Nashville!

[kv0925]

Okay, before it becomes too distant a memory, I'd better do my Nashville trip recap! I ended up having a pretty fair amount of free time to wander around, so I took a LOT of photos. I think it came to around 1,300 clicks of the shutter, though that's a little misleading since a lot of what I take are 3-frame brackets for HDR purposes. Still, once I got done editing I had 200-something keepers. I won't post them all here, of course, but if you like you can click through on any image to go to my Flickr and see everything.

So the point of the trip was for a business conference that I used to go to every year, and now go to every other year or so. Frankly I feel a bit burned out on the conference itself. There's some good stuff content-wise, but I can't say it particularly excites me. The opportunity to network with folks in other companies and industries is good, of course, but being somewhat shy I tend to not take full advantage of that either. So anyway, the conference was okay, but more important to me was the time to roam around. And take photos, of course! So let's begin.


Thanks to the time zone change, I touched down and got off the plane around 8am on Tuesday morning. As I mentioned before, my plan was to take a taxi to the hotel, but I saw a counter for a shuttle bus service instead, and figured that would be cheaper. It was indeed, and I was the only passenger to boot! So it actually felt like a bit of a waste, but it was a nice ride and the driver dropped me off right at the hotel's front door. Since it was so early, my plan was to leave my bags with the concierge until checkin time, but the staff overheard me and said no worries, they had a room and I could go ahead and check in. Sweet! So I went up to the room to check it out and drop my stuff, grab my camera and head back out. I didn't need to be at the conference until almost 1pm, so that gave me a few free hours and I decided it was a good time to go to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, which was practically right behind the hotel.


I'm sure some of you are thinking, "Country music?! Ugh!" I do understand, a lot of it is simplistic cornball redneck crap, so I truly sympathize. But country music was around the house a lot when I was a kid, and after spending my adolescence listening to mainly pop and rock, in my 20s I mellowed a bit and got back into liking more acoustic music. Then I spent a couple years living in Nashville, where I rediscovered my appreciation for good country music, and discovered that I'm pretty fond of good bluegrass as well. I've also gone further back, to the country music of the 1940s-60s, which had some truly classic singer-songwriters. I can largely do without the songs about trucks and booze and backwoods parties, frankly, and some of the patriotic songs are so much drivel. But a lot of the rest is good stuff. :)


Not especially country or music-related, but I liked the shot. :)


Elvis' Cadillac. Neat setup in the back, tv and all.


The grand piano Priscilla had covered in gold leaf for Elvis as an anniversary gift.


Old studio mixing console. I'm often amazed to think that so much music we now regard as classic was recorded using gear that's put to shame by.. well, just about anything we have these days, including the cell phone in your pocket. Not to discount the importance of good acoustics in the studio, of course, but the electronics and recording technologies involved were primitive to say the least.


A Gibson mandolin that belonged to the late, great Bill Monroe.


Sort of a shrine room to the Hall of Fame members.




A pretty sweet mural I walked by every time I went from my hotel to the conference hotel. (I was staying at a hotel on the next block since the conference hotel had booked up--I think I'm glad, though. It was a bit more walking, but the hotel I was in was quite nice.)

After the conference wrapped up for the day, I again grabbed my camera and headed out for an evening photowalk. I thought I'd try to make it to the Tennessee State Capitol for sunset, but it was too late and already getting dark. It was also freezing, quite literally--the low that night was 29F.


One of the fountains outside the Davidson County courthouse.

I did make it to the Capitol and wandered around for a while, but those photos weren't as good as ones I got later on in the trip.


On the way back I went right by the base of perhaps the most iconic building in the Nashville skyline, the Bellsouth/AT&T building. Wish I'd made this a bit of a longer exposure, that passing airplane would have made a longer trail and that would have been sweet!


Daytime view from my hotel room on the 11th floor. Not too shabby!

Wednesday I headed over to the conference for the day, but in the last session of the day there really wasn't anything that seemed relevant or interesting. So I thought it would be a good opportunity to set out again and hit something that's closed in the evenings--the Frist Center for the Visual Arts.


The building itself was originally opened in 1934 as Nashville's main downtown post office, which it remained for the next 50 years or so. It was a New Deal project, and really an amazing piece of work.


No photography is allowed once through the gallery doors (on the right, down where that red vertical banner is). But this is the lobby, and as you can see, the architecture and materials and details are all just awesome. The floors are all original, as are the tables along the center where post office patrons would fill out their forms and whatnot.


Detail of one of the doors. Amazing stuff. Imagine if we'd had the wherewithal as a nation to implement a New Deal style investment program to boost us out of this recent depression. Personally I think this is tax money awesomely spent.


A lady working in the lobby saw me wandering and snapping, and directed me towards this stairwell which I may well have otherwise missed.




Practically across the street from the Frist is Union Station. As the name implies, the building was originally a train station, and opened as such in 1900. When the post office (now the Frist Center) opened in 1935, a tunnel connected the two buildings to get mail to and from the trains. It was converted to a hotel in the 90s, and is simply amazing.


I was a little leery of just strolling in off the street and snapping away, but apparently they're used to it. One employee greeted me as I walked around, and said sure when I asked if I could venture upstairs too.




I saw a very similar photo on Flickr, but that guy went all the way to the top of the stairs and so it was even more awesome. Next time!




My walk back towards the hotel took me by the old Customs House, which dates to 1882. More awesome old architecture!


As I was waiting to cross the street at an intersection, who should shout out to me from a passing car but the woman who worked at the Frist Center and directed me to that awesome stairwell. She said she was going to the First Baptist Church just up the street (which you see on the right here), and said it should make for some very cool photos as well, with the light through the stained glass windows. Sounded good!



After heading back to the hotel and relaxing for a little bit, I headed out for the conference's evening festivities: dinner and a band at BB King's Blues Club. We always invite the same band, but that's okay because they are really good!





After enjoying dinner and a bit of the show, a colleague and I decided to take our leave and check out a couple of the touristy gift shops nearby.


Elvis greeted us.

Thursday morning it was back for the last day of the conference. I brought my camera so I could grab a few shots of the conference hotel, which was quite new and pretty impressive.


This was a piece of art on the wall, created out of varying sizes of cymbals. Fitting for a Music City hotel, of course--playable art, love it!


The hotel actually connected via a shopping arcade to the Country Music Hall of Fame--down this staircase was its gift shop, and a shop/recreation of the famous Hatch Show Print letterpress operation.



Once again a morning session of the day contained nothing I felt drawn to, so out I ventured again, this time to the Cumberland River side of downtown.


The Shelby Street Pedestrian Bridge. It was opened in 1909 as a bridge for vehicles and horses, and was the first bridge in the country to use trusses of arched concrete. In 1992 it was declared unsafe for vehicular traffic, but was revamped and reopened as a pedestrian bridge--one of the longest in the world--in 2003. Pretty neat place in its own respect.






On the far side of the Cumberland is Cumberland Park, a fairly new development with greenspace, a splash pad, a playground, and more. Very pretty.




Back on the downtown side along the river is Fort Nashborough, a recreation near the original site of a log fort that was the first real settlement of what would become Nashville, way back in 1779. Unfortunately the fort/park was closed, and looked like it had been closed for quite some time though signs said it was being renovated. I wonder if it was damaged in the 2010 floods and just hadn't had the budget to get repaired.


Back at the hotel for more conferencing, a few exotic sports cars had shown up--apparently part of some road race, though I didn't catch enough info to look it up.


The Lamborghini had a really neat paint job, a shiny metallic blue I hadn't seen before.

I did lunch with my colleagues (we went to a place that was a bit too gourmet for my tastes, but it wasn't too bad), and then they all took off for the airport and left me all alone. I went to another session or two at the conference, which wrapped it up for me. But I still had plenty of daylight, so I decided to head to the Tennessee State Museum before it closed, and then get some better shots around the State Capitol since it had been too dark the other night.


The War Memorial Auditorium, which opened in 1925 as both a memorial to Tennessee's sons lost in the First World War and a performing-arts venue. It was home to the Grand Ole Opry from 1939-1943 (when it moved to the Ryman Auditorium), home of the Nashville Symphony for many decades, and host to lots of other visiting luminaries both artistic and political. Kennedy and Nixon both gave campaign speeches here, and many Tennessee gubernatorial inaugurations took place here. Neat place indeed.


The statue within is Youth, who holds Nike in his palm as a symbol of victory in the Great War. The large plaques on the wall recount the names of the lost 3,400.

I think I'd visited the Tennessee State Museum when I lived in Nashville, but never been to their Military Branch, which is separate. So that's the one I decided to visit. I'll keep the photos minimal, though, because museum photos are kinda dull. :)


This deck gun is from the gunboat USS Nashville, and apparently this very gun fired the first shot of the Spanish-American War in 1898. Kinda neat.


A German soldier's photo album from World War II. I was struck by his art in the center, and his caption for the photo in the lower left made me chuckle--it translates to "Stalin, somewhat headless."


Several Tennessee-born Congressional Medal of Honor recipients were honored. This one was presented posthumously to U.S. Army Cpl. William Lyell, who died while earning it in 1951 during the Korean War.

Something I'd never done while living in Nashville was actually go inside the Tennessee State Capitol--Heather and I went to stroll and explore the Capitol grounds a few times, but we didn't spend a whole lot of time downtown and somehow never thought to actually go into the building. Seemed a good time to remedy that.


From the War Memorial plaza the Capitol entrance leads to this tunnel into the building. Looks like something out of a spacecraft, but built of marble.


Really neat inside.





The busts are James K. Polk (left) and Andrew Jackson (right), 2 of the 3 US Presidents from Tennessee. The third is Andrew Johnson, who apparently they've forgotten about since he was nearly impeached and all. :)


This room blew my mind. All the sign said was Legislative Lounge, so I was not expecting this awesome library complete with spiral staircase. I was sorely tempted to climb the stairs and poke around, but it was roped off and I figured I was under video surveillance at all times. :)


Hmm, I should really straighten that building on the right. Anyway, this was one of my favorite spots I discovered while living in Nashville, the Charles Waterfield Reliquary. In the mid-1950s the Capitol building was renovated, and the original columns were determined to be pretty worn out so they were replaced. A number of those original columns were placed here, on a hillside near their former home. I just love the feel of the place.








Back up the hill towards the Capitol.


Spring is a very nice time to visit, as you can see.




Burial site of James K. Polk and his wife, Sarah. I'm fond of Polk, for a few reasons. He didn't aspire to be President, but when his party's nominating convention couldn't agree on a candidate they picked him instead, and he felt it his duty to accept. He campaigned on a very specific platform of things he wanted to accomplish as President, promising that he would not run for a second term. Once elected, he achieved what he set out to do, and then stepped aside at the end of his term. That sort of attitude and behavior seems simply unheard of in any politician these days. I also absolutely adore his attributed last words before dying--"I love you, Sarah. For all eternity, I love you." That's a man who knows what's important. He was a slaveholder for his whole life, which is of course a big negative. Other than that, though, he seemed to be quite an upstanding gentleman.


They're pretty big on Gen. Jackson down there in Nashville.




Tennessee's most famous Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, Alvin C. York. He was drafted into World War I in 1917, despite attempts to get a deferment on religious conscientious objector grounds. However, his commanding officers talked him into changing his stance, apparently convincing him that not only did God approve of warfare, but that He would protect York from harm while York fought what he now saw as the Lord's own battles. In October 1918, York was part of a small squad of men assigned to work their way around a group of German machine gun positions on a ridge who were keeping the American forces pinned down under fire. York's group managed to ambush a group of Germans and took them prisoner, but as they were dealing with the prisoners, German machine gun fire again erupted, killing 6 of the Americans and wounding another 3. Seven Americans remained to fight, of which York was the highest rank. So he ordered the other 6 men to guard the prisoners, while he went on to single-handedly kill 28 German soldiers and capture 132 more. Crazy stuff.

My walk back to the hotel took me by the Ryman Auditorium, where I was going to be seeing an Opry show that evening. So I thought I'd snap a few pics in the daylight, and also ask if I could bring my camera to the show--the Ryman's website seemed clear that cameras with detachable lenses were strictly verboten, though that's a pretty silly rule. So I asked, and the guy said I could bring it, but that I might be asked to put it away if anyone saw me using it. Oookay, better than nothing, right?


This is Thomas Ryman, the Nashville riverboat captain and saloon owner who bankrolled the construction of the Union Gospel Tabernacle, the building which we now know as the Ryman Auditorium--the renaming was announced at Ryman's funeral in 1904.


As you can probably tell, the front part of the building, where the box office and gift shop are, are relatively new, added in a major renovation in 1994. You can't even see the original front or roof of the 1892 building here, as a matter of fact.


Here's what it originally looked like--this is a photo of a painting inside the Ryman.

So back to the camera policy. Turns out there really isn't a camera policy for Opry shows. Nobody cared at all that I had a big camera with detachable lenses. And I kinda figured that should be the case, because I've been to several shows at the Opry House near the Opryland Hotel, and had no issues bringing or using my camera there either. In fact, the warm-up host before the show specifically said, feel free to take all the photos you want, flash and all. Nice!


Speaking of the host, this night it was Larry Gatlin, of the Gatlin Brothers. He was awesome. Great singer, still sharp and in great voice, and really funny--great rapport with the crowd. I very much enjoyed him both as host and as a performer. All the Gold in California was a highlight for sure.


This girl, Mary Sarah, was really impressive. Great voice, and seemed like a really nice kid to boot. And cute, which never hurts. :)




Every time I've seen an Opry show--this was #4, I believe--the announcer has been this gentleman, Eddie Stubbs. The show started out as a radio broadcast, of course, and is still in that format, with the occasional radio-style commercial between acts. It's somewhere between quaint and annoying, to be honest. But anyway, this guy has such a golden voice, and looks so much like you'd expect a radio announcer to look, he's perfect in the role and almost makes me forget that I'm listening to a radio spot for Cracker Barrel. But I had no idea he started out as a fiddle player, so I was surprised when one of the performers announced that Eddie would be joining in on fiddle for a song! It was pretty cool.


More Larry. Oh, and that pedal steel guitar player on the right was awesome.


The Oak Ridge Boys. If you're familiar with their music (Elvira probably being their biggest hit), the guy in the suit to the right (Richard Sterban) is the bass singer. But it seems so unnaturally low and smooth, I wondered if he wasn't using some sort of pitch shift effect. He did seem to be holding something electronic in his hand. CONSPIRACY I TELL YOU. :)

I was seated next to a very nice older couple, and we chatted a lot before the show and during intermission. The guy was a retired VP of a cell-phone company, and now they roam the country in an RV. Classic Opry audience members, I think! But we had fun chatting, and I felt a little bad because he'd occasionally try to snap a photo with a little digital P&S camera and I could tell they weren't coming out well. So I gave him a business card and told him to drop me an e-mail and I'd show him my pics to remember the night. :)


After the show I headed straight back to the hotel, and tried some long-exposures out of the window. Not a whole lot of traffic at that hour on a Thursday, but I did get some light trails from the few cars on the road here.

Friday was my free day to get a car and hit some favorite sites. This time I did break down and take that first cab ride--it would have been a long walk, and I already had a lot of walking planned for the day. Plus I figured I could go ahead and charge it to the company and say it was my cab ride back to the airport, which it sort of was. So that was okay. At the car rental place, they offered me a few different cars (mostly to try to get me to upgrade, methinks). He offered me an Infiniti for double the price. Ha! I said no, this one's on my dime so I need to keep it cheap. "Okay," he says, "For an extra four bucks I can give you what I call 'The Wolf.'" Intrigued, I went for that. "The Wolf" was a pretty nice Volkswagen Passat, Wolfsburg Edition. About which more later.

First stop on my agenda: Radnor Lake State Natural Area. But along the way I spotted this monument, which I don't think I'd ever stopped to check out before:


It commemorates the Battle of Nashville, which occurred fairly late in the Civil War. As a matter of fact, it essentially represented the end of the war in the western theater and was one of the largest Union victories of the whole conflict, resulting in the decimation of the Confederate Army of Tennessee.


Radnor Lake was a favorite park from my time in Nashville--the friends I initially moved there with introduced me to it, and I considered it one of the good things I kept with me after our falling out. It's just a truly beautiful place, fantastic to walk around. This time I stuck to the paved trail around the lake, and a stretch of dirt trail through the woods that I'm not sure I'd ever hiked before. It was amazing.


I seemed to be on a theme this trip of flowers in the foreground with scenic stuff in back. Oh well, works for me!


The area was the property of the Louisville & Nashville (L&N) Railroad Company for many years--they created the lake itself, as a matter of fact. But they maintained it as a largely natural area, and used it for some time as a hunting and wilderness retreat for their executives and guests. In 1946 the existing caretaker was killed by a rattlesnake, so L&N hired a married couple, the McElyeas, to take his place. The couple were also private investigators, often using their bloodhounds to trace escaped felons and the like; Mr. McElyea was killed on one of those jobs, but his widow, Mrs. Mac, stayed on at Radnor Lake for 30 years, and was a big part of its conservation and the drive to make it a state park after the railroad sold it for development. I'm glad she did such a great job.




Wood duck on the lake.


Canada geese taking wing.


A sleepy barred owl--he was really quite close to the trail, so it was a pretty great photo opportunity!


Chipmunk! We don't have these here in Florida, so I get excited when I see them on my travels. :)




Another critter who was clearly quite used to people--female downy woodpecker. She didn't take off until I got pretty close indeed.


Carolina wren, who also let me get fairly close. I still need that 100-400mm lens for the shy ones, though!

When I left, the timing was right for lunch at Schlotzsky's in Franklin. Mmm. I've probably mentioned it, but I'm a big Schlotzsky's fan and all their central Florida locations closed some years back. We'd get our fix in Gainesville from time to time, but then that one closed too! So now it's just when I happen to travel to a city that still has them, unless/until they finally open some new Florida locations. They've said for the past 3 years that they're going to, but no news yet.

After lunch, I trekked out to Stones River National Battlefield, the site of a Civil War battle over a few days at the close of 1862 and start of 1863.


My last visit to Stones River, I see from my photos, was back in 2007. In the meantime there have been some big changes. The driving tour route through the main part of the park was significantly changed--one section was completely shut off to traffic, while another part was newly built, and the entrance to the park was moved. The visitor's center was pretty heavily redone. And I noticed a few other changes here and there as well. All in all, I liked it better the way it was before. But oh well, it was still nice to visit and see it all again.



Between a stop at the visitor's center and heading out to the driving tour, I stopped in at the Stones River National Cemetery.






Cannons, cannons everywhere!


The rental car, as I mentioned, a Volkswagen Passat, Wolfsburg Edition--the first VW I've driven, to my recollection. The special edition name implies a higher-end model, but as I discovered afterwards, in this case it really just signifies a step in between the base model and the more expensive luxury model. Soo, not all that impressive after all. But it was quite comfortable and drove well, and the 5-cylinder engine was plenty peppy. I didn't like that you had to press the brake before it would crank--makes sense for a stickshift, but not an auto in my opinion. But my biggest complaint was that it had an iPod/iPhone connection port but no USB port. That seemed extremely silly to me. If you're only going to include a single port and your choice is between a proprietary connector and one with UNIVERSAL baked right into the name, why choose the proprietary one?! I'm sure the answer is payola. But still, it ticked me off a bit. Luckily, Nashville is a decent town in which to be stuck listening to FM radio. Though the sheer number of contemporary Christian music stations was surprising. Seemed like every other stop on the dial was CCR. And I don't mean Creedence. That would have been awesome.


Okay, I know this is not a great photo, at all. I took it mainly to contrast with the photo below, which I took in the same spot on my 2007 visit. I felt like the comparison between the two photos sort of represents the general comparison between the two visits. Changed, and not for the better. See?:


Same spot, same tree, separated by 7 years.


Another change I didn't like. During the battle this area earned the nickname of the Slaughter Pen. Imagine trying to fight over terrain like this! But before the changes, the path from which I took the tree photos above led into this scene, and there was a broken-down cannon or two placed here, which made for a neat atmosphere and great photos. The cannons are gone now, and instead there are metal cutout figures of soldiers like you see above. I dunno, it just made it feel somehow less authentic.


I made it a point to stop by the Hazen Brigade Monument, another favorite spot.


Erected in 1863, this is the oldest American Civil War memorial still standing in its original location. Only 2 were older, and of those one was moved and one no longer exists. Kinda cool, I think.




Abundant life in a place of abundant death. Poignant, no?

And that's really it. Leaving Stones River, I had a little more time before needing to get to the airport, but not really enough to stop anywhere else. Centennial Park or the Hermitage would have been nice if I'd had a little more time. Ah well, it was a good day anyway, and I'm sure I'll be back.

Hopefully that wasn't too long--thanks for looking!