Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

For this week's almost wordless Wednesday, I'm sharing our recent trip to the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville with you. If you've ever wanted to go, here's a chance to see some of the highlights for free. (A real ticket starts at roughly $25 a pop.) Hope you enjoy!

 As we drove into Nashville last Saturday morning, it was a typical, overcast winter day in the South.

 It wasn't terribly cold, at least. I think the highs were in the 50s for the day.

 Outside of the museum

 The atrium inside

And here are several photos from inside the museum -

There was a huge Kenny Rogers exhibit. (There was a giant Alan Jackson exhibit too, but it was pretty crowded and difficult to photograph.)

My fave part was the timeline of country music that ran the length of the 3 story museum. Each screen held video and audio from the various time periods of country music dating as far back as 1898. There were showcases facing the screen with memorabilia from each time period the screen represented. What you see behind the screen is across the open loft area and is the archives for country music from the Frist.

Country music posters lined the walls from floor to ceiling behind us.

I would've loved much more info about Patsy Cline; she's a favorite of mine.

Check out the details on this customized car.

I loved seeing the costumes and the musical instruments, so I snapped some shots of my favorites.

This was a great interactive display. The framed sections in blue are places to listen to the original recordings of these hits.

Antique recording studio equipment. As the fella put it, "You can probably record better sound today with your phone."

I loved Hee Haw when I was growing up - watched it every weekend with my great-grandparents.

The fella willingly posed with the infamous gold Cadillac belonging to Elvis. Look, there's even a small smile. :)

My grandparents had an antique jukebox similar to this in their house when I was a kid.

So, of course, we had to take a picture in front of it. Selfies for dayzzz!

I had to take a pic of myself in a Stetson when we visited the museum store.

Downstairs on the second floor, there was more of a focus on country music from the 50s until today.

I loved seeing original song lyrics written by hand.

The fella was pretty excited to see the car from Smokey and the Bandit, so I snapped this shot of him next to it. Maybe it's a guy thing?

I was at this concert!

Do ya see me peeking out of the giant guitar? It was an area designated for kids, but I climbed up in there anyway. (Peer pressure from the fella - lol)

And here we are posing in front of a Christmas tree outside the museum store that connected the museum to the Omni Hotel.

Another tree in section connecting the museum to the hotel. This area was gorgeous and filled with amazing shops that looked VERY expensive.

I love these wreaths on the doors of the museum. They're made of rolled up country music poster prints. I could so do this with scrapbook paper, I think. Might have to give it a try.

One farewell shot of the atrium/entrance.

The verdict: I enjoyed going to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and am glad I had the opportunity to visit it. (Thanks to the fella who did this for me for my birthday. It was kind of a sacrifice for him because he doesn't really even like country music. Pretty sweet, right?)

The museum seemed to be geared primarily to teenagers in some ways because of the Taylor Swift education center on the third floor, the interactive elements on the second floor, and the emphasis on current musicians for a significant portion of the museum. (I didn't take a lot of pictures of those things because they didn't interest me that much.) There was no way I was going to sing a demo and have my picture taken for the world to see, so I didn't spend much time in those sections.

I wish there had been more of a connection between exhibits and better soundproofing between parts that we visited. In the Bakersfield area, for example, it was hard to listen to the audio demos because there was so much interference from other music that was playing around the rest of the exhibits. The layout of the museum wasn't great in my opinion either. There seemed to be lots of wasted or empty space - empty display cases on the second floor, winding exhibits that were one sided only, etc. Perhaps they're just leaving room for expansion.

We spent about 3 hours in the museum, and we moved through the exhibits pretty quickly. I definitely think we got the value of our ticket price out of the experience, but it's not a museum I'd want to visit again. For whatever reason, I preferred the intimacy and concentration of the Johnny Cash Museum that we visited a few weeks ago. I'm still glad we did it and recommend you give it a tour if you're ever in the Nashville area.

My wordless Wednesday got a little wordy there, sorry peeps. Hope you enjoyed all the photos!