Day 8: Nashville, Tennessee & Drive to Atlanta.

Grand Ole Opry House was our first destination in the morning and it was also a dip in country music history of this Cumberland River town. The Grand Ole Opry is a weekly country music stage program in Nashville that has presented the biggest stars of that genre since 1925. It’s known as country’s most famous stage and also then longest running radio program. There is a lot of history that only wiki could do justice. We took a tour of the auditorium and looked at the long list of people performed and took pictures next to a guitar with a cowboy hat on. Tara was running behind the squirrels offering the acorns from the giant oak trees. I stopped over at the Opry Mills and picked up a cheap sunglass. Between Beale street music and Ghost River beers in Memphis, I lost my wayfarer glasses and there was no trace.

We were at downtown Nashville by 11 o’clock and the weather was cloudy but Broadway Street was quite busy with tourists. A number of honky-tonks (a type of bar that provides live music entertainment to patrons) on both side of the street and people huddling and cheering around the musician was a good sight. People also moved from one joint to another with beer, stopping for a song or two. Then we saw Jimmy Buffet’s restaurant Margarita Ville and decided to get some food and margaritas. While drinking, I got reminded of his song ‘’It’s five o clock somewhere”. There was a clown at this family friendly restaurant and Tara was happy to get an animal balloons made by him. We did another stroll in Broadway to get a good feel of the atmosphere and thought the nightlife here would be a lot more fun. Atlanta was about four hours’ drive from Nashville so we started by three p.m. to Sheena’s cousin’s place.

This is not the first time I am visiting Atlanta. Back in 2004, I and Srikanth visited Rakesh from Connecticut and then drove to Smokey Mountains and stayed the Halloween night in Gatlinburg. The whole town came dressed up on that night and it was a nice introduction to Halloween after I arrived in the U.S.

We had no trouble in finding John uncle's place and her cousins were waiting. After a quick dinner and a long chat, we called it a day to explore Atlanta next day.