nashville TN: music city usa

Last Thursday, I had to go down to Chattanooga, Tennessee, to give a presentation to the brand managers of Chattem, makers of 22 health and medicinal product lines that are probably sitting around in your medicine cabinet. Amazingly, it turned out that one of my best friends, Alicia, lives only 20 minutes from Chattanooga, so after the Thursday presentation, we had 3 fun days of exploring to do.

Nashville is a very cute little city in the Midwest, also the capital of Tennessee and dubbed "Music City USA." It's home to the cable channel Country Music Television, the Grand Ole Opry, and scores of little country bars where famous musicians are said to have been discovered.

Here, you can see that the influence of music is so great, that even signs are in the shape of a guitar pick.












I took this picture of the Lawrence Record Shop as a little tribute to my brother:


And then, of course, there was the required group of gypsy kids panhandling and singing. This quartet, led by the squinty-eyed chap on the right, happened to be crooning the lyrics of "Hey There, Delilah," and they actually sounded pretty decent.


Nashville is also home of cowboys and all things western.




Miles and miles of boots as far as the eye could see.


Here are a few of my favorite pairs:




We stumbled upon Hatch Show Print, one of the oldest working letterpress print shops in America. They still make posters the old fashioned way by hand - and I was so excited to be in the actual print shop and take in all the posters they had displayed on the walls.






These are 2 examples of their posters:




Finally, Chattanooga itself is home to lots of great little shops and the quirky Hunter Art Museum, located on a rocky bluff overlooking the Tennessee River:


Sadly, the 3 days came to an end too quickly, and I soon found myself boarding the Delta puddle jumper...


...bound...


...for...


...Home Sweet Home.