Our trip this year started off with a wedding — the son of an old friend was marrying a wonderful woman who we all liked — and we caught up with the show at the rehearsal dinner on Friday night. It was at Luigi’s House, which seems like a decent enough restaurant. The hotel, on the other hand, had a really hard bed, slow elevators, and questionable bathroom plumbing.
On Saturday, we went downstairs to a special room the wedding party had rented for the bridal party to prepare. They had a couple of hairdressers in, and then my wife spent a couple of hours helping the bridesmaids get made up — she’s got some makeup skills — and I took pictures.
Then it was on to the ceremony — which was nice and short — and then off to the reception, which turned out to be great fun. It was also a chance for me to try out the low-light shooting capabilities of my new camera gear. Between some fast lenses and the high ISO you can get from cameras these days, I was very happy with the results.
The next day, we got out relatively early and drove east into Indiana and then south down I-65. (I think every driving trip I’ve taken in this century has required a drive on I-65 in Indiana.) The sun was still up when we veered off I-65 to take highway 31 onto the Clark bridge for the river crossing into Louisville.
We checked into the Marriott Courtyard Louisville Downtown, which was very empty — I got a parking space right next to the elevator. This hotel turned out to be a lot nicer than the one we had stayed in for the wedding, with fast elevators, working plumbing, and a comfy pillow-top mattress on the bed.
For dinner, based on the recommendation of a coworker of mine, we drove back across the river for snacks at Cluckers, which turns out to be a surprisingly good place to relax on Sunday night after a long drive. It’s simple food in a laid-back environment, with a nice view of the river.
On Tuesday morning we got back onto I-65 the next morning and headed south toward Nashville. We were making good time, and so we were puzzled when Google navigation pinged to ask us if we wanted to take a route that was 4 minutes faster. That seemed odd, because hadn’t it already chosen the fastest route? Assuming it was a GPS glitch, I decided to ignore it.
A few minutes later we ran into a traffic jam and came to a complete halt. We weren’t even inching forward. We were stopped. Google Maps traffic showed the road solid red for the next half mile. It seemed likely that something bad had happened just ahead of us, but it was too far away to see what.
We had stopped just a couple of hundred yards past the off-ramp to Bethel road, and I could see a stream of cars getting off and turning left. I guess this was probably what Google would have advised us to do. As we waited, I saw a firetruck arrive on Bethel and take the on-ramp to the expressway ahead of us.
While I waited, I got out and took a few pictures, and I surveyed the landscape between the expressway and the ramp for the exit we had just missed, trying to decide if our Acura RDX could cross it. On the one hand, the RDX is sold as a crossover vehicle and has all-wheel drive. On the other hand, it’s not really much of an SUV. On the third hand, gently sloping land isn’t exactly challenging terrain. On the fourth hand, I’ve heard that grass can be unpredictably slippery or muddy. Ultimately, I decided to just wait.
After about half an hour traffic suddenly started crawling forward. As usual, people weren’t ready for it. If you’ve never been in a large expressway standstill before, it’s surprising how fast cars get moving once the blockage is cleared. They don’t reach a very high speed, but the impulse for the transition from stopped to moving propagates backward surprisingly fast. If you’re outside your car and you notice movement ahead, you need to rush quickly if you don’t want people driving around you.
When we reached the location of the blockage, our two southbound lanes were still blocked by about five or six emergency vehicles, and we all had to squeeze by on the right shoulder. Off to the left we could see an appalling mess. It looked like a guy in a white pickup had been towing a mobile home which had somehow gone off the left edge of the highway and flipped over the guard rail into the ditch. It had broken open, spilling blankets, clothing, shoes, coolers, and a hundred other personal effects all over. There was no way to tell if anyone had been inside. I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to let anyone ride in a trailer being towed that way, but I know some people do it anyway.
We eventually reached our first real vacation destination, the Opryland hotel. I had visited the place many years ago for a tech convention, although I stayed across the street in cheaper accommodations. Then a few years later, my wife and I passed through and had a nice dinner in the Cascades restaurant. This time, we were going to stay in the hotel for a few days.
The Opryland hotel is frackin’ huge. It’s got a couple of thousand rooms divided into sections separated by enclosed, climate-controlled garden areas filled with pathways, fountains, and restaurants. It’s a beautiful place, and I highly recommend you stop in just to see it if you’re ever in the area.
On the other hand, all of the meandering gets a bit tiring after a while, and it seemed that no matter where we wanted to go, it was always a long walk to get there (top speed: mozy). Wear comfortable shoes, and ask for a map or be prepared to ask directions a lot. The paths are confusing, and the bellman told me it takes about a month to really learn your way around.
Also bring a lot of money. A giant resort hotel like Opryland has everything you need for a few days, and it’s a pain in the ass to leave the property, so they get to jack up all the prices. And although the Cascades restaurant had some really tasty dishes that might be worth the money, there’s something just wrong about the overpriced burgers at Stax. And someome should tell them that selling bottles of Diet Pepsi for $3.50 makes Baby Jesus cry.
On Tuesday night we attended a show at the Grand Ole Opry. I’m not a huge fan of country music so I didn’t know any of the acts except Rascal Flatts, but my wife knew about half of them and she had a really good time. I had a good time too. Country music is a lot more fun when it’s performed live right in front of you.
A friend recommended that we try the Old Hickory Steakhouse in the Delta area of the hotel, so that’s where we ate on our last night. It was a meal to remember. First of all, because this was our anniversary vacation, the hotel comped the entire meal, which would not have been cheap.The Caesar salad was startlingly fresh, the steak was very good, and the side dishes were all great. The oddest thing I’ll remember about our meal, however, was our waiter, Paul.
All of the staff at the Opryland Hotel have clearly had impressive amounts of customer service training, but Paul took it to the next level: He was efficient without being brusque, friendly without being intrusive, attentive without being smothering, and he seemed to be a good spirited fellow in a way that didn’t feel forced. It’s weird to say this, but I think he might be the best waiter I’ve ever had.
That’s enough for now. I’ll wrap this up in the second half.
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