Hello everyone! I am back from my long weekend in the great city of Nashville, TN. I’m a big fan of Nashville. I’ve been several times and it’s always fun. Great music, great shopping (please re-open soon, Opry Mills!), and great food. This time, I went with my mom and aunt and we had a great girls’ weekend hitting all of the usual tourist traps. We went to the Country Music Hall of Fame (there is a great exhibit about Hank Williams if you are interested), got our pictures taken on stage at the Ryman (just like Patsy Cline!), and shopped at all of those great tacky souvenir shops on Broadway.
On another day, we toured a couple of interesting homes. The first was The Hermitage, home of President Andrew Jackson.
What I learned about him is that he was in favor of both slavery and killing Native Americans, and against feminism. So a great guy. His wife Rachel is the interesting one. She was the belle of Nashville society until it was discovered that when she married Andrew, she had neglected to actually annul her marriage to her former husband. Small details! But she had amazing taste in decor and the house is stunning. You can also walk around Rachel’s garden which is beautiful.
By the way, Rachel died of a sudden heart attack, after she fell from grace and right before Andrew left to be inauguated in Washington. One minute she was the most beloved woman in Tennessee, and the next, she was an outcast. Sounds like a lot of modern day celebrities, don’t you think?
After that, we decided to make the trek to Hurricane Mills.
If you are unfamiliar, Hurricane Mills is the home of Loretta Lynn. It is a plantation about 80 miles away from Nashville. Actually it is a town. Loretta owns a town. I would like to have my own town also. But I digress. The interesting thing about Hurricane Mills is that it is haunted. If you get the chance, there is a documentary on the Travel Channel about this place that they show a lot around Halloween. So anyway, we went looking for ghosts. Okay, you might say most ghosts don’t come out during the day, but there are stories about tour groups seeing strange men on the staircase. We were hopeful. The town itself is beautiful. There is a large creek across from the house and the house is just amazing.
This is exactly the kind of town I would buy if I were a worldwide country music star. Without the ghosts, of course. The tour starts at a replica of Loretta’s childhood home. If you have seen the movie about her life, Coal Miner’s Daughter, you have seen this as it is the replica they built for the movie.
After that, they take you in a tour bus across the street to the house. This is where our day took a turn. You walk inside and check out her awesome straight-out-of-the-70s kitchen. Then the living room, and walk to the foyer. We got excited here because the foyer and stairs are featured in the Travel Channel show. The guide showed us the two rooms there (I guess originally they were parlors but are now used as family rooms, kind of). Then he says, ‘Okay, we’re going outside so you can take some pictures of the house. There’s a great shot if you stand in front of that tree.’ So off we went to snap photos, thinking this was a temporary jaunt outside and then we would be going back inside and upstairs. No. We look over to see the tour guide back inside the bus. Oh, okay. Tour over apparently. I cannot tell you how disappointing this was. An 80 mile drive there, an 80 mile drive back to the hotel. An entire afternoon wasted which could have been spent at the outlet mall! $13 I’ll never get back. Not to mention the gas money. All to see four rooms in Loretta’s house. My point here is to tell you to watch the documentary and skip the trip.
I was happy to get home to my Sadie and my Smarty. But I do love to get away. Next trip is to the east coast in August.
