The plan was to take trip downtown Nashville. I had tickets to the shuttle from the hotel to downtown and also the trolley tours that would take me around downtown Nashville. But I was in no shape to do that. With the heat exposure of the previous day, I was too sick to move out of my bed, forget going into sightseeing or hobnobbing with people.

So, I stayed put in the hotel room, ordering room service (expensive, but nice!) and watching movies (very nice) and sleeping (great!).

Besides I was suffering from a sensory overload with all the planning, traveling, and blah blah.... So, it was great to relax, do nothing and we are done.

Saturday, was the seven-hour-guided trip to Lynchburg (Pop. 361), home of the Jack Daniels distillery. It is the oldest registered distillery in the country. On the way, I ask myself, do I like whisky? Like everything in Nashville, TN, the answer is 'not really', but the lure of visiting to a) check it off 'the list' and b) I like how alcohol (any alcohol) is made. 

Some of the quirks of this town:
1. The population listed as 361 for this town. Does it mean that every time a child is born, somebody has to leave town? Dunno the reason, and no one in town knew. Or they did know, and mentioned it to me in their thick southern accent and I did not understand.
2. This is the home of Jack Daniels... the whisky of this country... and it is a dry town! So, no sampling.... argh! What the devil! Apparently, the town had to appeal to the state and federal courts to allow the distillery to sell one 750 ml bottle per customer!
3. For a tiny town, it has more BBQ restaurants and souvenir shops in the square than it has actual houses.

The tour was great. It was indeed fun to see the process. In short:
1. Charcoal, is what makes Jack Daniels what it is, whisky of this country. Wood is stacked and carefully burnt for 3-4 hours to form charcoal. The wood stacks are called 'ricks' and so the building where it is made is called 'Rickyard'. This is where a group photo was taken and is posted on Jack Daniels website. Charcoal is then ground to form small nuggets.

2. Spring water is used to make the brew and it comes from limestone cave springs. There are several on the premises. This is iron free, pure water. The grain (corn, barley and rye) comes mostly from Texas. Together it forms the 'Mash'. When the mash is created, some of it is held back to mix with the next batch to maintain some consistency from one batch to another. This mash that is held back is sour, hence the name of Jack Daniels is also 'Sour Mash Whisky'

3. The Mash is cooked and fermented in copper cauldrons. This looks like goo! and smells even worse. The 'goo' is then distilled into clear liquid. This liquid is sent to the Charcoal Mellowing. This a huge barrel roughly six feet diameter and 10-12 feet tall, full of charcoal (made in step 1), and small water pipes dripping the clear spirit at the top. The liquid has to make it way down 10-12 feet of charcoal. This mellows the spirit. The spirit is then whisked away into barrels made of white oak. Interestingly, the barrels are one-time use only and then shipped to Canada, Ireland and other places for scotch aging. At the end, of course is the bottling and shipping.

For lunch I headed into the town square, and was completely overwhelmed with the thousands of bikers in town. We had managed to place ourselves right in the middle of a biker rally. It was frightening. The only time bikers I know are in the movies, and they were somehow always (atleast the ones I have seen) depicted as rowdy, mean, terrifying, brawling menaces. So, it was very scared me, wandering in this middle of nowhere town. For once, I was happy that this was a dry town! Yeah! At the very least no one was drunk. I wandered around trying to get some courage to step into a restaurant to get some lunch. I finally did! This restaurant is really informal with long tables and you pretty much sat anywhere and shared table with others around. The only place open was between a family and four bikers. Yikes! But my stomach got better of me, and I sat down. Within seconds a menu materialized and I buried my head in it. I could not decide what to order, so when the hostess came back to ask, I asked her to suggest something. Somehow, my conversation attracted the entire tables' attention. Perhaps it was my accent or perhaps they wanted to suggest. Within seconds, whole table was suggesting what I should eat, asking from where I was, and commenting that east coast does not make any sensible BBQ. I settled on BBQ chicken, red beans and rice (YUM!). Somehow, additional food items appeared in front of me, the folks at the table wanted me to sample almost everything on the menu. An hour tater, I was still at the table, not eating anymore, but chatting with everyone, as if we were old friends. I think each one of us were amused at the others accents. At least I was with the thick southern accent and they were pretty much tickled silly hearing me speak.

After spending annoying amount of money in Jack Daniels glassware and Whisky (Let me know, if you are a whisky fan, you can have the alcohol, as long as I get the bottle back), we headed back to Nashville. It was almost 4pm in the afternoon, and I was beginning to get sick! Not from food or 'foreign' water, not with anything else other than heat. It was blistering 96+ deg F. I went through half of my sunscreen (spf 30) bottle, but that does squat for heat itself. I fair well between 50-75 deg weather. Below 50, I am okay, but as soon as that gauge starts to edge towards 80 deg, I hide under available shade. If I don't, I am heading for disasters. I barely made it to my room and there was nothing else to do but, crawl under the sheets of comfortable 65 deg room and passed out. One would think I am drunk!

Wednesday, June 14th to Monday, June 18th, I was in Nashville, TN. The first 48 hours from the time I landed (around Wednesday noon time) till Friday noonish, I was working. But after that was all play time in the Music City of America. The next few days blog are really written on Sunday, but thought it was more meaningful if it is posted on the day it happened.

Friday afternoon, after seeing the team off, I wandered to the Mall next to the Gaylord Opryland. For one thing, I needed the exercise and for another, I had nothing planned and for yet another, it was too blazing hot to be outdoors. So, with an ice cream cone in hand, I wandered around aimlessly in the Mall. It is weird, when I have nothing planned to buy; that's when I find everything that I need, at the price I am willing to pay. Additionally, when I have limited space in bag to pack, that is also when I find some of the best deals, too irresistible to pass off. So, my solution was to pretty much 'weigh' everything I had as I shopped. I shopped at Dress Barn, Naturalizer shoes, Harry & David, Apple Barn, and odds & ends stores. At the start of my trip I had one rolling upright bag (22 lbs) and one laptop briefcase. By the time I was done; the weight in the rolling upright had crept to 44 lbs! And along with my laptop, a large brown bag with all the collectible glassware from Jack Daniels and Nashville, roughly at 10-11 lbs. I must be insane!

Y'all, I find myself in Nashville, TN (once again...). My previous trip, couple of months ago, was dedicated completely to work. I flew in, worked, and flew out and that was it. This time it will be different. I plan to stay couple more days and explore downtown Nashville and also go to Lynchburg... home of Jack Daniels.

I am writing this in my 'down-time'. So, must be short. But will add some pictures/words for this trip later.

But one thing I can write before signing off. I am ready to be home for a good while. I have been traveling this year. I have been to Nashville twice, once to New York and once to Spain, and tones of local travel. And I am so ready to store the bags for a while and sit back, relax and watch my yard bloom and play with kitties.

So Tranquil, So Content

This was taken in the Garden Conservatory of the Gaylord Opryland (Nashville, TN). I felt compelled to just sit down and relax. Peace is such a good thing

Y'all, I am back from Nashville. It was a quick trip with mostly work and some play. I did not stay back couple more days (as I usually do when I am in a new place). I was going to write more, but then decided that pictures are worth a thousand words. So, here are some highlights from the trip.

	With 85+ degree temperatures in Nashville, spring has already arrived in Nashville. One of the few times when we got out of the hotel, we wandered around in the neighborhood. Right outside the hotel is the Grand Ole Opry (Nah! Not a country music fan) and next to it is a huge mall. This shows the spring blossoms in front of the Grand Ole Opry.
	The Gaylord Opryland is an extraordinary hotel. It feels like being in a terrarium. There are multiple buildings/sections called the Cascades, Magnolia, Delta, Convention Center and the Garden conservatory. All these buildings have roof covers which allow plenty of day light, but keeps the outside at bay. Under these covered sections, the hotel has developed the Epcot like Southern architecture buildings and moat, complete with boat rides and an entire garden conservatory with palm trees and waterfalls, pathways, orchids and dining around the conversatory. This picture shows the Epcot like town re-creation.
	... continuing in the Delta section is the moat and waterways.
	... and the garden conservatory..
.... More pictures on their website.

I love to play card games
I enjoy good alcohol
I have also had alcohol while playing card games

What I have never done (well, until now), is play card games involving drinking. The record has been broken! Second day into the event in the evening, the powers that be and the hotel organized the simple affair with pizza (yuck), chicken fingers and bottomless cases of Heineken, Bud Light, Miller Light, Beringers White Zinfandel and some other beers and wine. As we lounged after the long day of running around, giving directions and being 'on' constantly, this was the time to let the hair down and relax and enjoy each others company. The average age for this group is about 25 years! And one of them just turned 21!

The suspects


So, one person was sent off to look for a pack of cards. I hadn't the faintest idea of what I was getting into. This is what we played:

First Game: Kings Cup
The rules: A empty glass is placed in the center of the table and all players sit in a circle around it. This is the Kings Cup. All cards are shuffled and spread out face down around the empty glass. All players in turn pick a random card and turn it over. Based on what the face value of the card the following actions need to be done.

Ace: Waterfall. When this card is drawn, the all players starting from the players left (including the player) starts drinking in succession, that is each person waits for the player on their right to start and does not stop until the player on the right stops drinking. This is lots of drinking.
2: Is for You. The player who draws this card picks someone in the circle to drink.
3: For Me. The player who draws this card, drinks.
4: Touch the floor: All players must touch the floor, the last one drinks
5: Guys drink: All guys drink
6: Chicks drink: All the girls drink
7: Raise hand to heavens: Everyone must raise hand to the heavens, the last one drinks
8: [Best one] The player decides on a rule and implements it anytime, and other players have to watch and follow suit, the last on drinks. (The only rule that got made was: Thumb on the table. This meant whenever the player who decided the rule, invoked it, the others had to follow suit...needless to say, who remembers when you are all tipsy and there is lots of nudging going on to remind people).
9: Bust a Rhyme, The player starts a rhyme, and player on the left must add a new sentence that rhymes.
10: Category: The player who pulls the card, decides on a category, such as car models, dog breeds, name of people/places etc) and then each player in the circle starting from the left of the player, has to give and example of the category such as for the category car models it could be Toyota, Mercedes etc etc. If the player cannot come up with an example, stalls or mentions something duplicate, the waterfall of categories stops and the player drinks.
Jack: Back, person to the left to player drinks.
Queen: Question. The player drawing this card, picks another player and asks a question (any random question). The recipient player turns someone else (who has not been asked) to ask a question to another player. This goes around, until either the player cannot remember to ask the question, or answers the question instead of asking forward, or asks a person already asked.
King: The player that draws the King, pours (any amount) some of the drink into the center glass. Each time the king is drawn, the drawing player will add to the center glass.... So depending on the crowd and what the mix of drinks that are going around, the center glass can be a serious drink. The last person to draw a king (one deck = the fourth king), then that player has to drink from the center glass.

Second Game: Up the river & down the river. This one has a very high get-drunk and buzzed factor.
This game involved a full deck of cards and about 11 people. It is usually played with 6 people per deck, but we were too many people and not enough cards. So we played a drastically modified version.  We played with the following rules:
1. Everyone sits in a circle including the dealer.
2. The dealer in turn asks each player in turn: "Red card? or Black?". The player has to guess if the card to dealt will be from the red or black suit. If the player guesses correctly, then player asks anyone in the circle to drink and if the guess is wrong the player drinks.
3. Round 2 dealer asks: "Over or Under?". The player has to guess if the card value to be dealt will be over or under the first card dealt to the player. Again if guessed correctly, player asks anyone in the circle to drink, otherwise drinks themselves.
(Of course, nothing stops the other players simply drinking).
4. In the next round the dealer asks: "Inside or Outside?". The player has to guess whether the next card to be dealt will be within the two cards already dealt or outside the two cards. If it is value is same as either or both cards, then it is considered inside. The drinks go up in this round. If the player guesses correctly, then player can asks any two other players to drink (player can also ask just one other player to take two drinks.... nasty!).
5. Onto the next round, Eight cards a placed face down. Each is earmarked as (a) Give one (b) Take one (c) Give two (D) Take two.... you get the picture..... until the last two cards are Give four and Take four. Two other cards placed face down are marked as Drink Half and the other Drink Full. (Dang!) Each card is flipped over, and all players who have the same card face value, have to follow the earmarked instructions. So for example, if the face up card was earmarked Give Three, then the player with the same face value can dole out other players three drink requests. All three could be to the same player or split up with other players.

The third game.... by now, I must have had a whole bottle of wine and was a bit tipsy, but no buzzing in the head and that's when my super boss joins the party and introduces a vegetable game (nothing to do with cards). In this game, each player had to pick a vegetable that would be the players' given name. One player starts (funnily it is my boss) and the idea is to repeat your given vegetable name twice and pick some other name from the circle and repeat their name twice. Sounds easy? well, it ain't, because rule two is that you cannot show your teeth. So I could say "Corn Corn, Zuchinni Zuchini" (I was corn). The player named Zucchini would then have to respond with "Zucchini, Zucchini, <some other veg> <other veg>" And so on and so forth. Why is this game ludicrously funny? It is because, remember we have already played two drinking games, so everyone is already mostly drunk and on top of that the only way to really talk without showing teeth is to wrap the lips over the teeth.... and that alone maketh for jocularity.

And.... so on and so on.... by 10:30PM.... I was ready to call it day and head back to my room.