A Dispatch from the Music City

Nashville certainly lived up to its lofty reputation when we were there last weekend. Even our nondescript Holiday Inn boasted of having live music in their bar every night of the week. I'm skeptical the next Keith Urban will be discovered in a bland hotel bar amidst the multitude of honky tonks lining the downtown drag, but who knows. Even our waitress who claimed to have moved down from Washington State just three months prior had already acquired a Tennessee drawl. Must be something in the water. Hopefully it's not in the beer or bourbon because then yours truly might start droppin' my g's and sprinkling in y'all to otherwise respectable conversations.

Our first full day there, while our gracious hosts Megan and Garrett were at their day jobs, we toured a Civil War battle site in nearby Franklin. The Battle of Franklin, one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, took place in a local family's backyard, the McGavock's, with their two story farmhouse serving as an impromptu field hospital. They called their farm Carnton. In their native Gaelic, a cairn is a funeral pyre. Little did they know that thirty years after settling that land, their modest acreage would be the final resting place for over a thousand Union and Confederate soldiers.

Out on the town with Megan and Garrett

In fact, the upstairs rooms in the still-standing farm house have blood stains in the wood floor after having served as an impromptu operating room during and after the battle. Our tour guide, whose "great granddaddy" was one of the seven doctors working that day (for the Confederates, I might add, which perhaps shaded his recounting of the battle), noted that the blood stains formed a sort of semi-circle as it pooled around the floor length aprons of the surgeons. To our surprise, the medical techniques of the day were not as primitive as we suspected, with morphine and small doses of chloroform to use for anesthesia during operations. Still, visiting the site of such brutal and ultimately needless bloodshed was a very impactful experience.

Later that day, we rejoined our hosts and headed to dinner at Pinewood Social. A restaurant/bowling alley/mothership for hipsters, we dined, bowled and made general merriment until the wee hours. Rumor has it the merriment may have been deemed excessive by management while we waited for our Ethiopian cab driver Coco to arrive to ferry us back home. That would explain the lack of drinks for the last, slightly hazy portion of our evening. Case in point: an unnamed member of the group attempted to pay for dinner with her driver's license. Ignorance or guile? We'll never know.

Clean up, aisle My Head

Saturday morning brought blue skies, warmer temps, and muddled memories. To add insult to a mild headache, upon arriving at Megan and Garrett's for a delicious brunch, a rogue robin promptly shat upon my head. Luckily the day improved markedly from there: (subpar) live music at a festival in Centennial Park, across the street from our hotel; (great) live music (at Honky Tonk Central); delicious food (at Rolf & Daughters); to-die-for ice cream (at Jeni's); and a delightfully uncomfortable game of Cards Against Humanity (a game that describes itself as being as "despicable and awkward as you and your friends". Right up our alley!).

With the Sunday sun brought the daunting drive back north. In a stroke of genius, we decided to bisect our trip with a pit stop on the Bourbon Trail. Among the nine distillery options on the Trail, Jim Beam is the closest to the highway and thus served as our mental health break before facing the long slog that is Indiana. (Seriously, in terms of scenery quotient, Kentucky>>>Indiana.) They give out free samples! It was amazing. I don't see Allegiant Airlines handing out free booze anytime soon - they made me pay for a Coke! So put that at the top of the (very short) list of reasons driving anywhere in this region of the country is even a marginally good idea.

Seriously though, it was a great trip. Nashville is a fun city I wouldn't mind visiting again - as long as there are great friends and free drinks.