Day 17 Summer 2011 Road Trip

A big day today, and an early to rise day.  The alarm went off at 7am, breakfast at 7:45am and then we were picked up at 8:30 am at the front doors of the hotel to go on our Homes of the Stars tour around Nashville.

We saw several dozen homes along the tour, too many to put them all on the blog, so here are just a few.  The rest you will find on our FLICKR site.

The Tennessee Governors Mansion.



This was Minnie Pearls home when she was alive.



Ronnie Milsap’s home.



Ok, so these aren’t that interesting are they… I mean, what can you really see…   I think they should call this tour “The Gates, Fences and Trees of the Stars Tour”  Because you are really not seeing much of the houses.  Here are a few more.

The late Web Pierce’s house.



Here is a good one…   Martina McBride’s Volkswagen Beetle.   She is home, lets go and ring the bell.



Little Jimmy Dicken’s house, out the opposite side out the window of the tour bus.



Garth Brooks and Trish Yearwood’s home.



Dolly Parton’s house.



Here at Kellie Pickler’s house we actually got to see her Grandfather, he waved while he was working at putting down some new sod.



Now this next residence was the most visible of all on the tour.  Taylor Swift’s penthouse.  Is that her waving to us?

 

We arrived back at our hotel and had some lunch.  We thought we should go on a reconnaissance mission to scope out the situation for parking tonight and where the entrances are etc. at the Grand Ole Opry, so off we went.

It was actually a good idea to do this because the crowds were minimal and we got some unobstructed photos of the property.

  

  

It is hard to believe that back as recently as about a year ago, this was all under 10 feet of water.  The flooding in April 2010 got very little media coverage so in case you were unaware, here are a couple of “You Tube” videos to show you the damage and destruction.

Nashville Tennessee Flood of 2010

Nashville Tennessee Flood of 2010

I am surprised at how quickly everything has returned to normal.  I heard that The Opryland Gaylord Hotel complex was offered 50 million dollars from the insurance company, but they just went ahead and did the repairs themselves at a cost out of their pockets of 281 million dollars.  The Grand Ole Opry moved back to the Ryman Theater, not missing one show and did their own repairs and re-opened their doors several months after the floods destroyed everything inside.   The show must go on.

We went back to our hotel for a bit and then at 6pm we went back to the Opry to get into our seats.   Here are my first photo shots as we sat in our seats.

  

And then the curtain came up.

 

We have quite a line up of stars this evening.. Starting with John Conlee.

  

Now I don’t know who among you have ever been to the Grand Ole Opry, so you may or may not know this, but there is actually a radio show going on and in between the performers a radio announcer comes out and reads the radio commercials.  Then he will announce the next performer.  You can listen to The Grand Ole Opry on the radio, or through live streaming on the internet.

 

The next performer was Brett Eldridge.

  

Then Sunny Sweeney.

  

Steel Magnolia.

  

Mandy Barnett.  She sings a lot of Patsy Cline’s songs and is starring as Patsy Cline over at the Ryman Theater.

  

Ricky Skaggs and his band Kentucky Thunder.

  

Probably the most popular guy around the Opry these days is 90 year old “Little Jimmy Dickens”  I hope to have half his energy when I get to 90.

  

And the finale of the evening… Dierks Bentley.

  

  

When the show was over we had back stage passes.  We were told that it would be unlikely that the stars would hang around, but you never know.  So we did the tour, got to see the dressing rooms etc, but no stars.

  

When the Opry built this larger facility, in an effort to maintain continuity with the Opry's storied past, a large circle was cut from the floor of the Ryman stage and inlaid into the center of the new Opry stage.  Here is a photo of Brad Paisley and Little Jimmy Dickens laying that round piece into the stage.



And here we are on that same piece where so many stars have stood and performed.

 

Wow, what a great evening.  Live from the Grand Ole Opry… Bill and Karen.

We took over 300 photos today, so be sure to go to our FLICKR site to see them all.