Day: August 26, 2025

Nashville day 2

When Duke and I are traveling in Europe we often start the day with croissants and coffee. So this morning, since we are traveling in the United States and we thought we should have the equivalent North American experience. We went to Parlor Doughnuts and had a couple of really really good doughnuts and coffee.

We shared a bourbon carmel doughnut and a maple pecan doughnut

This afternoon we went to Parnassus Books. It’s a bookstore owned by one of my favorite authors, Ann Patchet. We spent a wonderful hour browsing. We bought four books, including two autographed by Patchett. I love bookstores! And Parnassus was wonderful.

Inside Parnassus Books with our purchases
The books we bought

For dinner we went to a barbecue place that Allison recommended, Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint.

Dinner
Our Barbecue platter to share

Tonight we went to show at the Grand Ole Opry. The show was celebrating the 25th anniversary of Pam Tillis being inducted into the Grand Ole Opry. We had great fun. Besides Pam Tillis other artists included Vince Gill, Russell Dickerson, Lorrie Morgan and Suzy Bogguss.

The Grand Ole Opry
Part of the show

After we returned to the hotel we went out to listen to a couple of bands on Broadway..

The Wasted Degrees
The second group whose name I don’t remember

Indianapolis, Indiana to Nashville, Tennessee

This morning we were checked out of our B&B, and at the Indiana State Capital for the first tour of the day at 9am. We are working on visiting all the U.S. state capitals and Indiana is a new one for us.

The Indiana State Capital. They are working on the dome.
In the senate chamber
The Indiana Supreme Court chambers

Then we drove to Mammoth cave in northern Kentucky. We had a picnic lunch and then took the Styx River tour. The tour was 2.5 hours long and we went for a 2 mile hike in the cave. We went to the lowest level of the cave almost 300 feet underground where the Styx River flows.

In Mammoth Cave
We went through some very narrow parts

When the devastating floods happened in this part of the country in April of this year the water in the cave reached the highest level that has ever been recorded. During the storm the benchs that we sat on at the lowest level of the cave were under more than 10 feet of water. The park service put markers on the wall showing the high water points in previous floods. You can see them behind the ranger in the picture. The new high water point was higher than the roof at that point. They installed a new high water marker farther up the stairs.

These benches were under 10 feet of water
You can see the high water marks from previous floods in the background
The new high water marks

From Mammoth we drove to Nashville where we will be for three nights. We had a great dinner at a restaurant called The Southern Steak and Oyster. Then we went along Broadway to listen to some music.

Baby back ribs
At a bar called The Valentine
Broadway in Nashville

We came to Nashville for our honeymoon 22 years ago. It’s fun to be back!