio in January 1950 and allowed anyone to cut a record for a flat fee of $4.00 (about $58 today).

He had many musicians come in and cut their own record, and then one day an 18 year old Elvis Presley came in and recorded his first song.

The Memphis Recording Studio was unable to sign Elvis to a record contract, so Sun Records was established.

Other greats to record at the Memphis Recording Studio include BB King, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash.

Graham (our guide) also talked about how various sound effects were created – such as the sound of the train tracks in Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues“ – using a guitar with the strings all loosened.

The facility was sold in 1959 when Sam Phillips opened a new studio, and the building was used at various times as a barber shop, laundromat and a scuba/surf shop … yet none of the subsequent owners ever changed anything in the building.

When it was reopened in 1987 as a recording studio and tourist attraction, it was still functionally a recording studio, attracting artists like U2, Def Leppard, and Ringo Starr.

We ended the day with a spectacular sunset before heading back to our AirBnB to pack. Tomorrow we head off to Hot Springs Arkansas.

It’s been another amazing day in Memphis. Tomorrow we are off to Hot Springs Arkansas, then back to Dallas and off to NYC for almost a week.

In the meantime, here is a link to Graceland (Paul Simon).

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA2019

In a way I’m kind of glad that we have now left Nashville.

I’ve mentioned previously about Jolene’s speech impediment … and she has a real problem saying Nashville.

It comes out as Nasher-ville. Every time we go out, or head home, it’s the same thing. “For the next 23km take the I-40 to Nasher-ville”.

Argh!

We stayed for three nights at Melvin’s place, about 25km out of Nashville downtown. It was a really nicely appointed, self-contained apartment in a nice quiet area of town.

Actually, I wish we could have stayed a few more days in Nashville because it was a really exciting and vibrant place to be.

If you love music – and especially live music – and especially live country music, it is the place to be.

The funny thing is that there is music just everywhere – every bar, every street corner. And they are all good. And they are all competing with each other.

We were in one bar and the band asked for customer requests. In response to the highest bidder they burst into a very good rendition of “Feel like a Woman”.

We went into another bar and the band started playing “Sweet Home Alabama”. Again, very good. Good enough to be on stage.

I don’t have a problem with country music, except that you can only write so many songs about your girl leaving you, or your dog dying …

In preparation for going to Nashville I was listening to a country playlist on Spotify, and some of the more bizarre songs were:

• All my Ex’s live in Texas
• You’re the reason our kids are ugly
• She thinks my tractor’s sexy
• I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy

Meaningful stuff.

Anyhow, if you haven’t figured it out already, today was a bit of a slow news day.

We checked out of Melvin’s place around 9.00am and headed back down to Franklin.

MBW has read a couple of books about the Battle of Franklin, and the books have included historical facts about the battle, woven into a story.

Nothing much happens in Franklin on a Sunday morning – well, not before 11.00am anyway – and so we had a bit of a wander around. It’s a very pretty place.

While it is a very pretty township, it seems that it is also a favourite place for the wealthy to live … I think that I read somewhere that Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman have (or had) a house there.

The other clue was that the local hairdresser can name his price in such a small community.

Richard must be pretty special if he can charge $100+ for a men’s haircut or $150+ for a woman’s.

So after having a wander around Franklin, we had a quick look at Carter House which was a significant location in the Battle of Franklin (AKA the Civil War).

The picture above is of the side wall of one of the buildings at Carter House, and you can see the bullet holes in the side wall – these are from the battle in 1864.

We then had a look at some of the other historical displays around town.

From there we went to have a look at Carnton House which is another significant location in the Battle of Franklin.

It was a location where the Confederate Army (the South) were trying to get to Nashville, but the United States Army (the North) had set up a blockade as their fighting position.

The Carnton House – owned and occupied by a wealthy farming family – was right where the fighting was happening and it was taken over as a field hospital. At one time it is reported as having 300 wounded soldiers inside the house, and hundreds more in the barn, sheds and on the lawn.

We did a tour of the house and in the upstairs bedrooms there is still evidence of bloodstains that have soaked into the timber floors … from where the surgeons operated on wounded soldiers.

The Battle of Franklin was reported as one of the last great battles of the American Civil War. There were significant casualties, despite the fact that the battle only lasted for five hours in the afternoon of November 30, 1864. You can read more about it here.

The casualties were so significant because most of the battle was fought in the dark.

After the tour, we pointed The Don II at Memphis which is our home for the next three nights.

One of the “must do” places to eat in Memphis is Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken … so we went there for dinner.

Their chicken recipe is a closely guarded secret, and they only serve it in one way – hot and spicy.

And believe me … it was HOT and SPICY!

Dinner was fried chicken, fried rice, ‘slaw, fried green tomatoes, and fries.

There’s a heart attack on a plate!

So, to explain tonight’s song and the title of tonight’s post …

Johnny Cash (“The Man in Black”) is a big part of Nashville’s history – there is the Johnny Cash Museum there and he features in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

He was also a favourite at the Grand Ole Opry (until he was kicked out for breaking all of the stage lights when he was performing drunk one night). He was eventually invited back.

But tonight’s song is also in recognition of the fact that MBW and I had hot and spicy fried chicken for dinner tonight, and it still needs to work its way through our digestive systems …

So sing along:

… and it burns, burns, burns
That ring of fire, that ring of fire …

Burning Ring of Fire (Johnny Cash).

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA2019

One of the things that I am finding very confusing about being here in the South is the sunrise and sunset times.

Sunrise is 6.45am and sunset 4.30pm, so by 6.00pm I feel like I should be crawling into bed. Having walked almost 15,000 steps today only supports that feeling of weariness.

The weather today was a warm start again. We got into The Don II and pointed him at Nashville downtown for a day of exploring the city.

Jolene was reporting a number of road closures in and around the CBD which was a little confusing for a Saturday morning … but Jolene knows best.

We headed down the I-40 (I think … they all look alike to me …) and noticed how gloomy and foggy it seemed. Not a good start for a day of walking around the city.

Jolene turned out to be absolutely correct about road closures. She routed us a different way again to what we are used to, but found our favourite car park exactly where it is supposed to be.

I took my ticket from the machine and hit traffic. Inside the car park. We did a slow crawl all the way up to L5 which seemed a bit odd – I’ve never parked above L2 previously.

We got out of the car and started our walk only to find that there was a Christmas parade on today with some major streets blocked … so we stopped to watch the parade for a while.

After watching that parade for maybe 30 minutes, we went up to the Ryman Auditorium for our backstage tour. Our Sightseeing Pass entitled us to the self-guided tour, but we paid the extra $10 each for the guided tour – well worth it.

We saw all of the usual backstage stuff including dressing rooms, stage, etc.

The Ryman started out life as a church, built in the 1890s and is known for it’s amazing acoustics. It is also the home of the Grand Ole Opry which is a weekly music show that brings together seasoned performers and new talent as part of a radio show.

The building was disused for approximately 20 years and was facing demolition, but a number of big-name performers (including Dolly Parton) led the charge to have the Ryman brought back to its original glory and restored. It is now a listed historical building.

It still has all of the original pews … a bit uncomfortable for a long show, but apparently they enhance the sound quality in the building.

We have heard that many performers would rather perform at the 2,362 seat auditorium than at a much larger venue – because of the acoustics and the sense of being connected with the audience.

After the tour we had a quick lunch (fried chicken on a waffle … yum … but we won’t be discussing it here) and then went over to the Music City Walk of Fame park where famous music celebrities have a star in the pavement.

We then wandered over to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

Lots of crazy going on with Webb Pierce’s car, complete with pistols as door handles and a saddle in the centre console.

After all of that excitement, we did a final wander around to see the last of the Nashville sights including GooGoo’s Clusters …

… yes, we did buy some, and no, we are not bringing any home :(.

We crossed over the veterans bridge …

… and then had a bit of a walk around the city, specifically down Broadway which is where all of the bars and venues are located.

We went into some bars to listen to some live music …

Honestly, the music in those bars was so loud that the beat of the drums and bass guitar could be felt through the concrete floors. It could probably re-start your heart if you had cardiac issues …

MBW wanted to look at some boots …

… and then we went to look at a full size replica of the Parthenon which was built in 1896 as part of the Centennial exhibition and celebrations in Nashville TN. Pretty impressive stuff!

Final stop for the night was the Nashville Farmers Market where we had some dinner … no, not fried chicken, but BBQ 🙂

The little girl in the photo above photo-bombed me … but she was cute so we let her get away with it 🙂

That about wraps up Nashville TN – it’s been a fun place to visit and we would have loved to stay longer. It has some incredible history and the Ryman Auditorium – “The Mother Church of Country Music” – is a place that I’d love to go back to and see some more performances.

I hope that you are enjoying tagging along.

We are heading off to Memphis tomorrow so that should be a blast too.

We will be in Country Music territory for a bit longer yet, so I hope that you continue to enjoy the music choices.

Today’s song is Work Up in Nashville (Seth Ennius).

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA2019

I’m convinced that Jolene can read my mind. If you don’t know who Jolene is, you will have to go back a few days and catch-up.

Actually, I’m convinced that MBW can read my mind too, but I guess that is to be expected after being married to her for 35 years.

But Jolene and I don’t have that much history, so it’s freaking me out a bit.

I’ll tell you more about that soon.

Today was a bit warmer. 11°C was the temperature the first time I looked at my phone today – around 8.30am.

11°C is quite a reasonable temperature to start the day. Much warmer that -1°C, but still cool compared to Brisbane winter temperatures.

We discovered the reason for the warmer start when we left our comfortable Nashville AirBnB this morning.

Overcast. Rain. 🙁

Not enough rain to need an umbrella, but enough rain that I needed to use The Don II’s wipers … or to be slightly more correct, to find out how to use The Don II’s wipers.

After all of those big, wide, blue Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South & North Carolina and Tennessee skies, that run of luck had to come to an end at some point.

So I figured out how to use the wipers and we set off on a bit of a drive in the Tennessee countryside.

Specifically, we took a drive out to Leiper’s Fork TN.

Now, today’s post needs some participation from you good readers. The question is, what is significant about Leiper’s Fork TN?

I certainly knew of one thing that put Leiper‘s Fork on the map, but then today I discovered a second thing about Leiper’s Fork TN.

So the challenge to you is to post your thoughts on Leiper’s Fork in a comment at the end of this post. There is no prize – only bragging rights and the warm inner glow of knowing something that nobody else did 🙂

After exploring Leiper’s Fork – and believe me, it didn’t take long – we headed off to Belle Meade Plantation for a guided tour.

We travelled on some beautiful rural Tennessee back roads.

Belle Meade Plantation was originally built in 1807 by John Harding, and the significance of this estate is that they were famous for thoroughbred American racehorses.

In fact, their most significant thoroughbred was called Inquirer, and we learned that out of 142 Kentucky Derby races, only 32 winners were not related to Inquirer. Pretty impressive!

In fact, since 2003, every horse that has raced in the Kentucky Derby can trace its bloodline back to Inquirer. Not every horse that has won – every horse that has raced!

After Belle Meade, we headed over to Franklin TN for a(nother) Segway tour, this time through historic Franklin TN.

Franklin was a significant site for the confederate war between the South and the North, over the use of black African-American slaves.

The battle of Franklin was a particularly bloody war, with 20,000 soldiers from the North, and another 20,000 soldiers from the South. The North had something like 1,500 dead and injured, while the South had around 12,000 dead and injured.

Don’t quote me on the numbers – that’s what we were told.

At one place during the war, the casualties were so tightly packed into a particular area that they died standing up – there was no room for them to fall down.

We saw houses that still show evidence of bullet-holes from the war, and others that had cannon-balls go through ceilings and walls.

Much of Franklin is being restored back to its historical past.

I’m beginning to think MBW will start referring to me as Calamity Geoff … last night I needed to duck out to the car late – in the dark – and on the way back I stumbled into a hole in the front yard of our AirBnB and twisted my ankle.

The one thing that riding a Segway requires is excellent balance. The one thing that I don’t have is … excellent balance.

Today on our Segway tour, I clipped a concrete step with one of my wheels and the Segway lurched to the left, so I overcorrected to the right and fell off – onto the road 🙁

Twisted knee, twisted ankle, sore neck, hurt pride 🙁 I’ll live though.

After all of that excitement, we made one last stop at Carnton House – another significant historical landmark. Carnton House was used as a hospital during the Battle of Franklin.

We arrived too late for the last tour of the day, but stopped and had a quick look around anyway.

Tonight we had tickets for a Grand Old Opry show at the Ryman Auditorium in the heart of Nashville TN.

We got back into downtown about 5.30pm for a 7.00pm show, so we dropped into Pucketts Restaurant for dinner. We were told that their fried chicken and brisket sliders are very good.

Wrong!

Their fried chicken and brisket sliders were AMAZING! Worth the trip to Nashville just for the food.

The show at the Ryman Auditorium was a country and western concert featuring several well known (and some not so well known) artists – John Conley, Kendall Marvel, Eric Paslay, and Dionne Warwick.

We sat in the nosebleed section with the other cheapskates, but it was still a great show and we are really pleased that we saw it.

I know that I have spoken before about the interstates – they are both amazing and confusing at the same time.

Speed limit signs are only posted with the words “Speed limit 55”. No red circle to attract your attention like we have in Australia – so I tend to choose a speed that is somewhere between the slowest and fastest drivers around me.

Coming home tonight from the Ryman, the traffic was not too bad so we sat on around 70mph for most of the trip. We still had one turkey pass us at something close to the speed of sound, which is a bit concerning.

One of the things that I love about the interstate is that there are no traffic lights, so if you have a straight run from, say Knoxville to Nashville, Jolene will tell you to continue straight ahead for 298km.

I mentioned earlier that Jolene can read my mind. There have been several times now where we have been rolling along at 70-75mph, in the middle of 5 lanes of traffic, and knowing that I need to merge onto another highway in 2km. I have either thought to myself – or possibly said out loud – “what lane am I supposed to be in” and Jolene has responded with “you need to be in the second lane from the right”.

Spooky.

Anyhow it’s late, I’m tired, and my various injuries are starting to stiffen up, so it’s time for bed … and to have dreams of becoming a country and western star and performing at the Ryman Auditorium.

MBW often reminds me that things happen in threes – so tomorrow might be an interesting day 🙁

We are having such a fabulous time here in the South. Other than falling off a Segway and being at risk of being run over by passing traffic, today was a blast!

Driving through rural Tennessee, seeing Leiper’s Fork with my own eyes, eating fried chicken and brisket sliders for dinner, and a show at the Grand Ole Opry was the icing on the cake – hence today’s song: Don’t Stop Me Now (Queen).

PS: Don’t forget to make a comment with your answer on the Leiper’s Fork puzzle …

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA2019