Nashville

2025-04-14
Nashville and Lynchburg TN

Nashville is a bit of a different city than others I have visited on this trip. While it has attractions, they are not ones that I would seek out like I did in other cities. This made for a more diffuse visit. Besides the draws of the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Musicians Hall of Fame (and, of course, the Taylor Swift wing photo), it seems that most of the people visiting the city want to drink, listen to live (and loud) music, and eat food that ranges from tasty to questionable. These may be better if I wasn't solo, but on this trip they didn't interest me.

I chose to do the trolley tour of the city. Theoretically you can jump on and off around the loop, but if our trolley was a guide then the jumping on would have to wait several busses until there were seats. This didn't really affect me because nothing made me say that I wanted to jump off. I was happy to listen to the guide and see the town. I originally was thinking to maybe do the Segway or E-bike tours, but they didn't start until 11:00 and it was in the mid 80's today. The bus tour was earlier (and thus cooler) and probably a bit broader. The golf cart, monster truck, and helicopter tours just didn't seem like me, but if you try one let me know how it goes!

Traffic was "heavier than normal" according to Siri, which in practice meant that a trip estimated to be 30 minutes last night took nearly 90 minutes today. Luckily I had baked that into the schedule, and although the drive was stop and go for miles, I pretty much got there with only one wrong turn. I made a decision not to bring my camera on this tour, although it would have been ok. I don't know if I would have been able to capture anything better with it while looking out a bus window.

I parked in Centennial Park as suggested on the web site, although they didn't mention that pretty much all of that parking is two hour limit. I no longer had time to consider alternatives, but (spoiler alert) I did not actually get a ticket while I was downtown. I had a few minutes to check out the park and see the Parthenon before the bus arrived. Unlike the one in Greece, it has a roof. I guess that keeps people from using drones to peek inside. I was told that inside was a statue of Athena, but I wasn't interested enough to go inside to verify. I couldn't really figure out what kind of museum it is. Looking it up now, I think it's art.

The tour worked it's way around past all the big attractions, including the Country Music Hall of Fame, Musicians Hall of Fame, Printers Alley, Vanderbilt University, Belmont Mansion, and so forth. I was happy to listen to the driver/guide tell her tales.

They kicked us all off for 20 minutes at Marathon Motor Works, and old car factory that was never successful. They opened the plant about the time Henry Ford opened his with predictable results. In total they produced between 1100 to 1500 cars, of which only eight are known to still exist. However, they did have some cool machine tools inside. They are likely from the factory or at least some factory.

After the tour, I was ready to be out of the city. I decided it was early enough to head to Lynchburg for the Jack Daniels tour. With the camera safe in the hotel, this was also done with the cell phone. The tours are a well-oiled machine. They do a great job of showing parts of the distillation process as well as parts of the history of the distillery. Apparently Jack Daniels was only 5' 2", and eventually died due to injuries sustained when he kicked his safe because he couldn't get it open. I think we've all been there.

After the tour and tasting, I also visited the Lynchburg square. They aren't quite a beach town, but they show inklings of heading that way. One of the sweet shops did have Moon Pies, which were invented in Chattanooga. That's close enough to local cuisine for me so I grabbed a few for the road.