Nashville - Part Deux
After two days of non-stop excitement, we decided to slow things down a bit for day 3. We slept in, or rather, attempted to sleep in but by 7 am the tent was bathed in the Tennessee sun and quickly transformed into a human roasting machine. So we got up and lounged around in the shade.
One of the cool things about the Jellystone campsite, of which there are many cool things, was that the whole campsite had free wi-fi. So we spent some time in the morning researching what to do with our day. The final conclusion? A trip to the Grand Ole Opry! Can you say, “yee haw” and “hell yeah”?
After booking tickets online and checking some email/facebook we discovered that Marisa gets mean and intolerable without coffee. This meant an immediate change of course from relaxing to finding a Starbucks. After my Magellan like navigational skills got us lost 2 or 3 times, we finally stumbled upon a Nashville Starbucks. This was a slightly different experience from living in Seattle where the trick is to stumble anywhere without running into a Starbucks.
After some coffee and air conditioning time, we headed back to the camp site for a little more fun in the pool. This time we were inspired by a toy we had seen at Walmart the day before. One of us stood in the pool, leaned our mouth in the water, and made a high pitched “pinging” sound while the other one, with eyes closed, swam under water and tried to hone in on the pinging. I’ve decided to name this game, “Hunt for the Red Dork” and if you’re ever in a Jellystone park pool, I recommend you play. It’s especially fun when there’s a bunch of random southerners gathered around the pool wondering what the hell they teach those damn Yankees up north.
To continue our relaxation for the day, we climbed out of the pool and headed back to the campsite. We found a nice shade tree, threw down our Thermarests, and took a nap in a refreshing Tennessee breeze. It was very Rip Van Winklish thing to do and it’s another thing I recommend doing the next time you get the chance.
Finally 6:30 rolled around and it was time to head to the Grand Ole Opry. I’m very happy we did it, but I definitely don’t feel the need to go back again. It was a different format than what I expected. Basically, it was a two hour long variety show where each act got 15 minutes in which to perform 2 or 3 songs and tell a few stories and/or jokes.
Here are the highlights:
- Aaron Tippin singing, “Kiss This.”
- The closing act of the night, “Cherry Holmes.” They were a family bluegrass band that really jammed. I’m definitely going to try to catch them doing a full show some time.
- “Little” Jimmie Dickens! This guy was about 90 years old and 5 feet tall. While his voice is not what it once probably was, he was an amazing entertainer. He told a number of jokes between songs. Here’s one of my favorites: “My wife is weird. For example, I asked her the other day if she’d ever cheat on me and she said, ‘Well who else would I cheat on?’.” Or another one: “I’ve got a stiff neck. I think it’s because I took one of those tiny blue pills for men my age and it got stuck in my throat.”
After the show was over we headed back to our campsite. We tried to pick up some firewood but apparently campfires aren’t a big deal in the 80 degree heat of a Tennessee night so we couldn’t find any wood. That meant no traditional camp fire. But my Mac, the free Jellystone wi-fi, and Marisa’s never ending ingenuity came to the rescue again. She pulled out my laptop and found a website that was nothing but a camp fire playing on the screen. My marshmallows didn’t get roasted quite as well as they would have over a real fire, but it was still a great end to another wonderful day.