General Jackson

We got up a little earlier than we might normally on our first day off.  Usually we’d sleep in, maybe until 9 or so, but we got up and we were out the door before 8 this morning.  First stop was breakfast.  When we were in Huntsville back in December we went to the Blue Plate Café on a recommendation from someone for breakfast.  We slept in that day and arrived at 10:05.  They had stopped serving breakfast at 10 and they were now serving lunch.  So we ordered lunch as everyone around us was still eating their breakfast.  This time we were more prepared.  After circling the parking lot a few times looking for a spot (always a good sign) we went inside.  Jackie ordered pecan pancakes with a side of cheesy browns (hashbrowns with cheese), and Chris got an omelet with a side of cheesy browns and, what else, a biscuit and gravy.

One of the reasons we got up early was because we had reservations on the General Jackson, which is a riverboat in Nashville, which was about two hours away.  Over the past several years, a guy that Chris works with in Huntsville has continuously recommended this boat, unfortunately the weather either never cooperated or we never had time.  This time we made the time.  Reservations were for a noon sailing, we had to be there at 11:15.  The drive up was fairly uneventful, there was very little traffic until we hit the city, and even then it was moving along well.  Interestingly, the GPS brought us to within a half mile of where we needed to be, but it was the wrong side of the river.  Yeah.  We knew it was taking us to the wrong place because when we had about a half mile to go we were still in a residential area.  We followed the directions to the end and they took us to Cooper Dr. rather than Opryland Dr.  Luckily we were not pressed for time, so we were able to drive up the river to the next bridge, and then back down to where the boat left from.  We boarded the boat and took a seat on the Hurricane deck, which is the top deck where there was a bar and a two man country band entertaining us until lunch.  We were in the second seating for lunch which was at 1:20, so we enjoyed the cruise from our seats while watching the band perform.  We admit it, we got beers before noon.  But Chris’s watch still is set to eastern time so in our mind it was after noon.  We then found out that everyone around us was from a Baptist church on an outing.  So needless to say, we drank alone.   The boat went down the Cumberland River for about an hour and turned around in downtown Nashville.  Right about that time we went inside for lunch.  Lunch was buffet style and it was actually pretty good.  We shared a table with a couple from Arizona and another couple who were local who were there with their parents.  The show was a country music show, Steve Hall and the Shotgun Red show.  One of the performers in the band impersonated numerous country singers and was pretty good.  We docked at about 2:45, snapped a few pictures and got in the car headed for the Jack Daniels distillery, about an hour and a half away.  The last tour was at 4:30 so we had to get going fast.