I took some good pictures of Nashville last week and thought I’d post a few. The feature photo above is from Luke’s (I’ll assume Luke Bryan, though my actual knowledge of country music is pretty thin), a disco-rock-country glittery honky-tonk that was fun to look at but not worth a sit-down stay.

And, focused on the post title, note that this trip included  a palindrome day, the first such date in about 900 years!

We had a little more time than usual Nashville, so we did some interesting things. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that we took a bus tour of celebrity homes one afternoon. Cheesy and cliche, yes. But, surprisingly OK – we saw parts of the Nashville area we never would have otherwise, some beautiful countryside, and some of the most ostentatious mega-homes you can imagine. Nothing says America like two people living in a 15,000 square foot house because they can. I have little room to criticize in this case, but still – it was pretty extreme.

We took in some excellent music on a night or two. Our very first trip over to Broadway we ran into this person who calls herself Misy. We didn’t so much run into her as we heard her being broadcast a block away and followed the voice into a small bar. She has one of the purest voices I’ve heard in a long time, and we both really enjoyed just sitting listening to her. I’m inclined to like solo singer/songwriters a lot, so Misy was in my strike zone. I wouldn’t be surprised to see her make it big.

We ducked into a few other bars trying to find/hear someone as good as Misy, but no luck. Lots of good voices and groups, but nothing else really great.

Another notable music excursion was our outing at The Bluebird Cafe. The Bluebird is pretty unique, and with less than 100 seats per show, reservations take some advance planning. I scored two nice seats for the Saturday night show, an acoustic “in the round” featuring four artists, where each artist takes turns playing and singing, round and round three or four times. Great music, great venue and a thoroughly good time. And the picture below was taken with no zoom, so you can see that everyone is very intimate with the musicians. We liked our seats.

Finally, no Nashville trip is complete without some foody adventures. We had two memorable meal stops – Husk, and Pelican and Pig. Both were recommendations from my should-have-been-a-food-critic daughter Emily, and both were superb. I liked Husk as well as anywhere I’ve eaten in years – the quality just oozes from the place. Apparently having a James Beard-recognized chef actually means something.

Pelican and Pig was a cool little restaurant that revolves around its wood-fired ovens and massive amounts of stacked hardwood. The vibe was trendy, but service was good and the food was excellent. I think we messed up by not have more (or only) side dishes, because every one we saw being served looked great. My pictures at P&P weren’t very good, but here’s one looking in toward the open fire ovens.

All in all this was a nice little trip. We learned a lot more about Nashville and made some great memories. Until next time, Music City.