Oct 26/ 2012

Cooler AM and slight drizzle of rain. We had a bacon & egger before catching the Grayline bus for a city tour of historic downtown Nashville passing Honkytonk Row, Riverfront Park, Ft Nashborough, state capitol buildings,Bicentennial Mall, The Parthenon, the prestigious Vanderbilt University, Music Row & historic RCA Studio B, where so many famous singers recorded their music (Elvis, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Dolly Parton right on up to Carrie Underwood). We did a tour of the famous Ryman Auditorium, a national historic landmark and former home of the Grand Ole Opry. It is still used for live performances and hosts a large and complete museum with many video presentations by former artists. We then moved on to the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum, also a huge facility. So much reading and so little time. A person could easily spend the better part of a day at each of these venues. As we were caught up in heavy traffic, our driver took us on many side streets pointing out points of interest along the way, an added bonus for our tour. One place of interest was the Marathon Car Co which manufactured the beautiful old luxury cars. Nashville is nearing 2 million people and its' economy is 1) medical/health (hospitals, universities, research facilities) 2) tourism 3) financial. It is situated in the middle of the Bible belt and is home to 160 churches, many of them enormous.