Nashville Tennessee

 We left Red Bay and arrived in Nashville on Sunday May 20, staying for three days. We are at the Cedar Creek Corp of Engineers campground on the Cumberland River. It's actually located east of Nashville in Mt. Juliet. I had to pick a muddy site and it sure was after two days of heavy rain. The rain finally stopped today and the humidity dropped so it was a good day to go downtown. Our next stop will be Charlestown, Indiana for the Memorial Day weekend then Winton Woods in Cincinnati.

Our plans included the Grand Ole Opry, Johnny Cash Museum and the Antique Archaeology store. Nashville is a very busy place with heavy traffic even on weekdays. If you want to do everything here, your wallet will suffer as things are also expensive. Nashville is really all about music.

We went to the 9:30 pm show and the rain had stopped.

It was the annual Salute to the Troops show. 
This is Darius Rucker on the stage. Lee Greenwood sang his patriotic songs.  

The Johnny Cash Museum downtown Nashville.
He is my favorite country singer along with Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson.

We went to the Johnny Cash Museum. He was my favorite country singer, along with Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson. I wish we had all of his music. I never get tired of his deep voice. You can easily understand all of his words in his songs, unlike the modern country music that has loud instruments and volume too high to hear the singers. I like Willie Nelson's Roadhouse channel 59 on Sirius XM where they play the older music.

Plenty of Johnny's articles about his life and songs.

Some of his Gold Records.

His wall of albums. The left wall is also full of the records.

His home near Nashville was sold to the Bee Gees in 2006 after his death.
The house burned down after that.
This is a section of a restored stone wall from his house.

Johnny died in 2003 and June Carter Cash died in 2003.
"Hurt" was his last song and video.
He sat in this chair for the video.
Play it here from Youtube: Johnny Cash HURT

Here are a few other sights in downtown Nashville. You can visit plenty of bars and hear country music all day and evening.

Right across the street from the Johnny Cash Museum.

The Ryman was the first home of the Opry. It's still in use today.

Our last stop was the Antique Archaeology store in Nashville. If you watch American Pickers on PBS, this is Mike's Nashville store. Mike has another store in Iowa. Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz were not there! Frank has his own store in Savanna, IL. There are antiques in this store but also plenty of hats and tee shirts.

The store is inside the old Marathon Auto Plant. There are many items in the rest of the building that were part of the plant in early 1900's along with other antiques and a brewery.

Not a large store and a bit hard to find the door.

I saw this one on a recent show.

I used a Sun Analyzer in the late 1960's at my job as a GM mechanic at Chris Volz Motors in Milan Indiana. The one I used was a later model with an oscilloscope for ignition diagnostics and much larger, on a roll around stand. I wonder if I could still operate it? It would not work on any newer model cars. Cars back then had points and distributors!

A Loretta Lynn dress

More stuff, prices are quite high

Just what everyone needs

Sheriff Buford Pusser "Walking Tall"

We took a short drive from Red Bay Alabama to Adamsville, Tennessee in McNairy County. This is the home of Sheriff Pusser. He was a tough sheriff from 1964 to 1970. If you have seen the three movies about him, this was his home town. The first Walking Tall film starred Joe Don Baker in 1973, the second film Walking Tall Part 2 in 1975 starred Bo Svenson and in Walking Tall Final Chapter, made in 1977. There was a TV series in 1981 and two more remakes in 2007.

The museum is in his house and has many items from his days as sheriff. Law enforcement fro all over the country and the world have visited the museum. There are numerous items on the internet about him such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buford_Pusser that tell his story. He carried a four-foot hickory club for several years then finally carried a gun. He said "what's right is right and what's wrong is wrong, no matter who you are".

He was shot several times, including an ambush in 1967 where his wife was killed and he had his lower jaw shot off. He underwent numerous surgeries to rebuild his face and remained as sheriff until his term limit ended in 1970. He died in 1974 when he wrecked his Chevy Corvette while apparently driving too fast.

The original house was destroyed in a fire. He rebuilt this house on the same location.

The house is just as it was when he died in 1974

There are many articles about him in the museum

Confiscated items he collected

There are hundreds of shirt patches and items police officers have left to add to the displays

There are six records recorded about the sheriff

The Corvette that crashed. He was thrown clear of the car and the car burned in the accident

Rattlesnake Saloon

While at Red Bay, Alabama, the Rattlesnake Saloon is a place to see. This was our first time to go there and proved to be an interesting place. Our friends Rod and Sandy from Milford Ohio were at Tiffin for some service at the same time we were there and we went together to the Rattlesnake. It is a saloon but also a family place, located in a "cave" in the country north of Red Bay. They serve alcohol and food items. A band plays on Friday and Saturday evenings. They also have a campground and lots of activities during the summer. 

Starting off with a Taxi ride to the Cave.

Arriving at the cave

The saloon is under the cave.

View of the cave where the main seating is located

Outdoor seating is also available

The band setting up

Sandy, Rod, Lee and Mary and finger in the photo

The band was very good and the guy at the mic sang both male AND female lyrics

No cell phone service at the cave

It does look like a saloon

Glad this one was stuffed and a display case