Days 37 to 41: Nashville Halloween!

I arrived to Adam and Craig's house, located in a southeastern suburb of Nashville, around 8:30 on Wednesday evening.  They didn't waste any time introducing me to some local Nashville nightlife and after a brief tour, we were on our way to a neighborhood pub which was having a karaoke night with free hamburgers.  We met up with some of Adam's co-workers, had a few beers and caught up on old times before retiring relatively early back at their pad. 

Lots of variety everyday!

The next day I took a 20 minute drive into Nashville to explore the city on bike.  I parked in an expensive lot and rode away toward the Nashville Farmers' Market.  They've got an excellent year round farmers' market and a great food court where I stopped for lunch before finding out what produce the market offered.  The long southern harvest season provided a wide range of veggies including broccoli, tomatoes, squash, zucchini, eggplant, and lots of sweet potato.  I picked up some local honey, kale, onions, and a big basket of sweet potatoes which I hope will keep well along the rest of my trip.  In addition, I found one special food that really reminded me of Taiwan; hog jaw. 



Hog jaw; fun to say and great to eat!

 I always admired the Taiwanese for being able to cook nearly every part of an animal and usually make it palatable.  The hog jaw in particular reminded me of "pork rice", which is stewed pork (chopped finely from meat to skin) over rice.  I hadn't yet in America seen pork sold with the skin still on it so the hog jaw immediately perked my interest.  It was a cured piece of meat fat and skin with a string through one end which was used to hang the piece during smoking.  It possessed an intense Hickory scent and best of all, I didn't need to be refrigerated.  I purchased a medium sized piece and brought I back to try. 

That night I cooked up some hog jaw with kale.  It was fantastic.  Cutting the fatty chunk into small bacon slices and frying it before adding the kale provided for the oil, salt, and plenty of flavor.  After dinner we got the house ready with decorations for Friday's Halloween party.  By the end of the night we were just about ready for the party and the only things missing was the keg, some fried cakes, and my costume. 

From right to left: that art guy, Ozzy,
toga man, Night Rider Hasselhoff, and
the crazy doctor

On Friday morning I picked up a box of fried cakes and went on a last minute Halloween costume hunt.  I hadn't put much thought into what I was going to be so, of course, no original ideas presented themselves.  Instead, I used a costume idea from my old co-worker and good Kiwi friend, Daniel, which was a crazy bloody doctor.  I located a costume shop and bought an overpriced costume before heading back to Adam's for some last minute preparations.

A beer pong table accented with Christmas
 lights about host another round

Alas, party time began as guests dressed in an array of characters arrived.  We had plenty to drink and eat (most of which went unconsumed) as well as some fun games to play.  Beer pong has apparently remained popular since I left America 7 years ago, now however, even when I win I still lose.  The party rolled by quickly as I mingled and conversed with new friends beside the fire pit, which was a key source of heat on the nippy Tennessee evening.  Finally, my head started to become heavy and I knew it would be best to hit the hay despite the ongoing fun.  A quick worship to the porcelain god ensured a morning in which I could actually function. 



Craig packing up camp
at a great free site which
featured a fire pit, logs,
and a stream for water.

 Saturday started late and slow.  Craig and I decided that it would be best to head up to Mammoth Cave National Park that night to camp so that we wouldn't have to make the drive into Kentucky on Sunday morning.  We arrived about an hour before the park offices closed and just in time to get a back country camping permit and pick up our tickets for the next day's wild cave tour.  We got the last site available and it was an easy 4.5 mile hike through fairly level forests before we reached our free camp site in the dark.  I put the hog jaw to the back country test and whipped up a mean veggie, quinoa and hog jaw mash beside a warm fire.  We slept through the cool night without the rain fly on my tent and the stars were prominent beside the waning moon. 

The next morning we quickly packed up camp and made the 75 minute hike back to the car.  We met in front of the visitors center just in time for the wild cave tour to begin.  The two park rangers who would be leading the tour greeted us and gave us a quick run down about what we'd need to do to get ready.  Their tone at first was forewarning as they have had people get in over their head in signing up for this tour.  I wasn't discouraged and no one else in the group seemed to be either.  Everyone was directed to put on a pair of coveralls and knee pads.  We also got a pair of gloves, a helmet and a head lamp.  Then the old school bus took us over to an entrance of the cave that had been blasted about 90 years prior.



Craig almost got stuck in the Bare Hole

 We began our tour on Cleveland Ave., a wide section of the cave with lots of small holes leading to different corridors of the massive underground labyrinth.  The guide had informed us that the first part of the tour would be something like a test.  How the group negotiated some tight fits and small passes would determine what we did after the lunch break.  The first test was a fairly small pass which required a sort of crouched, left foot forward slow motion gallop.  It was awkward exiting the narrow hole from that position and you even had to turn your helmet to the side to make it out. 

The next test was even tighter.  It was named the Bare Hole because it has a history of stripping passers' clothes off and baring all on the other side.  I made it through with some squirming and scratching; clothes intact.  I realized when passing through this and other crawling only spaces that I had unwittingly been practicing this motion every time I crawled into the back of the Pathfinder for a night rest. 



This advertisement for tonic was
written by candle smoke in 1869.

 Before we knew it lunch had come and it turned out that Craig and I were the only ones on the tour who were unaware of the fact that there is actually a restaurant in the cave.  Fortunately, the only thing we missed were overpriced and unimpressive sandwiches.  Along the cave walls in the bigger areas like where we ate lunch we saw lots of cave graffiti.  Actually, it was candle smoke writing from as far back as the early 1800s.  Some were advertisements some thanked guides and others recorded fond experiences or pioneering discoveries. 


Passing through these
corridors was the easy
part of this tour.



As we crawled, climbed, and found our way through the cave, I was fixated on how and by who this cave was originally pioneered.  It turns out that one of the original explorers (at least with recorded data) was a slave by the name of Stephen Bishop all the way back in 1838.  I couldn't imagine solo exploring the cave and going through some of his passes with a head lamp and modern gear, let alone with a lantern and candle. 



Cavers, not spelunkers

 The second half of the tour wasn't as claustrophobic.  We traversed through canyons and made one more tight squeeze through No Name pass, a 4 meter stretch of crawling with no more than 35cm of space from floor to ceiling.  We stopped for a moment and all turned off our lamps and kept silent.  My eyes couldn't even see my hand waving in front of my face while my ears struggled for a purpose in the absolute silence.  At the end of the trip we rejoined one of the main cave avenues and saw some of the more interesting formations that I'd expected to see the limestone make. 

When we finally exited the cave in the afternoon it felt like coming out of a movie during the day, when some how the light of day surprises your senses.  We'd learned a lot on the tour about the history of the cave, the ongoing exploration and that the difference between cavers and spelunkers is that cavers rescue spelunkers.  Hungry, we used Urban Spoon to find a great Mexican restaurant for dinner before heading back to Nashville. 

Some of the cool
limestone formations

Dark Star Orchestra, Halloween
night in Nashville, TN

We really had a full day and it was only half over at that point.  Craig had bought us tickets to go see Dark Star Orchestra, the Grateful Dead cover band.  Dark Star doesn't just cover Grateful Dead songs, but rather they try to recreate Dead shows by using original set lists and matching dates to actual previous Dead show locations.  On this special Halloween occasion however, they didn't keep to the set list and instead played two long sets of fun jamming tunes.  My favorite song of the night was Werewolves of London, to which everyone howled, danced and sang.  The show didn't end until 1am and we were all exhausted by the time we got home.  Lots of credit to Craig and Adam to making it through a long day of work after that night. 



Jack's is just one of
several BBQ joints on
Broadway Ave.



Southerners got the BBQ down, but
they've still got some room for
improvement with their sides
TN pork shoulder sandwich with
corn and chunky apple sauce

 On my final day in Nashville I headed back to the famers' market to stock up on some zucchini, onions, peppers and hog jaw.  I also had planned to go to a traditional black barber shop for a shave (a way of connecting with an unfamiliar group) but all the shops I had planned to go to were closed on Mondays.  So it goes; I can shave by myself anyway.  For lunch I stopped in for some more southern BBQ at Jack's.  It had been recommended and I wasn't let down.  I got the pulled pork sandwich and a Yankee's education on southern BBQ sauces.  I really enjoyed the sweet and smokey flavor of the Kansas City sauce they had, while the North Carolina vinegar sauce was good in moderation. 



Adam and I on J Percy Priest Reservoir
in his newly repaired boat

 I got back just as Adam was finishing work and we went to pick up his boat that was having some repairs made to it.  We took the boat out with one of his co-workers and her friend.  It ran well for being a 1986 and he showed me around some of the islands and coves on J Percy Priest Reservoir, a lake which is less than a mile from his house.  We smoked some chicken, cooked up some hog jaw collard greens and watched some Monday night football.  It was a lot of fun visiting Nashville and thanks a lot to Adam and Craig for their warm southern hospitality.