Road Trip 04-21-09

04-21-09
We went to Rotier's Restaurant for lunch today. It was 12:30, busy lunch time. Eddie our waiter called us over to a table where we were seated immediately. We ordered a Cheeseburger the way Eddie likes it, toasted French Bread, grilled thick juicy burger, mustard, pickle, tomato, grilled onion. It came with a side, 1/2 fries 1/2 onion rings. We also got the Tuesday special, a little chewy chicken fried steak with a brown gravy, lima beans, wonderful fried okra, and dried out corn bread. The BEST HAMBURGER. even if it could have been a little rarer. The place is like an old NY diner, small booths, counter with stools. Go, it's good. I go back to the coach and Dixie goes to the mall. Believe it or not Dixie is still on her diet (mostly) and she has lost so much weight she needed to get a smaller bra, curse this weight loss it always goes from the best part. I take a nap, it's the pressure of being on the road, I'm always tired, my digestive track is always working so blood is going from my brain. We are getting ready for a 7 o'clock show, we have to be at the clubhouse at 6 to be picked up, it's now 5:19 and someone knocks on the door and says that the bus is leaving at 5:30 not 6. Time to put things in haul ass gear, we manage to get there on time as the bus is loading, and off we go. We have tickets for The Grand Ole Opry tonight. We have been to the new one (it's now 35 years old) but the performances tonight are at the original Ryman Auditorium. We get there and find out that tonight is Gospel music night. So instead of ordering a Jim Beam on the rocks I order a "Makers" Mark on the rocks. The theater is much smaller in comparison, much more intimate. I'm taking a few pictures of the place and Dixie notices that Hal Ketchum is playing, we love him. I'm watching some people take pictures and naturally the picture taker never gets to be in the picture so I offer to take a picture with all of them in it, they were glad that I offered, this is a good thing to do, it also opens the path for conversation if you want . Back to the show. John Conlee comes out to start the show, great voice. Then Hal comes on stage, Dixie and I give him a standing ovation, everyone else looked at us like we were crazy. He comes out with his young daughter (6?, look out Hannah Montana) who plays bass guitar. Hal sings three songs, 'I know where love lives', 'Five o'clock world', and 'I miss my Mary'. His daughter is jamming on the bass, he is belting out the songs and Dix and I are singing along. He gets done and everyone gives him a standing ovation, funny how things can change in 15 minutes. Some history, the Opry is a LIVE radio show and is the longest running radio show anywhere, 83 years. The Ryman theater was built by a rich riverboat Captain named Ryman as a church and then converted for the Opry (you can see that the stage area and walls on either side were added). The seats are the old pews, not very comfy. They were there untill they moved to the new larger building 35 years ago. The radio control room is in the back with the "On The Air" light is still there. After Hal's performance The Whites, Points Of Grace, Bill Anderson, The Grascals, Connie Smith and Mercy Me perform. A great evening starts at 7 and ends at 9. $41 per person including transportation. It was worth it just to see Hal. So we're ready for dinner. We walk to the "Printer's Alley" area. A small alley with a few clubs, everyone singing Karaoke, they even had a place with Nude Karaoke. I'm thinking this might work at Dixies Dockside. One place has a band starting at 9:30 and has a cover (we NEVER pay a cover in Nashville) so we walk 2nd St., where a few more places are, shit they even have our nemisis Hooters. Still nothing we want, so we're now back on Broadway. We decide on Merchant's. We go in they seat us at a great table by the window. Jamie takes our drink order, Blue Moons and I order the crab cake appetizer to get started. Beers come and we order a Caesars salad and Chicken Cordon Blue, with cheese grits casserol and spinach, both to split. Bread comes with oil and spices, finally a place that realizes that salt is not the main indredient in the bread dip. Appetizers arrive, Holy Crap they look great. Two huge cakes loaded with crab with tons of dill sauce to kill for, with enough greens that we didn't even need to order a salad. The BEST crab cakes we have ever had, this is twice BEST in a day. The salad comes and we were warned that it was heavy on garlic, we like it that way. It too is huge, we split it onto the 2nd plate that they brought, We couldn't even finish, it was so rich with the dressing and shaved parm. The meal arrives with two plates and it is huge and, dare I say, dare I must, I say, one of the best presented meals ever to be served. We quickly split up the meal, so much for the presentation. The pecan breaded breast stuffed with country ham and swiss cheese and sage melts in your mouth. The andouille sausage cheese grit cakes were a mouth watering meal in themselves and oh yeah they had to have some greens so it comes with fresh sauteed spinach, lots of garlic, delicious. We are stuffed. $55. That's all, unbelievable. We need to walk this off. Two stores down we go into "Nashville Crossroads" Bar, get two ultras and sit at the bar. There is a 5 piece all girl band playing, really nice with a range of everything not just country. I drop a tip in the jar after I get a beer because they are good. The drummer we thought was a guy, if it sings like a guy, if it looks like a guy, dresses like a guy, looks like that theory is down the drain. The place is narrow and long, cowboy hats on the ceiling for decoration, 2 guys tending bar, they had to throw out a wierd drunk guy trying to get up on the stage. It's a pretty good crowd for a Tuesday. Some guy talks to me, we both have shaved heads. After a while another guy with a shave head comes in, and the unwritten rule is only 2 bald guys in a bar at a time so Dixie and I move on. I drop another tip as we are leaving. We go to" Wheels" bar a few paces down. They have a 4 piece band playing mostly rock and roll and a little Blues. I drop a tip in the band bucket as we enter. They look like a cross between Buddy Holly and DEVO without the hats. The place has 4 machines behind the bar, sort of like the Jaggermeister machine. They chill the shots, each machine has like 3 or 4 boozes in it, Patron, Fireball, Quervo, Goldschlager,honey, you get the idea. We get ultras and the crowd is a little thin but we hang in because the band is good, and the place starts to fill up. A guys comes in from Scotland and the band lets him play lead guitar with them for 2 songs, and this guy "PLAY GUITAR". Dixie gets them to sing a Blues song. We finish our 2nd beer, I drop another tip in their bucket and out the door we went. The next place is across the street. We have been to The "Legends Corner" Bar many times before during our last trip to Nashville. The place is a main stay and everyone ends up there sometime during their visit. It is located on the corner and you can't miss this place. Unfortunately the Band SUCKED so we do not even finish our beer, and out the door we went, no tip for these suckers. We moved to "Tootsies" This little place is packed. We luck into a space in front of the bar and get a couple of ultras. The band is good, we are right next to them, and the speakers are in front of us so we can hear the band and still talk. Some girl starts talking to me, girls loved shaved heads, she is with a date but asks me to dance. So we dance to who knows what Aerosmith song. It's now 12:59. I drop a tip in the bucket and, say it with me, out the door we went. I call the guy from the RV park that is supposed to pick us up. Jerry answers the phone, I can tell he was sleeping and he says he can't, or won't, pick us up, I tell him I'm dissapointed and I'll talk with the people at the office tomorrow morning, but I'll call a cab. You know I'm mellowing out when, here I am drunk and not going ballistic when I get screwed over. So we get a cab, Mike the driver is chatty, I have no idea what we talked about, we get back at the RV park , $25 for the ride $6 tip, he also showed us a much faster way on the highway than we have been using.