Our Bucket List Road Trip

We drove from Woodstock, VA to Malvern, PA to visit Phil’s cousin, Jimmy Keenan. Unfortunately we missed his sweet wife, Catherine, who was away on business. But we did get to meet his son Nick and his wife Daniella and their adorable children Sophia, Aidan, and Liam. Jimmy cooked dinner for all of us: a delicious sweet and sour pork over noodles. He is a great cook! We wish we had taken a picture with all kids and grandkids, But we were having such a good time sharing lots of stories that we forgot. Tomorrow we will be home!

We left Loudon, TN this morning and drove through to Woodstock, VA. It’s a pretty little town! No pics today. We stayed in the hotel tonight and watched a movie for a change! We are looking forward to being home the day after tomorrow.

While we have been in Nashville, people have told us the Johnny Cash museum is a must see. We decided to see it this morning before we left Nashville. It was interesting, although we wouldn’t have put it on a “must see” list. Right after lunch we set out for Loudon, TN, where we had a fun night with Dave and Perry Flanagan, parents of our daughter-in-law Katie. Our gracious hosts welcomed us with a delicious home cooked dinner 😋 and we played a few rounds of Kelly Pool, a friendly “competitive” pool. Dave is a shark, but didn’t mind teaching us newbies a few moves.

We drove through the Music Row area of Nashville as we headed Downtown. Music Row is the home to Nashville's record label offices, radio stations, and recording studios. Many of them are converted houses. Jason Aldean recoding studio Big Yellow Dog recording studio It is the heart of Nashville's country music industry, and is located just outside of the bustling downtown and near Vanderbilt University. It's where all the artists do their recordings including names like Garth Brooks and Dolly Parton.  We found a nice restaurant in the Music Row area where we had lunch before heading downtown to find a Hop On/Off tour bus. We enjoyed listening to the driver as he provided us with a lot of history and pointed out some interesting places that we never would have found on our own, such as the Station Inn.  Jam session at the Station Inn After the bus tour we found our way back to the Station Inn, located in the Gulch section of town, and waited 2 hours for the doors to open (we ...

Now that we are settled into Nashville we just had to explore Broadway, between 1st and 5th avenues, this afternoon. It's a wild place! Live music in almost every restaurant or bar and on multiple levels. It's a high energy place with fun vibes. This area seems to be the go-to place for bachelor and bachorette parties.  Live music on 3 levels of this place Memphis was nothing like this! Mellow Mushroom was anything BUT mellow. The cello player put on quite a show! The famous Bluebird Cafe is less than a mile from our hotel room. We were hoping to go there for a quieter and more intimate venue for dinner and a show tonight, but the line waiting to get in was  impossible. We ended up at Cabana Taps, a place recommended by a guest in the hotel. Aspiring musicians get about 20 minutes to perform and the bar/dinner crowd is constantly changing. The scene reminded us of the show "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel". We saw one good performer, Brooks Hatley, but the rest were so-so t...

We arrived in Nashville this afternoon. After checking into our hotel we headed over to the Grand Ole Opry. This is our first time in Nashville and we are newbies to the Opry. We were able to get tickets for tonight's show. We saw some amazing performers, including Jacob Bryant with his Grand Ole Opry debut and Tony Jackson, who made his debut in 2019 and has an amazing, unforgetable voice and Mark Wills, who performed the touching last song of the evening with a young girl guest performer who signed while he sang "Don't Laugh At Me". What a great way to end the evening! In front of the Grand Ole Opry We arrived early and the usher took our picture with the view from our seats The program for the night