Author: Chris

Let me take you back in time…to March 2020.  Remember March 2020, when the world went crazy over Covid?

We had spent the last month in New Zealand and are happily making our way north to Auckland, where we were to board a cruise ship for a two week cruise to Sydney, Australia.  We planned to spend 6 more weeks traveling in the land down under.  Two days prior, as we are waiting to board the ferry from South Island to North Island, we discover our cruise has been canceled due to ports in New Zealand and Australia shutting down due to Covid.

Here we are five years later, wiser and more seasoned travelers, getting ready to fly to Sydney so we can finally continue our trip.  The trip has changed dramatically from what we originally planned, so on the plus side the Covid delay has ended up making for a much improved itinerary.  We will be in Australia for exactly 7 weeks, and our trip map is below.  Click on the box in the upper right for an enlarged view.

Yes, we are skipping the middle of the country and Ayers Rock, as well as Darwin and the surrounding area, but we decided to focus on the quality of sites we are visiting versus the quantity.  We are also limiting our time in the north as we aren’t big fans of heat and humidity.  As it is, outside of flights to/from home, we will be taking 8 flights within Australia, and that’s quite enough!  If you plan your own trip, bear in mind that Australia is roughly the size of the United States, so you’d have to spend months to really see a good portion of it.

A big shout out to travel agent “Kylie Luttrell” with The Travel Notebook!  She has been instrumental in assisting us with specific hotel choices and regions that are “must visits”.  If you are coming to Aussie, be sure to give her a shout first.  No fees of any kind, just excellent advice!  We arrive in Sydney this Tuesday, and we can’t wait to spend the next 7 weeks “down under”!

On our last day in Glasgow we were hoping to hit a local museum, but it was closed due to the weather.  The schools were also closed, so I guess it doesn’t take much snow to shut things down?  It was only a couple of inches!  We ended up walking around the main part of Glasgow, even though it was maybe 20 degrees out.  First we walked past the theater where we are attending our concert tonight.  Sold out!

In the center of Glasgow is the Public Square with the Barren County Courthouse.

There are several plaques around the square regarding the local history, this one regarding a Civil War skirmish on Christmas Eve.

This plaque commemorates local Willa Brown Chappell, the first African American woman to earn a pilot’s license in the United States.

Here is the back side of the plaque.  Willa was quite impressive, particularly for a Black woman coming out of the south!

In a corner of the square they had a Veterans Wall of Honor for all of the service members from Barren County.

Adjacent to the courthouse was this memorial to the Barren Country Confederates who died during the Civil War.

The only thing left for us to do was attend the concert!

We had purchased VIP tickets that gave early access to the concert for a somewhat private acoustic set.  There were 80 fans for this early set, so it was quite intimate.  While he only played two songs during this set, he spent about 45 minutes answering questions and signing autographs.

This is the interior of the theater from the balcony.  A fairly small venue with seating for about 1000.

We were fortunate enough to have purchased tickets months ago, so we were up close in the second row.  Check out Stephen’s guitar, which he affectionately refers to as “#1”.  The white patches on either side of the strings are masking tape.  Definitely old school!

He performed a new song towards the end of the concert that I ended up recording in full.  This is “Gary”, referring to a guy who can fix pretty much anything.  According to Stephen, “Ain’t a lot of boys named Gary these days!”

All in all, it was an excellent concert, and well worth the trip to Nashville and Glasgow!  We love Nashville and will  be coming back.  The next day we had some time to kill so we actually visited a Tennessee winery called Arrington Vineyards.  It wasn’t even worthy of a photo.  We did have lunch at this excellent little restaurant called Grindstone Cowboy.  As soon as I saw the sign on the door I knew we were in the right place.  The food was great as well!

One last shot of the sunset over Nashville as we were waiting to board our flight.

Up next, we are on our next big adventure, Australia!