Our trip to Nashville was arranged by Patricia as a surprise, coinciding with (but not necessarily for) Kent's birthday. The main attractions were music and dancing, as you'll see.

The downtown Nashville sites mentioned here are highlighted on the attached map. Small colored blocks throughout the text key a corresponding highlight color on the map.

Click any of the photos to see a higher-resolution version.

Lower Broadway    is the name given the east end of Broadway, in downtown Nashville. Famous for its music, this was the main destination for our trip.

Along one block of Lower Broadway is a group of honky tonks   , where we pretty much hung out in Nashville. From left to right in this photo you can see a portion of Legends Corner, then Tootsies Orchid Lounge, the Second Fiddle, the Bluegrass Inn, Robert's Western World, Jacks BBQ, and the Stage.

None of the honky tonks has a cover charge, and the weather was beautiful, so we moved freely between them, based on the dance conditions, music, crowd, or just our whims. They all had exceptionally good music, and distinct personalities. Most have music from about noon until 2AM, bands playing in approximately 4 hour shifts with few if any breaks. Legends Corner is the first to the west, right on the corner of Broadway and 5th Avenue. We heard some pretty good music here. The interior is decorated with hundreds of LP covers, of all sorts of music. Had fun picking out ones we have.

We danced quite a bit at the Second Fiddle. They had lots of good music, a little more space than the rest, and a pretty good sized dance area. The walls are decorated with a bunch of antique radios that are pretty cool.

The Bluegrass Inn seemed to be mostly a young rockabilly crowd, and we didn't spend much time there. We did eat at Jacks BBQ — the only barbeque we had on the trip. We went in and out of the Stage a fair amount.

Tootsies Orchid Lounge is small, grungy, and often packed. The stage is tiny; the four-piece bands we saw there barely fit on it. We managed to dance some, but mostly it was too crowded. Every minute in this place was an experience. Twice we saw a fiddle player with a wireless pickup who wandered around the crowd and out into the street. He was a good musician and quite an entertainer. (By the way, that's Patricia trying to slip past the bouncer without getting carded.)

Robert's Western World was our favorite spot. We danced a lot on their creaky, uneven, wood plank dance floor, and heard three terrific bands (some more than once), with many incredible musicians. The Don Kelley Band was really good, and featured a stand up bass player named Dave Roe who spent 10 years as part of the Tennessee Three, backing Johnny Cash, and currently tours with Dwight Yoakam. A couple different bands at Robert's had Carco Clave on the steel guitar. Carco was a member of the band Asleep at the Wheel. Finally, the violin player with the band Brazilbilly is "Pappy" Merritts, who played with Patsy Cline, Bill Monroe and a bunch of others.

Saturday was the running of the Nashville Country Marathon, with about 22,000 runners. The course was lined with 50 or so stages, playing live music. Needless to say, Saturday evening was crazy crowded downtown.

This is the Bell South building   , which the locals refer to as the "Bat Tower", and serves as a navigational landmark. It's toward the Southeast end of downtown, near Lower Broadway and 2nd Avenue. That's the Bluegrass Inn, Robert's, Jacks BBQ, and the Stage in the foreground. The state capitol building    is in the Northeast part of downtown. We hiked up to it, but didn't take any photos.

The entire downtown music area extends along Broadway from Legends all the way to the Cumberland, and also north along 2nd Avenue   . That's Patricia, on 2nd Avenue, in front of the Wildhorse Saloon   . It's pretty famous, and has a big dance floor, but we didn't spend any time there. Guess it was a little to spiffy for us.

There's Kent, in front of the Coliseum, home of the Tennessee Titans   , which is across the Cumberland River from downtown, just about straight east from the Wildhorse. The stadium is almost as ugly as the Metrodome. The Nashville folks were pretty excited about drafting Vince Young.

Back on Broadway, just kitty-corner from Legends, is the Gaylord Entertainment Center   , where the Nashville Predators play. They were in the Stanley Cup playoffs, and a game was played here Sunday night (Nashville lost 1-2). No, we didn't go to the game - we were dancing.

The Ryman Auditorium   , is the orignal home of the Grand Ole Opry. An alley separates it from the honky tonks. In this lousy photo you can see it behind Legends and Tootsies. Notice the architecture — it was originally a gospel tabernacle.

We attended the current Grand Ole Opry on Friday, Kent's birthday. We didn't realize until the show began that it is a live radio broadcast. It was interesting to watch the activities involved in that sort of production. A wide variety of acts appeared, ranging from old, traditional country, to newer acts, from bluegrass instrumentals to gospel choruses. Some of it was downright corny, but it was all good.

If you feel compelled to hear it for yourself, you can catch it on streaming radio or on Sirius satellite radio channel 117.

We also visited the Country Music Hall of Fame    with a side trip to RCA Studio B    . The Hall of Fame was interesting — it would certainly be fascinating to someone well-versed in country music. There was a temporary Ray Charles exhibit that was somewhat disappointing.

On the other hand, the Studio B visit was cool. The studio is across downtown to the West, in an area called "Music Row", where the music recording and publishing businesses are concentrated. Elvis recorded most of his records at Studio B, and there's a long list of other important recordings made there.

We slipped out of town one day, and drove south to Murfreesborough to visit the Stones River National Battlefield. 80,000 soldiers fought here from December 31, 1862 to January 2, 1863. There were over 14,000 casualties. The Union won a symbolically-important victory following its defeat at Fredericksburg. In the photo, Kent is sighting in some Union artillery.

Detail from a painting of the Battle of Stone River.

Some other travel logs.