Day Four: Ya'll Come Back Now, You Hear!

Note: The conclusion of the Nashville trip. Admittedly, taking two weeks to detail (in detail!) a four day trip, immersed almost entirely on the sociocultural monolith that is traditional country music is probably kind of teeth-rattling for the brave few who read my blog, but it did succeed in re-upping my interest on the whole blog thing (that's good, right?)

8:15 PM: La Nuit Avant

After decamping from the Complex Shuttle, we decided to take the boat tour around (but inside) the palatial artifice of the hotel. After a short wait on a small jetty that appeared to be made of real wood, our group were ushered into a small round boat, like the sort one might find on one of those water rides at an amusement park, along with another group of four or five teenage girls, out to celebrate Tiffany's birthday.  The boat launched, along with our tour guide, through the strange and wonderful area (it actually was very pretty at night) along the banks of the fake river. The guide was very chatty, if maybe a little too reliant of some of the scripted tour-guide patter, which resulted in some genuinely unfortunate (if funny) little ironies. The guide cheerfully chirped that the river and grounds consumed ginormous amounts of water and electricity, completely oblivious of the cringe-inducing effect it was having on her audience. As we passed the 80-foot waterfall, the guide noted that two Japanese koi had escaped the small ponds on the terrace level, braved the waterfall, and were now in the river. The hotel staff, the guide remarked, named the koi "Romeo" and "Juliet." This seemed to perplex the angst-filled teenager, who started craning his neck and looking around the boat:

A-FT: I don't see any dead fish.
ME: I'm not sure she's all that familiar with the original Shakespeare.
A-FT (louder, trying to get the guide's attention): But the play ends when they...
ME: Shhh, I know, I think the names are about how the fish wanted to be together, oh never mind.

The guide then went on to point out the $3,000-per-night Presidential Suite, supposedly a preferred stopping place for Dolly Parton and then went on to suggest, in what must've been a mangling of the usual scripted patter, that, for the asking price, we could then tell our friends and loved ones that we slept in Dolly's hotel room, without mentioning, the guide suggested, that Dolly wasn't there.  Lest any of the children who were with us choose to explore what the veracity of such a claim might imply, the adults quickly shielded our looks of abject horror with distracting, exaggerated motions at the big-ass waterfall. As we rounded the corner back to the jetty, the guide led whole group in singing "Happy Birthday" to Tiffany, who seemed kind of embarrassed by the whole thing.

8:45 PM: Any Fish You Wish

Dinner that night was at the highly unusual Caney Fork Fish Camp, which was decorated with lots of taxidermy specimens. The "shrimp and grits," while not quite up to the Lowcountry standard, were quite tasty and we all enjoyed posing for photographs with the animals, both live and otherwise. After a lovely dinner, we took a leisurely walk past the Opry and back to the hotel for an after-dinner cocktail.

11:45 PM: The Long Way 'Round

In the center of our lucrative digs was a cocktail bar that rotated around the spacious atrium area that stood in for the "outdoors."  A somewhat competitive bunch at heart, we were bound and determined to make a complete revolution before calling it a night. About three-quarters of the way through our "trip," the bar stopped moving! Being good tourists in addition to our penchant for gamesmanship, we demanded of our hostess that the bar be "turned back on" so we could "cross the finish line."  Thankfully, our hostess was, like the Eagles said, "programmed to receive," and, after a brief discussion with those responsible for the mechanical operation of the place, we were finally rewarded with a complete revolution, just seconds before last call, and we retired to our rooms for the night. 

The Loveless Cafe

8:05 AM: Le Jour Suivant

Another early morning to tearfully say goodbye to half of our group. The angst-filled teenager, perhaps feeling conciliatory in the midst of all the hugging and such, admitted that he didn't think all country music (pre-1975, we were quick to qualify) was horrible, and, as we all drove out of the massive parking area, text messaged us to say "so long and thanks for all the fish" - the young lad's outlook no doubt being indelibly changed by Caney Fork and the Nashville adventure.

The rest of us took a trip a few miles outside of Nashville to visit the wonderful Loveless Motel and Cafe for breakfast. And what a breakfast it was!  While no longer an active motel, the cafe has been serving up world-famous Southern cuisine since 1951, when Lon and Annie Loveless bought the former Harpeth Valley Tea Room along US Highway 100 in hopes of serving both hunting parties and visitors to the nearby Natchez Trace. Word-of-mouth about Annie's delicious buttermilk biscuits soon reached a fever pitch, and the cafe has been a destination for connesseurs of Southern delicacies of all kinds ever since. The place has had several owners, each of whom carried on the traditions of the place, as well as the closely-guarded biscuit recipe. Most recently, the mantle has passed to Ms. Carol Fay, who has entertained such culinary luminaries as Martha Stewart and Jefferson Morgan, a contributing editor for Bon Appétit magazine. While both raved about the food, neither was successful, I'm happy to say, in wresting the recipe from Fay. If you live within 1,000 miles of this place, eating there is well worth the trip!

3:05 PM: Au Revoir

Sated by our Loveless breakfast, we traveled to the small town of Franklin, Tennessee, to walk around and see our English guests to their bed and breakfast before heading back to Atlanta so I could catch my return flight to the Midwest. Franklin is home to The Carter House, and site of one of bloodiest battles of the American Civil War.  It's a somber place, and stands as monument to one of the more cruel ironies of war.  The Carter family lost three sons to the War, with Tod, the youngest, after escaping from prison and rejoining his regiment, found himself literally on the steps of his boyhood home in the thick of the battle. Shouting to his fellow soldiers, "I'm almost home!", Tod was shot and mortally wounded, dying two days later in the House to which he tried so incessantly to return. While the story of the battle is likely of great historic import to some, for me it was just a reminder of how deeply horrible things have scarred the South, and the places that remain are important, if often painful, reminders.

We went back to the quaint bed and breakfast and said our goodbyes to our English friends, who were really so wonderful to agree to share their time here in Nashville with us (it was, after all, their honeymoon!) It was so great to see them, and I doubt seriously if I would have made this trip or seen anything of Nashville without them.  As we made the drive back to Atlanta, I was really happy to have made the trip, and gladder still to have shared the experience with such wonderful friends.

1:05 AM: Forever Delayed

By Tuesday morning I had been delayed twice in efforts to get to Chicago, and lay perched on my carry-on bag, trying to lean my head against a pretzel stand in LaGuardia airport.  Again plagued by cancellations, with the weather in Minneapolis making further travel at this point ever more precarious, it seemed a good a place as any to end my telling of the Nashville adventure. Even after a 16-hour airport stay, bounced from Atlanta to New York, I still, just as the intercom sizzled with news that our flight had been given final approval to land in a April-snow showered Midwestern tundra, managed a smile, and, as I boarded, heard the nasal twang of our Atlanta-bred stewardess mock drawl to the travel-wearied passengers, "y'all come back now, you hear!" and thought that Southern hospitality still exists - and it's a good thing.