50 States Day 228

  Nashville and Thereabout, 64 miles
 
"If you do poor people stuff you'll be poor. If you do rich people stuff you'll be rich."

"You will either learn to manage money, or the lack of it will always manage you."
~Dave Ramsey



Tennessee's Capitol fell to the bottom, as the very friendly State Patrol security guy informed me it was closed for remodeling. "How about the visitor parking? I'll just walk around it and take a few pictures."

Nope. Closed too. I fed a meter and wandered around the perimeter, admiring the architecture, a Greek Revival (300 BC) design, the cupola different from all the others. Statues of Polk, Andrew Jackson and Andrew Johnson, three Presidents, stood on the grounds. Apparently Polk is buried there as well.



Downtown Nashville teemed with life; people walked the streets (and jaywalked like crazy), with cars and busses moving about. The architecture ran from mid eighteen hundreds to modern, like the Bridgestone Arena and the AT&T buildings. Honky tonks blared live music midday and lined both sides of the street.



I wandered into the State Museum, where they displayed more Civil War memorabilia and scenes. However, being the birthplace of Blues and music, they also featured a guitar section, which I practically ran through-just don't care-and an interesting Elvis collection, mostly candid shots from a professional photographer, taken quite early in his career, before it launched. I'm a bit young and didn't get caught up in the Elvis fever (Beatles, yes), but he changed music probably more than anyone else in the last hundred years. Since it looked to be rather close, I decided to visit Financial Peace University, home of Mr. Dave Ramsey. I fired up the Hotspot and iPad and spent twenty minutes waiting for the stupid thing to load as I called it very degrading names. Finally, while I waited, I spooled up the phone and got the GPS to work. I shut off the iPad and took off.



You can't hold a phone and listen for directions. And the Droid, another electronic machine that the entire planet seems to love beside me, has about a fifteen second battery life. Don't comment and tell me to put it in sleep mode. I know. So I shut off the phone and followed the first three directions-I thought. Missed one! Backtrack ten miles, check the phone again, yes, keep going and voila! FPU. Should have bought a Gold Wing with the Nav package. After that interview yesterday, I may trade her in for a Harley. Rolled into the campus and parked right in front for a shot. Parked in the motorcycle parking and hit the lobby. Cool, Dave was on, broadcasting and we could watch him through the glass, with the audio piped into the lobby. At the break, Dave dropped the headphones and entered the lobby, shook my hand and we got a picture. He worked through the small crowd, they got shots too and he went back inside and donned the headphones.


Dave Ramsey preaches financial responsibility and the wonderful ramifications of it, his mantra, 'get debt free.' He means it-house and all. The wall by the studio entry bore the fruit of his work-people who are debt free can write a bit about it.

Our church thought to promote a Dave Ramsey course for our people, since Vegas got body slammed from the recession. Over 900 people signed up, and retired over a million dollars in debt as a result! I highly recommend his course for his tools to manage money. Back to the Super 8 and Quilter Girl, who spent most of the day in bed-just feeling punky. Hopefully she'll be on her game tomorrow. Nothing worse than being sick on a motorcycle. Well, being sick on a motorcycle while chewing on glass would be worse. Or a chainsaw that-forget it.

And now, not exactly healthy but still wonderful, Quilter Girl!

Not much interesting here today as I laid around all day reading and sleeping.  It felt good, so I must have needed it.  This motel has been a nice place to stay with a manager who has been so friendly.  At breakfast this morning he told about the motel, with a great two story lobby way too classy for a Super 8 motel, with floor to ceiling windows on two sides, lovely wood finishes and a gorgeous chandelier.  He said they have just bought the place and are fixing it up to be ready for tourist season. Good luck to them.

QG

Tomorrow we head for Robbinsville and-brace yourself, motorcyclists-The Tail of The Dragon! This road is world famous, literally, as people come from everywhere to ride it. Part in Tennessee part in North Carolina, the Deal's Gap section contains 318 curves in eleven miles. Other sections include the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Skyway, more twistie fun. Tomorrow however, we'll just get there. See you then and thanks for following.

P.S.: I believe the Captcha (the idiotic thing that makes you spell the unreadable letters and numbers) is disabled on the blog for comments. Try it! If it's still activated, I'm not the computer genius I thought I was. Right!
 



 
 
 
 
 
 
 

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Kevin, Are you going to try and ride "The Dragon"? It's on US 19? AWESOME ride... Plus other very scenic rides in that area.

Anonymous said...

Just be careful because the croch rockets get crazy on the week ends.They get crazy in the week days too but less of them. Hit you head on or pass anywhere.

Pam said...

thereabouts...honky-tonks....I just love all your new vocabulary you are learning on this trip!!!

Unknown said...

We'll be riding the Tail of the Dragon, at a leisurely clip. The R-6 is at home, and while it would be SO much fun, probably best to do it on the Gold Wing.
KP
And Pam, I'm learning lots of new things and words!
KP