Gone Country!

I had never been to Nashville before, so my main goal was to see the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. I love “new country,” 90s to now. But, I’m really not all that schooled on the country greats. Sure, I know people like Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, And Loretta Lynn, but there’s a whole bunch that came before them that I had never even heard of. So, this day was a bit of a history lesson for me.

We started at the Taylor Swift Education Center for some story time, music, and crafts for the kids.

This took a good half hour, and I was getting pretty antsy to start my own tour. As soon as we could corral them and get going, we saw an Alabama exhibit. I grew up listening to Alabama and fondly remember a family trip to Ft. Payne, AL, where we visited the Alabama Fan Club and Museum. So, I was into this. The next stop was a Zach Brown Band exhibit. Love me some ZBB, too.

We checked out some cool Elvis stuff, like a gold piano, and tons of guitars and costumes, before breaking for lunch.

Lunch was a massive plate of nachos for us and quesadillas for the kids. Then, it was time to see the newer country musician exhibits. This was my territory: Luke Bryan, Dierks, Kenny Chesney – all those guys. There is also a new Blake Shelton exhibit that covers the span of his career thus far. He was on the verge of giving up, when he hit Number One with ‘Austin.’ The rest is history.

We we saw lots of elaborate costumes, plenty of gold records, original handwritten lyrics, instruments, and a slew of stage props.

Of course, there were some fun photo ops we had to take advantage of along the way.

Finally, we got to see the Hall of Fame. What a tribute to all the country legends!

Just across the street from the museum is the Walk of Fame, which honors a few of my faves.

Though the kids had had enough at this point, I couldn’t visit Nashville without taking a peek at Broadway. While we clearly couldn’t step in to any of the bars with children in tow, we could hear the music spilling out into the streets. It was crowded at 2 p.m., so I can’t imagine how packed it gets at night.