Nashville Trip Report (Part 4)

As you can tell, my days up to this point had been rather full. I was lacking energy the day after my trip down Music Row. I eventually rolled out of bed, headed over to Bob Evans, but there was a bit of a wait late on a Saturday morning. I put my name on the list, but figured I’d quickly drive over to Cracker Barrel too to see if the wait was shorter. I managed to get an immediate table there, so that’s where I had breakfast. I have to think that the only reason Bob Evans was slightly busier at this time was because its lot was connected to several hotels, where a person has to go down the road a ways to get to Cracker Barrel. That’s precisely why I went to Bob Evans first, and I’m one who’s loyal to Cracker Barrel as still being my preferred restaurant. Anyway, good breakfast as usual. And yes, I know that I spend an inordinate amount of time mentioning Cracker Barrel on my trip reports, they should send me a gift certificate or something.

I went back to the hotel and just relaxed for a while. I didn’t have any big plans before my Grand Ole Opry show that night…or at least until dinner before the show. I eventually got up and made the walk over to the Opryland Resort, which was probably a 15 minute walk away. As nice as Union Station looks, this Opryland Resort is definitely a place I’d like to stay at if I was rich. Absolutely beautiful inside of here.

The story I didn’t mention earlier from the Stoney River Legendary Steakhouse was that when the waitress dropped off the check, she gave the standard, “it’s been a pleasure serving you, and I know you’re not from in town (I’d been chatting with her, so she knew that part), but I hope you’ll make it back to see us at some point.” I told her, “You know what? This has been so fantastic that I’ve spent the last few minutes trying to justify coming back in tomorrow night.” Obviously that didn’t happen, as I went out with my cousin…but I couldn’t resist the urge to go back on Saturday night as a pre-Opry experience.

All it really lacked this time was the element of surprise of it being so great…the meal was just as great this time, and I was happy that I went back. Since I had left some slack in advance to either spend money on more entertainment or finer dining with my travel budget, obviously this was where a nice chunk of that went. It was worth it. I highly recommend Stoney River…it’s a small chain, there are 10 of them nationwide (some in St. Louis, some in the Chicago area, some in the Nashville area, some in the Atlanta area, some up in Annapolis, MD). If I’m in any of those cities and can afford to do so, I’ll certainly go back again. They don’t even do anything special to dress up the steaks, they just get incredible center cuts and cook them to perfection.

After that meal, I headed back to my hotel room, picked up my camera, and headed over to the Opry.

Picked up my tickets at will call and headed on in. I scored a nice seat, 14th row on the floor near the center. The model that the Opry runs their show on is that a different artist comes out to host each 30-minute block. I was pleased to see that Little Jimmy Dickens had been added as the first host of the night.

At 88 years old, Jimmy is pretty much an awful singer at this point…but his comic stylings as he hosted were hilarious. The announcer introduced him as “country music royalty,” and it rings true…his personality is second to none. Of course, as a Brad Paisley fan I’ve seen plenty of him, as he seems to always be willing to hang around and essentially be Paisley’s mascot-on-demand at this point.

Plenty of acts on the slate this night were entirely unfamiliar to me, but I enjoyed almost all of them. One that stood out was a bluegrass group called The Infamous Stringdusters. They were introduced as being up for quite a few bluegrass awards, and that much was very believable.

The other hosts aside from Jimmy Dickens were…

Vince Gill

Mel Tillis

Mike Snider

Snider was the only host I hadn’t previously heard of, but he was very entertaining…both his scripted jokes and his impromptu interactions with the announcer were very funny. While I enjoyed hearing Vince Gill sing, I’d say that Snider was the funnier host of the two, and probably ran pretty close with Jimmy Dickens for funniest host of the night.

The Whites bear mentioning as another previously unknown act to me who I enjoyed quite a bit.

But the biggest thing I was waiting for all show was the appearance of Josh Turner.

Sadly the structure of the show doesn’t even give the main act a bunch of songs, Turner only sang two (“Would You Go With Me” and “Everything is Fine”)…but he was certainly enjoyable and I’d like to see him perform a full concert at some point.

The show let out, I fought traffic for quite a while, and eventually got back to my room. I followed the Seahawks preseason game on the internet, and went to bed for my last night of sleep in Nashville.

I finally headed back home in the morning. Along the way, I stopped for lunch, and decided I’d take a mild detour to go hit up the Horseshoe Casino in southern Indiana (just across the state line after you get through Kentucky). As I got near the casino, about four miles away, I was just thinking that I needed to use the bathroom once I got there. At that point, horror struck…I was out of gas.

Folks…I am an idiot in this regard. There’s no other way to say it. I’ve run out of gas far too many times, which is nothing more than a silly and careless mistake. It’s embarrassing. In any case, that AAA membership I bought a couple of months ago certainly came in handy at this point. I was out in the middle of cornfields on a highway with no addresses handy, so it took a while for the AAA guy to even locate me (even as I fed him endless info from my GPS). Finally he did, and told me it would be “less than an hour” before somebody got there to help me.

So, at near 100 degrees and without air conditioning, or a restroom, it wasn’t a very fun hour…but help eventually arrived. The plus membership meant that the gas was covered and help didn’t cost me a cent, so all of that is good. Sure was a lot of trouble though, just to get to a casino and lose some money (not a significant amount, but I did lose).

After this side adventure on the way home, my vacation was officially done, and I drove straight home to Bloomington. It was a fun vacation to be sure. I will return to Nashville again at some point, and The Bluebird, the Opry, and the Stoney River Steakhouse are all certainly spots I will make a goal of returning to. The tour guide also mentioned that The Hermitage was going to be getting some remodeling done for the first time in nearly 50 years, so “it should be quite a bit better the next time you return.” I’d probably go back there again too, at least if my next trip to Music City is far enough away. Of course, I’d go hang out on Music Row again also. Okay, so basically the only parts I wouldn’t do over are Tommy’s Tours and staying at Hyatt Place…the rest was pretty awesome.

I’ve got enough other trips that I want to make that my next trip into that city may not be for a while, but it’s definitely on the list of places I’d go see again.