I have
found myself changing jobs on short notice (this is a good thing) with a
little break time in between positions. I spent the first part of my
downtime decluttering and getting some home projects done, as getting in
control of things like clutter makes me feel more in control of life
overall, but felt the need to hit the road for a little bit. Where could
I go that would offer a good selection of outdoor activities as well
as other things to do? I thought about hopping a plane to Croatia to
kayak the Dalmatian Coast and tour Dubrovnik, but there wasn't enough
time to organize such a trip. I thought of Maine - great kayaking and
cute towns - but gosh darn it, it's still *cold* up there: air temps in
40's/50's, with dry suit level water temps. I have a positive
thermotropism - I gravitate toward warmth, not cold. Thinking cap back
on. My favorite combination of activities is music and outdoors, which
led me to think of ... Nashville.
There are a
handful of cities in America which really pulse with music: I have
experienced Austin and New Orleans and have had Nashville on my list as
well. Sure enough, I saw plenty of music - which I won't cover at great
length here since this is an Outdoors blog, but I will say that there's
a wide choice of live music in the city, seven days per week, starting
as early as 10 AM! There's just music everywhere. I even tried to get a
chance to perform while I was here. I saw that the famous Bluebird Cafe
has a songwriter's open mic on Mondays, but just this week they changed
the way you sign up from in-person to by phone and the phone system
either wasn't working or instantly got overloaded at sign-up time. I
wasn't able to get through to get a slot :(
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| Flat Tire Selfie |
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| Getting The Flat Tire Fixed at Walmart |
I
drove down on a Sunday, and stayed at an AirBNB place in East Nashville
(hipster part of town). It was a cool old railroad worker's cottage
which is an outbuilding from someone's house - very nicely remodeled and
decorated. The drive down was tiring - 650 miles, plus a flat tire -
and so I didn't feel like going out that evening. I hit a local East Nashville hipster burger joint called The
Pharmacy for dinner (black bean burger and a German Pilsener), picked up some
groceries, and went back to the cottage to plan my activities.
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| View from a bar stool: Tin Roof |
Monday morning a light, drizzly sort of rain was falling. I had discovered that
my lodgings sat very close to a point on the Music City Bikeway, a
collection of bike trails covering the city, and that it was only a
three mile ride to downtown. I had brought the Marin with me and was
itching to take the bike path downtown. I waited for a while for it to
stop raining, per the weather forecast, but it wouldn't stop. Finally I
said "what the heck", threw on a rain jacket and hopped on my bike. The
section of the Bikeway between the cottage and downtown isn't
particularly scenic, going past railroad sidings and scrap metal yards,
but it's a quick shot and seems safe. A few turns of the pedals and I
was in the heart of the city. I rode around a bit, getting the lay of
the land before locking my bike up outside the Symphony (the only bike
rack I found downtown). I wandered into Tin Roof, one of the honky-tonk bars on
lower Broadway and parked myself at the bar. The music at that hour was
an acoustic duo - quite good, actually. I ordered some food and an
*un*sweet tea (it's Tennessee - you have to specify unsweet if you want
it that way) and spent a happy couple of hours chilling and watching the
music. I finally pried myself off my barstool and moved on to The
Country Music Hall of Fame, which I enjoyed much more than I expected.
The exhibits covered a lot about the roots of country and its
relationship to rock, as well as featuring not just the stars but the
sidemen. I skipped some of the exhibits about current country stars.
During the day I found that walking around with a bike helmet on a rainy
day is a good conversation starter - a few people commented on how I
picked a bad day for biking.
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| A highlight from the Country Music Hall of Fame |
By the time I left
the museum the rain had stopped. I was ready to head back but was
feeling a little piqued and so I biked over to nearby CREMA coffee,
where I was the most decidedly non-hipster person there. I figure I'm at
least as cool as the other patrons' parents - who are probably more my
contemporaries. Still, I had my bike helmet with me so I wasn't just
some old dork - I was one of those old dorks who bikes everywhere and is
therefore cool! Speaking of cool, that's an excellent adjective for my
cappuccino. Apparently hipsters are more interested in the cafe scene
than on actually having their coffee heated up. I savored my lukewarm
beverage and a scone, then pedaled home. Conclusion: bicycle is a good
way to do urban sight-seeing. No parking hassles, a more intimate
connection with the city, and a conversation starter. [Note that this
advice does not apply to New York. There, the best outcome is to have
someone steal your bike before you have a chance to be in a fatal car
accident.]
Monday I ate dinner in at the
cottage then headed out to a great show - Larry Cordle and Friends (consisting o Carl Jackson, Val Storey, Mike Bub, Aubrey Haynie, Larry Atamaniuk, and fantastic keyboard and pedal steel players whose names I didn't catch). at
The Station Inn, a classic dive bar in a neighborhood known as The
Gulch. The whole group was made up of Nashville pros - people you've
probably never heard of unless you read country album liner notes, but
who were all remarkably good. My favorite show of the whole trip.
Admission was a reasonable twelve bucks, and beers (I ordered a Flat
Tire ... I mean Fat Tire - ha!) were cheap.
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| Larry Cordle and Friends at The Station Inn |
Tuesday it was time for
a more serious bike outing. I once again hit the Music City Bikeway,
but this time headed away form the city, which took me onto the Shelby
Bottom and Stone River Greenways. The Shelby Bottom Greenway parallels
and eventually crosses the Cumberland River, then from there the Stone
River Greenway takes you out through suburbia and some rural spots
(cows!) all the way to J. Percy Priest Dam. I have written before about
my knee problems at about 20 miles. My friend Linda had recommended
gearing down to reduce the strain on the knees. I could argue the logic
either way (yes, reducing strain is good, but if what I'm experiencing
is a repetitive motion injury wouldn't more rotations make matters
worse?). I decided to try her approach. All day, whatever gear I felt I
should be riding in, I rode lower, all the way down to the granniest of
granny gears. As a prophylactic measure I also did a few IT band
stretches before the ride and repeated them during my lunch break at the
dam. The good news is that I rode 24 miles round trip without any pain.
Great! The only downside was that riding low gears on the Marin meant a
slowwww ride - maybe 10 MPH average speed. All told, a nice outing
through the Tennessee countryside/suburb-side. After resting for a bit I
had a (disappointing) dinner at Five Points Pizza, a hipster pizza
joint in East Nashville then spent the evening at the decidedly
non-hipster (unless I was enjoying it ironically?) Grand Ole Opry.
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| At J. Percy Priest Dam |
Wild turkey along the trail |
A paddle wheeler goes by as I cross the Cumberland |
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| The Gatlin Brothers at the Grand Ole Opry |
Wednesday
it was time for kayaking. Yes, in addition to the bike I had brought a
boat (with all this stuff on the roof I got 18 MPG on the drive down!).
Remember the dam to which I biked on Tuesday? Well, on the other side of
it is a big recreational lake. And I must say that these Tennesseans
take their water recreation seriously. The lake has a number of public
boat ramps, well marked with signs, well maintained, and with nice
parking lots. It seems like half the time when I launch onto the
Chesapeake I'm using some abandoned antebellum ferry landing where you
have to step over logs and animal carcasses (true story!) to launch and
you're lucky if there's a parking area other than a trash-filled, muddy
road shoulder. So these Tennessee launches were a great surprise! I
paddled for about three hours. Not too much to report - lakes are lakes.
Saw deer several times, herons, ducks, and geese. It being a weekday,
the lake was pretty quiet (I imagine there are more power boaters on the
weekends). You know what's another good conversation starter, though? A
wooden sea kayak. As I loaded the boat an old codger with a Stihl
Chainsaws trucker hat and a molasses thick Southern accent struck up a
converation. We talked about the boat, about the weather, about how he
has relatives in Virginia.
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| On J. Percy Priest Lake |
I think he's a lonely guy who goes down to
the park to chat with whoever is there - fishermen, etc. Eventually I
had to extricate myself. From there I drove to the 12 South neighborhood
where I browsed the (few) shops - and had some amazing, amazing
barbeque at Edsley's. I was going to grab coffee at The Frothy Monkey,
but the line of hipsters (this town has a lot of hipsters!) was almost
out the door. Wednesday night I headed back downtown to a Songwriter's
showcase at The Listening Room. It was the early show (6 PM), so I had some food - a
salad and a good local Pale Ale. The show ended at about 8, at
which point I went back over to lower Broadway and poked my head into a
few shops and honky-tonk bars. The honky-tonks have to book a lot of
bands, and so not all of them can be great. I went into two bars and the
bands were, well, I could have held my own in these bands. I headed
back to the cottage and just relaxed for the rest of the evening.
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| At The Listening Room |
Thursday
it was finally sunny! I started the day with a run in Shelby Bottom
park. I meant to run for my usual 5K-ish distance but got a little lost
on the trails and wound up running an extra mile. At home I usually go
for a three mile run at Four Mile Run, but here, nowhere near Four Mile
Run, I went for a four mile run. Get it?
I had
had so much fun exploring Nashville by bike on Monday that I decided to
do it again Thursday, this time venturing much further afield. I biked
over the pedestrian bridge and through the Music Row area, which was
exciting to me as a musician - recording studios, publishing companies,
the Nashville bureau of Rolling Stone magazine. Signs outside buildings
congratulating songwriters whose songs have been recent country hits.
Cool to have a whole music district.
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| Sign in the Music District |
From
there I continued to the Hillsboro neighborhood, which was supposed to
have some interesting shopping. I found that the cool Nashville
neighborhoods recommended in the guide books tend to be closer to the
scale of Del Ray rather than Georgetown or Times Square - each has just a
few blocks of stores, and that's it. I strolled the couple of blocks of
interesting stores (bought a souvenir for Valerie) and had lunch at
the historic (since 1961) Pancake Pantry restaurant. I had a savory dish
of cornmeal cakes with cheese and jalapeño peppers. Yum! Then I went
across the street to a coffee shop and had a cup of coffee while I typed
out the beginning of this blog piece. Hillsboro was a little less
hipster than the other neighborhoods I visited; the coffee place seemed
to draw heavily from the adjacent Vanderbilt Medical Center.
Suitably
caffeinated, I biked through the Vanderbilt campus and back across town, taking a route through Midtown
(nothing to report) back to Downtown. I wanted to stop back in at a hat
shop I had visited the night before to have a second look at a hat,
which I decided not to buy (the night before I had bought a newsboy cap
at the same store and had browsed the felt fedoras). I once again hung
out for a bit, listening from the street to the bands at the
honky-tonks. Then I biked back to the cottage. Nashville is pretty bike
friendly. Most of my travels were on bike lanes, which motorists seem to
respect. I once again really enjoyed using the bike as a way to get
around. I probably biked 12-15 miles in all, which wasn't bad on top of
my four mile run.
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| Biking around Downtown |
Thursday night I attended a
free outdoor concert by the Nashville Symphony (all American program -
Gershwin, John Williams, etc.) and then went back to the cottage and
streamed the season finale of Nashville. Watching the finale of
Nashville on my final night in Nashville.
Oh,
and on Thursday I ate dinner at an East Nashville (yes, more hipsters - though this appeared to be a place hipsters take their parents) vegetarian restaurant called "The Wild Cow". I
had a sampler of tacos (peanut tempeh, sweet potato & black bean,
and chipotle seitan). The sweet potato one was a little too sweet, but
the others were excellent! I indulged in dessert next door at Jeni's
Splendid Ice Creams.
Friday morning it was time
to pack up and head home but, gosh darn it, there was a boat ramp on the Cumberland River right in
Shelby Park - walking distance from the cottage! I just couldn't
leave without using it. I paddled down into the
heart of the city to see it from the water, about 5 miles round trip.
The Cumberland is a small river (maybe as wide as the Anacostia) and was
quiet, though it is in fact a commercial river. At one point a tug
pushing some barges went by, causing some really interesting wave
patterns as its wake reflected off of the two banks. This was the only
boat traffic I saw on the river. It was early, 6:30 AM on a weekday, but
still - the Potomac would be alive with crew-boaters and fishermen at
that hour. As I was leaving a SUP paddler was getting ready to launch -
at least there's someone else using the river recreationally!
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| Downtown Nashville from the river |
From
there I packed up my gear and headed for home, making a detour along
the way to check out the Friday night dance at the Floyd Country Store
in Virginia. The neat thing about the dance is that it's really a local event: old-school Saturday night entertainment for the locals, many of whom can really dance! One style of dancing I saw there was "flat-footing", which is like clog dancing, but done individually. At the Hall of Fame I had watched some film footage from the 1930's showing a mountain music band with some folks dancing to it - and what I saw in Floyd was clearly an evolution of the same dances and the same must, eighty years later. Old mountain traditions, very much alive. Very cool.
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Floyd Country Store Friday Night Dance
Flat-footing! |
