For some strange reasaon it had to Be/It Was All A Dream About Tennessee

We are in Nashville Tennessee, the country music center of the world. It is easy to see why all aspiring country singers have to go to Nashville. It is a city like any other except that every single bar up and down Broadway street has 24 hours of live music. The way the bands make their money is just by passing around a big tip jug every hour. We stopped at a bar around 12:30 in the afternoon just for some AC and a drink and there was a young girl singing with a band of old guys playing behind her, and the bar was full--on a Friday afternoon at a place that doesn't even serve lunch!

Besides every bar having music all the time, every store sells Boots. There is probably about ten Boot shops on the strip and one bar that even sells boots, no kidding. We had a drink at a place called Tootsie's Orchid Bar that had signed posters and photographs of every famous country singer you can imagine. Minnie Pearl, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, etc.

The first night we were there we went to The Grand Ole Opry which if anyone doesn't know is a live radio show that they do three times a week at the Grand Ole Opry theater. They have about sixteen acts that come on and sing and tell jokes and stories, etc. Since the Grand Ole Opry was flooded this past spring, they are still holding the show but at the Ryman Auditorium right in dowtown Nashville where it originally was before they built the Opry house. We had such a good time at the Opry, we even got to see Little Jimmy Dickens and Vince Gill who performed at the end of the night and brought his daughter out to sing with him. We could see his daughter and Amy Grant watching him perform in the wings, it was very cool.

We figured that on our way to Myrtle Beach we will make a few pit stops, one of them being Knoxville, Tennessee. Knoxville is the big city right next to a small town called Pigeon Forge which is at the base of the Smoky Mountains. Pigeon Forge is where Dolly Parton is from and we are going to go to Dollywood! Does Tennessee hold the record for the longest state from East to West in the US? It HAS to! Four hours from Memphis to Nashville and four and a half hours from Nashville to Knoxville!

To quote the famous line of Minnie Pearl... "How-deeeeeeeeeeee!"