Grand Ole Opry Song

Daily Mileage= 40; Total Trip=11,498

Today we went out of town to the home of Andrew Jackson, the 7th president of the United States. The Hermitage was his home from 1804 when it was simple quarters until his death at home in 1845. His land grew from 425 acres to 1,000 and the mansion is about 7,500 square feet. The chief cash crop was cotton, but the farm was also self-sufficient, growing it's own food. They also had pigs which provided the main meat for Jackson and their slaves (about 140), sheep for wool, a dairy herd and a herd of cattle for the occasional beef dinner. He and his wife, Rachel, were childless but adopted her nephew who with his wife and children also lived in the mansion on the plantation. Unfortunately, his wife died right before he was to move into the While House for his first term as president. The tour of the house is done by costumed tour guides and the remainder of the plantation, which has some wonderful original buildings and archaeological finds, is done on your own. By the way, it was about 98 degrees at one point in the afternoon! (And I thought HHI was humid!!!)

This is the back of the house which looks as good as the front. The wallpaper inside is over 150 years old and looks beautiful. The preservation of this property has taken place since 1889 due to the Ladies' Hermitage Association which still runs the site today. When the family couldn't maintain the estate any longer, this non-profit organization took it over and slowly restored the property. They have done an amazing job. It was a delightful visit and the property is beautiful.

An interesting fact we learned was that the "democratic donkey" was started with Andrew Jackson's presidential campaign. Apparently, he was seen to be as stubborn as a donkey and cartoonist portrayed him as such. He used it to his advantage in the elections. Since he was seen as a democrat (one for the common people) it became the democratic symbol ever since. Pretty neat, don't you think? Now, where did that elephant come from?

We had a late lunch in a neighborhood, Hillsboro Village, at a restaurant called Sunset Grill. It was recommended by Alix, Tom D.'s daughter, who worked in Nashville for several years. The neighborhood is by Vanderbilt which is a rather large/somewhat city campus that looks very interesting. Since it does have a university in the area, you can imagine how the neighborhood is with restaurants, boutiques and coffee shops. It's also near Music Row which has a ton of music things on it including recording studios. The lunch was very good and hit the spot since we were on our way to the Grand Ole Opry at Opryland.

The new theatre is just one of several major entertainment options at Opryland. There is a huge mall, a golf course and a "Disneyland-like" hotel, Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center. This hotel has several thousand rooms with a very large and beautiful atrium. The atrium and lobby is broken into numerous sections and is completely enclosed. The rooms look down into the various sections of the atrium. It's a little too "over the top" for us but could be fun for a night if you were going to the Grand Ole Opry (you can walk to it from the hotel). We've tried to show the conservatory with the rooms overlooking it in this photo.

This is what we mean about "over the top with a Disney flare." Hee-Haw!!!

The Grand Ole Opry is now about 10 miles out of the downtown Nashville area. It was moved there back in the 1970's. They do the "Grand" show on Saturdays for the weekly radio show on WSM. Now they also do Friday and Tuesday night shows as well. It was one of the coolest things we've seen in a long time. (I was feeling a little disappointed because I didn't get tickets for the Ryman Auditorium but after tonight, I think we did the right venue!)

The Grand Ole Opry House is done very similarly to the Ryman, only its slightly bigger. So there is still the curved pews, the stage with the radio signs and the same great atmosphere. They make it so friendly. You can eat and drink in the theatre; take all the photos you want. You can even just get up in the middle of the performance, go down by the stage and take photos right up front! It's really great!

Here's the balcony which probably they say has the best seats in the house. We were down stairs but we would say there really aren't any bad seats.

Since it's a two hour live radio show you get them reading the commercials and doing the change overs rather quickly and efficiently. They had eight different singers/groups performing and although we didn't know any of them real well, some of their songs were quite familiar to us. Also, people were cheering them on so obviously, to real country western fans, it was a "star-studded" lineup. (Sorry I don't have the program with me right now so I can't give you these performers names.) However, we liked them all and would definitely recommend doing this if you're in Nashville. It doesn't matter who they are, they're all good. After all they're playing at the Grand Ole Opry! So this is our last night on the road (tomorrow we're still not home but we're at Brian & Andrea's in Atlanta). What a way to spend our last night in "Music City USA." It was awesome! Good night folks, Love&Joy, Mare&Rich