Nashville

Nashville was interesting in that it was the first stop on my road trip where I had an entire day to myself. I wasn't really sure what to do. I realized that I had put a lot of time and effort into planning the stops on my road trip but hadn't even considered what I would do at those stops. I just assumed that I'd get there and kinda figure it out. So there we were, grizzly and I, figuring it out.

"Damn hot" was a little ambitious

First I decided to investigate something called "hot chicken." Apparently it's a local Nashville thing which is similar to buffalo chicken, only different. I went to a place called Hattie B's Hot Chicken and ordered the hottest hot chicken on the hot chicken menu, or at least I tried to. I ordered the "damn hot" chicken, and in retrospect I'm glad I didn't see that there was one level hotter, a level called "shut the cluck up." The damn hot was apparently made with seasoning that contains ghost peppers and caused me to break out into a nice sweat while eating it. While I was sitting there sweating profusely a nice couple sat down at the table and chatted with me. I told them I had come from New York and they said something along the lines of, "I bet strangers don't just come up and talk with you when you're in New York City!" They were trying to make some kind of statement about southern hospitality so I just smiled and nodded, but in reality strangers would talk to me all the time in New York. More than I wanted, even. I think it was a combination of them holding the misconception that everybody in New York is cold and aloof and also not fully realizing that strangers can come up and talk to people for reasons other than warm hospitality. Something they would learn quickly if they ever visited the city, I'm sure.

Grizzly demanding to be bathed

After drying the sweat off of myself I decided that Grizzly had been spending too much time in the car and hotel rooms so I found a nearby dog park to take him to. The park was huge but it didn't take long for grizzly to find the only small patch of mud in the whole park and lay himself down in it. I didn't really bring any dog cleaning supplies with me either, so when I got back to the hotel room I tried to give him a bath in the shower. It quickly devolved into me just taking a shower with grizzly, almost exactly as depicted in this family guy clip. Except that in the clip the guys dog isn't so short that he has to hold him up to the shower head to rinse him.

For dinner I stopped over at a place called Peg leg Porker, which was coincidentally in the middle of having TV show filmed there. Some lucky people got interviewed while eating but I guess I didn't make the cut. I ate my ribs on my own while jealously watching other people eat with television cameras and boom mics in their faces. Maybe I'll be in the background in one of the shots though, I can only hope. The ribs were awesome too, and I think it was the first time I've had "dry" ribs. "Dry" just means that the ribs have a thick crust of seasoning instead of barbecue sauce, and you get to add your own sauce while you're eating them. At least that's what it means in my case, as I slathered them with a thick coating of hot sauce before ingestion. You can probably tell from my pictures that I'm not all that creative about picking sides. In my defense, both times I ordered I asked the employee what they recommended for the sides and both times they said beans and mac and cheese. Totally not my fault!