My name is Marion Vermazen. I am a traveler, hiker, reader, Sun alumnus, computer geek, YouTuber, Spanish and French language student, knitter, weaver and genealogist.
We had a wonderful wedding weekend in Memphis. Our VRBO was perfect. 13 members of our family from all over the U.S. stayed there. We had lots of great opportunities to catch up. And we were only a few blocks from Beale Street.
On Sunday we went to see the famous ducks walk to the fountain in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel.
I didn’t take any pictures to day. We drove from Nashville to Memphis where my niece is getting married on Saturday. A lot of family is converging on Memphis. It is so fun to see everyone.
This morning we went to the Pancake Pantry for breakfast. It is right across from our hotel. It was a nice surprise and we had a great breakfast. They had warm real maple syrup and their own home-made cinnamon crème syrup.
After breakfast we went for a walk.
This afternoon we were going to visit The Frist museum of Art. But it is closed on Wednesdays.
Tonight we were hesitant to go to Nashville’s only Jazz club for dinner and a show since it seems like when you are in Nashville you should listen to country music. But we decided to go to Rudy’s Jazz Room anyway and I am so glad we did.
We saw the Dana Robinson Quintet. All of the artists were exceptional. Dana Robbins is a Grammy winning saxophonist who has played with Keith Urban, Ken’ Mo, Aretha Franklin and Taj Mahal. She brought out the best in the whole band. The show was stupendous. I think it was the best of our trip so far.
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.
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.
For dinner we went to a barbecue place that Allison recommended, Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint.
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.
After we returned to the hotel we went out to listen to a couple of bands on Broadway..
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.
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.
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.
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.
We came to Nashville for our honeymoon 22 years ago. It’s fun to be back!
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