Back from the Honky Tonk

Yet another UAR recon trip in the books. Nashville was very accommodating to us during our short stay. It was our 1st time in the city and I had envisioned a place where: a plenitude of country music would be played on street corners by tight jean/red cowboy boot wearing folks, we'd be greeted everywhere with "Howdeeee!", and biscuits and gravy would be served at every restaurant instead of bread and butter. I was 2/3 right. The street corners actually DO have country music playing - but it comes from black boxes perched on street posts(not real people). I didn't see much biscuits and gravy (some but not as much as I thought) - however, we were greeted by "HooowDeeeee!" but a lovely country-clad Miss (wearing red boots) at the Opryland Hotel.

We got the meet the folks at Walk Bike Nashville, Dave with Parks and Rec, Mike and Mike at Cumberland Transit, Austin and Josh from the Melrose, Brittney at Whole Foods, Dan and Scott at Eastside Cycles, Laurel at Team Green, and Andrew at Halcyon Bikes. That's a lot of meetings and we feel like the UAR will quickly become a big part of the bike scene in the Belt Buckle of the Bible Belt.

We didn't take too many photos this trip...here's a few:
Here's one of Jackie reminiscing about Hank Sr at our soon-to-be-venue
We did swing by the Opryland Hotel based on many recommendations. It was a sight to see for sure. We had no idea what to expect except we were told there's a boat that cruises around inside. There was indeed. It was a humongous hotel with a ton of restaurants all enclosed in this humid, bioshere with amazing Flora. But no Fauna. As cool as the plants were, we felt like we're in a Vegas casino - in that there were no windows, plenty of things to spend money on, and lots of people wandering around taking pictures. We lasted about 30 minutes. I bet a lot of folks book a room there and stay inside the whole time, with the primary goal of trying to hit each and every restaurant in the place. I'm sure this would take a week at least.
There was a very impressive selection of orchids growing from trees. Orchids are not the easiest plants to maintain, so this was mighty impressive to me.

Mr. Swift always always sends a steady stream of interesting tidbits my way. Here are a few:

This is a performance from the Grammys with T.I. Kanye, Jay-Z, M.I.A., and lil Wayne. I like this song a lot, but it's interesting to check its history....
This song is on T.I.'s album, Paper Trail, under the song title "Swagga Like Us". "Swagga like us", is a line from M.I.A.'s song Paper Planes which came out back in 2007, but was made famous when it was in the preview for Pineapple Express and more recently in the movie Slumdog Millionaire (good movie btw). But the main melody was not from a hip hop artist. Nope....it was none other than The Clash that created this tune on their song "Straight to Hell"

Here's a live version.

The Clash have been coming back in a big way. Another song I like as of late is Guns of Brooklyn (from Santogold and Diplo). This is a cover of Guns of Brixton. Check it out:


Moral of the story....LISTEN TO THE CLASH. They likely were the ones to first come up with that catchy tune you've been whistling for weeks.

In other Jesse news...Watch out for Zombies!

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Ok - that's enough for now. It's time for some lovin'
Happy Valentine's Day folks!!!!!