Monday 16th September
Today is our last day in Nashville, we both voted this the best city of our music odyssey, better than New Orleans (very sleazy), better than Memphis (very quiet), Nashville has music bars playing from 11am till late into the night, so it can be enjoyed at anytime.
Today was the halfway point of our journey and that can only mean one thing ! - time for haircuts !! So we had to research for hairdressers in Nashville, which is kind of daunting as we didn't have a clue what to look for ! US cities are very different to Australian cities in that there is no concentration of shopping strips or malls in the downtown areas. So we had to search metropolitan areas close to where we were accommodated. The helpful person at the Visitor's Centre the other day suggested looking in Germantown for a hairdresser. We Googled and the first salon we choose was closed, so plan B .. ring first ! Next closest to our location was the Scouts Barber Shop, a phone call revealed :
- they were open
- they did both men's and women's haircuts
- they could fit us in straight away as 'walk ins'
So off we went ! One and a half hours later (ten minutes for Graeme) we both had our haircuts ! So the major objective of the day had been achieved. The salon was located in the trendy East Nashville area and when we asked for places to explore, a suggestion was made for us to go the the Fatherland Street shops, a series of eclectic styled shops not faraway. Turned out some weren't open and the others were pretty uninspiring.
We decided to head to the Nashville Farmer's Market near the Bicentennial Park and State Capitol Building. This was pretty uninspiring as well ! So we decided to walk back into downtown, check out Nudies - the longest bar in Nashville, the Goo Goo Cafe, home of the first confectionary developed in 1922 which is the Goo Goo Cluster that incorporated more than one type of sweet .. this was biscuit, marshmallow nougat, peanuts, caramel and chocolate ! We just had to try it !
We were back at the motel room mid afternoon today, planning our next few days journey...which direction are we going and where are we staying tomorrow night ?
Just for the record, today is day 40 of our trip, 39 days to go. We have had the car for 24 days, and we have travelled 3,106 miles (5000 kilometres). We have slept in 16 different locations, approximately 33 cups of Starbucks coffee each, stopped at 25 towns or cities (in addition to our overnight stays), visited 17 museums, homes or platantations, 2 bus trips, 2 train trips, 19 tours, 3 musical shows and a haircut each !