"Bill's Excellent Adventure!"

Decided to take it easy most of the day given the threat of tornadoes and rain that was heavy at times. Temp was about 63 today. I finally got cabin fever though and when out for a "little" drive around 1 pm. There was a break in the rain until about 3.

I did take a trip to the Opry Mill Mall where the Grand Ole Opry is located. Of course, I made a mistake and ended up in downtown Nashville before I asked for directions and found out I was about 5 miles from the Mall! That mall is huge, with everything from an Imax theater, to an Aquarium to the largest Pro Bass Shop I have ever seen!

The Pro Bass Shop place was so enormous I had difficulty getting my bearings once inside the shop. They have all these woodsy outdoor scenes made of wood all over the place, hanging from the ceilings to floor level displays with carved animals and the like. There is even a 1951 black Chevy pickup truck used to display clothing. It even has an aquarium with some of the most bizzare looking fish. The sales staff were quite personable and friendly. Chatted with a really pleasant saleslady for a while. Quite an extraordinary store.

Downtown Nashville is an old, rather run down looking sort of place, punctuated with a few rather soaring buildings in an effort to revitalize the center. The biggest building (I guess is probably 30-40 stories) has two really tall spires on either end. Quite a striking building. I'll grab a picture of it once the weather clears up. There is the Grand Ole Opry Muesum and a Musicians Museum downtown as well. There is constant construction on the roads so it was another instance of playing dodgeball with other vehicles on twisting and rough roads. The new Grand Ole Opry is probably 5 miles from town. Nashville proper has a population of 575,600 with a metro population of 1.4 million making it the fastest growing area of the state...so traffic is as bad here as any where else these days.

There are a lot of bars (most looked like dives) as you might guess with some old store front blues clubs on the seedy side of town by the waterfront. Just driving past them evoke memories of my youth of smoke filled rooms and drunks at every table pining away the evening (or day) crying in their beer over lost opportunities and loves all the while listening to the soulful sounds of a guitar and its player. (That did it for me...I'm not getting close to one!)

Anyway, came back to the room and spent some time messing on the computer and the website.

See ya!