Whitsundays

Outdoing Pascal on the Moderately-Ofbeat-Older-Gentleman scale

Australia Day Weekend @ the Sunny Coast

Yosemite National Park

The four hour drive from San Francisco to get to the park was well worth the visit. It's just an incredibly beautiful and breathtaking part of the world. The vegetation and rock formations are of the grandest scale and the huge granite cliffs rise epically before you. It makes a visitor feel very small and insignificant.

Wandering through the park conjured up thoughts of Yogi Bear and Milo and Otis. It's just what you'd imagine typical North American scenery to be like.

It's fortunate for us that it was designated an area of national significance in the late 1800s, because tourism was just taking off in the area and rampant construction was threatening to spoil the wilderness. It was a landmark decision, because at that time, the idea of preserving land purely because of its natural and picturesque qualities was unheard of.

In parts, it would seem as though a giant has just smashed his fist into the side of the cliff face and sent boulders as large as houses tumbling down the mountain. To imagine the geological force behind the formation of the Yosemite Valley is incredible.

I bet you didn't know Nashville is home to the only complete and full-scale replica of the Parthenon in the world !!

That's right. I couldn't believe it when someone told me. It was built for the Tennessee Centenial Exhibition in 1897 and is now an art museum.

It's impressive from the outside, but more so inside. As you enter, there's a full-scale, gold-plated replica of Athena looming before awe-struck visitors. It's massive and shimmering, transporting you immediately to serious, stately cities of Europe and certainly seems a world apart from the banjo-pluckin', fried chicken-munchin', Whiskey-swillin' culture of Tennessee...

I think Nashville is pretty proud to have one-upped the Greeks by actually building a complete Parthenon, and not left it as a few crumbling pillars on a hill. The way they talk about it, you'd think Aristotle was a cotton-picker.

music and frostbite in the Nash'

The temperatures in Nashville have been freezing, and as I'm sitting here in the airport, it's looking like snow outside. Fortunately on the day I arrived, a man on the street lent me his winter coat ... he asked if he could borrow $12, and I gave him the money. In the end, he never came back for his jacket, and that $12 disappeared into the Nashville ether. Needless to say, I think I got the better deal because I would have froze without that jacket.

And on the second day as I was sitting eating my lunch in the park, a local charity worker offered me a hamburger thinking I was a homeless person. No idea about that one ??


THE STATION INN : The music city has the best nightlife. I found this tiny, dingy out-of-the-way venue where Bluegrass was born. If it means anything to you, I saw performances on the same stage where Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley, Don Reno and others all played. It was wonderfully exhilirating ... I could hardly believe the history of the place !

RYMAN AUDITORIUM : Me being a tourist on the Ryman Auditorium Stage (original home of the Grand Ole Opry, and where I saw the live radio show on Saturday night) ... It's where Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Elvis, Mae West, Katherine Hepburn etc all appeared. It's a very old building which has recently been restored.

Elvis' vehicle of choice at the Country Music Museum.