Weekend in Nashville

We made it into Nashville to take our 34-hour break, and not a minute too soon.

The truck stop is located near downtown right across the street from LP Field where Tennessee State and the Tennessee Titans football teams play. They both had home games this weekend, Tennessee State on Saturday night and the Titans on Sunday afternoon, which meant traffic is a nightmare before and after each game and parking is at a premium since the truck stop sells parking spaces for each game.

We managed to find a spot to park for the weekend and then hit the showers. Lower Broadway, THE place for nightlife in Nashville, was just a short walk away so off we went to check it out. Among the highlights were visits to the Charlie Daniels store and museum (he recorded the song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia"), Robert's Western World to hear a great band, Ernest Tubb's Record Store (an iconic location in country music history), and Rippy's Restaurant for some barbecue and more music. Here are some photos of the area.

Nashville has an attractive skyline, located on the bank of the Cumberland River and highlighted by the AT&T building with its two spires. It has a “Gotham City” sort of look, especially at night.

LP Field is just across the river from downtown. On our walk to Lower Broadway Saturday night, we noticed you could see right into the stadium from the Woodland bridge so we decided after church at the truck stop we’d take a walk over on Sunday during the Titans game. The parking lot started filling with tailgaters at about 8 a.m. for the noon kickoff time. We were impressed at the amount of effort some of these folks put into tailgating, especially this customized delivery truck.

As we got closer to the stadium, we had to run the gauntlet of folks trying to buy and sell tickets. We were approached by two young couples asking if we were looking for tickets and we said no, we were just taking in the atmosphere. Then they said, “Well, we’ve got two extra tickets that we really don’t need and if you want them, they’re yours – for free.” We said sure, what the heck and in we went.Martina McBride sang the National Anthem, a field-sized flag was unfurled, and four “Warthog” attack planes did a fly over before the game. We never actually made it to our seats but wandered around the stadium, taking in the action from several shaded standing areas (it was too hot and sticky to stay in the sun), watched the Marine Silent Drill Team platoon at half-time, and then headed back to the truck ahead of the crowd. (NOTE: The Titans won the game, defeating the Jacksonville Jaguars 17-10).

We’ll spend one more night here before heading off to our next load assignment; a long-haul from Kentucky to Utah.