Nashville day one

We purchased a package of tickets for our tour of this country music capitol of the world.  Our first stop this morning was the Ryman Auditorium with the following pictures:

The mother church of Country Music

 The dynamic duo center stage at the Opry.  They wouldn't give me time to put it in tune.

Then we drove a few blocks to the Country Music Hall of Fame.  There were lots of exhibits  but we got a few pictures of some of the displays as follows.

 A very early model of Martin guitar

 Connie Smith's guitar

 Buck Owen's red, white, and blue guitar

 Bill Monroe's early mandolin

 Earl Scruggs banjo

 Lester Flatt's Martin guitar

 Hank's Martin guitar

 the car from Smokey and the Bandit

 costume sewing machine

 Patsy Cline

 Loretta Lynn

Ricky Skaggs early mandolin played on stage at the Opry at age 7

Kellie Pickler's dress and mirror ball trophy from Dancing with the Stars

Taylor Swift

Music City

This morning we relocated to Nashville, TN home of the Grand Ol' Opry.  Tomorrow we have tickets for a tour of the Ryman Auditorium where the Opry spent many years of radio broadcasts on Saturday nights.  We have many other items of interest that we want to explore while we are here this week.  We have passed through this part of TN several times with our trailer but never spent any good time doing the tourist thing.  Several years ago we were here with the Robinettes and enjoyed a day at what was then OpryLand and now is a discount mall.  We have tickets for this Saturday night's Opry and we are looking forward to that.  We don't know who the star performers will be but expect it to be a fun show.

more Kentucky

Sorry about no posting for yesterday, I was just to lazy to try and find something to talk about as we both just lazied around most of the day.  Tomorrow we travel on our way to Nashville.

This morning we got out for some more adventures.  Kentucky is known for its Blue Grass music, thoroughbred horses, bourbon, tobacco, and fried chicken.  We have seen/enjoyed all of the above in the past few days except for the last one so today we drove to Corbin, KY to the birthplace of KFC.  We had lunch at Col Harland Sanders Cafe and Court where he developed his secret receipt.  The restaurant counter now is just a modern KFC with the same menu as thousands of others around the world.  The dining area however was in the original cafe with museum displays around it preserving the original kitchen, office, cabin room, and other items.

 a model of the original

 There was a ghost in the room.

 

After lunch we drove to the Cumberland Falls State Park to see the falls there.  It was a short but scenic drive from Corbin with a fairly easy walking path to the top of the falls.  I took the path to the lower viewing area but it was too many steps for Jo.

 In the next two you can see the rainbow that is constant in the mist on sunny days.  They say that there is also a moonbow on nights of full moon but it would take special photo efforts to capture that event.  They say that this is the only waterfall on this hemisphere that has a moonbow.

 These next two are from the lower viewing platform.

 Some views of this scenic river.

a Sunday day of rest

Today is a day of rest and grocery shopping.  We found a WM Supercenter and stocked up on a few things, mostly fresh fruit and veggies.

We both really enjoyed last evenings show better than the Friday night big name performers show.  Last night it was a large cast of local musicians and performers that gave us a wide variety of entertainment.  There were three or four male singers that each did their couple of numbers and also that many female singers that did the same.  They had a very good clogging dance routine by a couple of young sisters plus there were banjo and fiddle solo acts.  All were very talented and made the evening go by very fast.  This Saturday night barn dance has been continuous for the past 70+ years with new people added as older ones leave the cast.  The back up group of musicians, the Renfro Vally band, was super.

more bourbon fun

Another day, another two distilleries visited.  This morning we visited the Four Roses distillery and then after lunch we toured the Woodford Reserve.  This last one was the best tour of all four, two yesterday and two today, but they were the stingiest with their tasting sample.  The other three were glad to let us sample two of their best brands while this last one only let us have one sip of their lesser label.  Still we have had fun with these tours.  While each one has many of the same processes as the others they each proudly describe something that is unique in their operation that makes their brands "the best."

To be called bourbon they all have to meet certain standard requirements which includes a minimum percentage of corn in the grain mixture and the use of a new white oak barrel for aging.  We had been told several years ago that to be called bourbon it had to have been made in Kentucky but now they tell us that it can be made anywhere in the USA as long as the minimum guidelines are met.  However, 95% is still produced right here in KY.  That is primarily because of the availability of corn grown in this area plus the spring fed water is limestone filtered for purity.  Also white oak is plentiful here so some barrels are made here but a lot are shipped here from Lebanon, MO.  They can only use the barrels one time so they then sell them to other types of alcohol production or to the Louisiana hot sauce producers.  The left over grain mash is given to the local farmers for free to use as livestock feed.  With all the producers in this area that means there is a whole lot of happy cows and pigs.

Tonight we have another music show to attend.  This one is what they call their Saturday Night Barn Dance which will be a group of local musicians performing and entertaining, it should be fun.

Sorry no pictures today.  Just look at yesterdays again and you can see what we saw.

Oh the sun shines bright...

.... on my old Kentucky home.  This morning we drove to Bardstown, KY where just south of there is a state park located at the homestead that inspired Stephen Foster to write this Kentucky State song.  We had a very nice lunch at the "Old Talbott Tavern" which is right downtown Bardstown and has been declared an historic building that Abe Lincoln had been there.  We're sure that he had the same lunch that we did.

After lunch we toured two bourbon distilleries and while most of them have a similar process they all have a different recipe and story to tell.  These pictures are mostly from one of them and it was interesting to know that they mostly get their oak barrels from Lebanon, MO.  This first picture is the vertical still and looks nothing like the (next to last) picture which is in the lobby of the other bourbon maker.

 

Tonight we have tickets to a music show and will be walking that way soon.  The headline performers are Moe Bandy, Janie Frickie, and David Frizzell.

Kentucky Museum of Music

This morning we visited this museum that originally began with it's main interest as Kentucky Blue Grass music.  It has been expanded to include all forms of music by folks from this state.  We enjoyed all the great displays which included many references to Bill Monroe who is considered as the father of blue grass music.  This portrait of Bill is one of the first displays that we saw.

 

This location in Rock Castle County, KY is the site of a radio broadcast of country music that started around 1935 by business man John Lair jointly with Red Foley and one other man.

 Red Foley was driven to several performances by his brother that owned this car.  Later in his career Red moved to Springfield, MO to headline the Ozark Jubilee.

This small model Martin guitar was played by Loretta Lynn.

This display of the Everly Brothers was  a must for a photo because their hit "All I have to do is dream" was popular while Jo and I were dating long distance between Columbia and Springfield.

There were three pump organs in their displays but we got these two pictures the one is quite ornate and the other had a lesson on shape notes on a black board above it.  The third one was very small and looked home-made so not very photogenic

 

 

Renfro Valley

It was a short drive today except for crossing the time line where we lost an hour.  We just played like we were still on Central time and had lunch after we got setup in the campground.

We are in a campground in the Renfro Valley Music Complex and it is just a short walk to the music shows that we have tickets for on Friday and Saturday evenings.  This will also be our base doing any other tourist thing while here at the foothills of the Appalachian mountains.

It's good to be on the road again

... even if we didn't get away this morning as early as planned.  I had an appointment with my dermatologist yesterday and she was supposed to send a prescription to our pharmacy yesterday afternoon.  I checked with our pharmacy just before quitting time and found that it was not there which meant that we would not get an early start today.  I called my doctor's office as soon as they opened this morning and a nurse then called the RX to the pharmacy.  I was at their door when they opened this morning and we were on our way only an hour and a half later than plan "A".

The drive today felt good to be rolling again even if we have seen the scenery along this route many times before.  Jo usually likes to keep a road map unfolded so she can check where we are but today she just read her book and left her maps alone.