Tuesday, June 20, 2023
Mammoth Cave, KY -> Nashville, TN
Biking - N/A
(the picture below is Mammoth Cave, not Taylor Swift's crib by the way)
Sorry about the late post guys - I hate disappointing my fans, but it is late because due to torrential rain, I put my laptop in Vin’s backpack since we (except Lucy) abandoned our campgrounds in Mammoth Cave to go to Nashville on our break day since we had squeezed into a cave tour the day before! It was the road trip of the summer that I had been dreaming of. Andrew drove us there and back, thank you so much, Andrew, because I was the driver the day before, shuttling people back and forth between Lebanon and Mammoth Cave in the pouring rain.
Side note: I actually hate being the driver because for some reason, whenever it is my turn to drive, it is never chill. Sometimes drivers get to take naps in church parking lots or buy smoothies at the local cafe, but whenever I drive, I honestly work harder than my biking days.
Furthermore, I’m an anxious driver and I also get car sick, and there was a lot of anxiety (cue low rain visibility) and some car sickness, even on my part that day.
Back to our journey to Nashville. We ended up at the Nashville Public Library, bought some cookbooks, looked at some rare book collections, and also met a librarian who went to school in Boston (Simmons) and met her husband in Rotch Library - the architecture library at MIT. I got my blood pressure measured by Vin, and apparently something is wrong - also think I’m anemic again, but all is well.
Next stop, we just wandered around Broadway St., bought some postcards at the Country Music Hall of Fame (but didn’t go in because it is too expensive, around $30 for a student ticket), and took photos of Taylor Swift-related things. Most importantly, we had hot chicken!
Fun fact - I recently learned about why Nashville is the home to country and bluegrass music from a podcast recommendation, thanks Freddy! Apparently, it’s because an insurance company launched a radio station, WSM, as an marketing ploy. The radio station then became so popular that people would go down to Nashville to try and catch a glimpse of the musicians playing while they were live on air, and before you knew it, people like Elvis and Taylor Swift were going there to try and make it.
Then I continued my grand college tour, and visited Vanderbilt (when we were in Lexington, VA, we went to Washington and Lee University). I correctly guessed that Vanderbilt would be good at baseball, but their campus was a bit disappointing. Maybe because it was super humid, kind of rainy, and I was very tired.
All in all, it was a very successful day. We had curry for dinner, and then went to sleep in our musty tents, a situation that is yet to be resolved.
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