Two full days of country, cowboy boots, cabernet

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- So I traveled south this weekend to Nashville and here is what I learned. The politically correct term is Western boots, not cowboy boots. Dale Earnhardt Jr. has eyes for LeAnn Rimes and never order wine at a honky-tonk bar.

All very useful pieces of knowledge if you're going to successfully navigate Nashville, Tenn., during the weekend of Sprint Sound & Speed, a collision of country music stars and NASCAR drivers picked to spend a day together chatting about the world's problems.

Well, actually it ain't that deep, but they did talk a lot about the struggling economy, which most of them are immune too but nevertheless showed genuine concern for.

For the most part, the conversations centered upon the parallels of their respective lives laced with humor warranting courtesy laughs from the audience.

That was until resident NASCAR clown Michael Waltrip gave one fan the uber-cheesy, lime green sweater off his back and then later followed the gesture up with the most disturbing innuendo I have ever heard from a driver in a public setting. Two words: bowling alley, but more on that later. Meanwhile, my two-day diary.

5 p.m. -- Agonizing over the fact that I had nothing even remotely "country" to wear to the concert, I settled for camouflage Pumas and hiked it to Nashville's Sommet Center to pick up my credentials for the weekend events.

Although at first glance, it seemed to be a crazed Baltimore Ravens party. The streets were crawling with yahoos in purple garb gearing up for Saturday's playoff game with the Tennessee Titans.

"Hey Raygs, this is for you!"

The fact that a fully-loaded NASCAR hauler was parked downtown on Broadway failed to impress passersby. Nevertheless, I was ready for the "Sound" portion of the event as Julianne Hough from Dancing with the Stars, Rodney Atkins and Montgomery Gentry were to perform at 8 p.m.

6 p.m. -- Realizing I got to the joint way too early, I wandered over to Rippy's, probably the best honky-tonk bar for people watching. It's built with huge glass windows that stretch along both the Broadway and 5th Avenue sides of the building. Here is where I learned my first lesson. A glass of house cabernet is not the favorable choice on the menu. The waitress looked at me with a blank stare and returned with a tiny, airline-style bottle of Sutter Home. Gee thanks. My bad for not ordering something more suited to my environment such as a shot of Jack or a cold Bud. Besides, you can't boot, scoot or boogie with a glass of red sloshing onto the floor now can you?

7:30 p.m. -- It's almost time for the concert to start so I summon my husband to join me so I don't look like a lonely orphan or get scooped up by some of those crazy purple people on the streets.

We meet at the Sommet and somehow, instead of finding our seats in the crowd and reviewing the performance from there, we both get shuffled in with the media photographers and videographers. Organizers station us on the concert floor front and center.

JACKPOT! My neck hurts but who cares. I get through the infectious, poppy sounds of Julianne Hough and try to keep the mental images of her and Helio Castroneves out of my head. She is good, but I expected to see more dance moves. The man with the moves came about six songs and an uncomfortable moment with Kyle Petty later.

8:15 p.m. -- As you know, the merger between Gillett Evernham Motorsports and Petty Enterprises was finalized before the Sound & Speed event, whose proceeds benefit the Victory Junction Gang Camp founded by Kyle and Pattie Petty.

So Kyle took the stage and thanked the audience for their support and once he headed backstage, I trotted after him to ask a penetrating, hard-hitting question about his reaction to the merger and if he would be in a Cup car next season.

Um, yeah. I choked, stuttered and asked, "So what is your best memory of this place?" Uggghhhhhh! It's was kind of like when Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing asked Jennifer Gray's character why she was at the dance club. Her answer: "I carried a watermelon." That was my "I carried a watermelon" moment of the weekend.

9 p.m. -- Deflated, I ran back to my spot under the stage and prepared to experience my cheek-blushing moment of the weekend. Rodney Atkins came on stage and remember, I'm in a mix of faceless photographers snapping photos up at the stage.

When Atkins starts singing These Are My People I shriek because I know the words and proceed to sing along. I'm the only media type singing my heart out. Nearing the end of the first verse, Atkins, in all his hotness, waved to me! I felt like a 16-year-old at a Jonas Brothers concert.

"My favorite memory -- is that the best you got?"

My husband rolled his eyes and quickly brought me back to reality. Later that night, I lie in bed wondering how Atkins got his jeans on. They were tighter than security at Fort Knox and I was sure his "can" was going to come screaming through if he jumped on that speaker just one more time. Anyway, he's my new favorite and he kind of looks like Martin Truex Jr. I had enough of the concert scene and wanted to hit the town.

Oh I forgot to tell you Kyle Petty's favorite memory: "I think it was when a [Victory Junction Gang Camp] camper sang Rodeo, a Garth Brooks song to Trisha Yearwood [Brooks' wife] on stage. It was great to see a camper imitate Garth Brooks."

9:45 p.m. -- The hubby and I are running loose on Broadway, home to dozens of famous honky-tonk bars like Tootsies with live country music pouring onto the streets. Oddly enough, I did hear a J.Lo riff coming from one of them. Bemused, I kept trucking right on over to The Stage, a wide-open country bar with a guy singing Jamey Johnson covers -- not to be confused with Jimmie Johnson covers. I asked the drunkard next to me who sang the song "In Color" and I swear he said Jimmie Johnson. Figures, he was a Greg Biffle fan, what did he know?

Someone who did have the 411 was the gentleman in front of me sporting a USAC champion Dave Darland No. 9 Sprint Car T-shirt. I told the man that I lived in Kokomo, Ind., Darland's native land, but he wasn't moved by our coincidence. Maybe it was because I had another glass of wine in my hand and not the beer I intended to swill. I was wearing camo but did not blend, if you know what I mean.

10:30 p.m. -- I was reaching my expiration date and I couldn't stomach anymore cheap wine without contracting a terminal headache. So, I bid farewell to my honky-tonk crowd and hailed a cab, but not before I tried to coax my husband into dancing with some bottle-blonde cougars on the way out! This is what we journalists call "color".

9:30 a.m. -- It's time to wander over to the Municipal Auditorium for the second half of my Sound & Speed event and this should involve more speed, such as chatting with Junior, Ray Evernham, Waltrip and those types. First I stopped for my traditional waffle at the Hilton breakfast bar. Unfortunately, the purple people were swarming the waffle maker; damn Ravens fans are everywhere this weekend.

11:00 a.m. -- I arrive at the makeshift media center inside the auditorium and prepare to settle in for a day of interviews with country stars and drivers. First to arrive was supermodel Niki Taylor and husband Burney Lamar, driver in the Nationwide Series. Turns out, Sound & Speed is where these two crazy kids met and fell in love in 2006.

"Better to be warm and ugly than cold"

With them was Aric Almirola and singer Richie McDonald, previously of Lonestar.

Almirola conducted his own interview.

"I have a question for you Richie. How often do you ride down the road with your family, you hear a song come on the radio, and roll down the windows and crank it up?"

McDonald replied: "Usually if one of our songs come on the radio, my kids say, can you change that?"

Noon -- Lunch time. Krispy Kreme donuts! There goes my calorie allotment for the day.

2:45 p.m. -- The next person of note would be Dale Earnhardt Jr. He's a regular at Sound & Speed and usually gets paired with the super cute country chicks. This year it was Danielle Peck.

The usual line of questioning about the upcoming season began mixed with some talk of his Nationwide driver Brad Keselowski. Then a media member from the Nashville music scene asked him about Peck.

"My family back home, they are going to have a ton of questions. Every time I come out to Nashville and meet some of these people, they get excited about it," Earnhardt said.

So I thought I'd get the family's question started by asking him which of these Nashville cuties he would date.

"That's tough," he said. "That is definitely difficult when you have to narrow it down to just one."

Everyone in the audience cracked up, but I genuinely wanted to know.

"I think LeAnn [Rimes]," Earnhardt smiled. "Obviously she's married, but he's probably the luckiest man in country music."

I think he should call Shania Twain. She needs a good, honest man.

5:00 p.m. -- Speaking of good men, Michael Waltrip is just about to tell me why he is running around in a T-shirt when it's 40 degrees outside.

While on stage answering fan questions and signing autographs, a female fan wanted his lime green sweater. I wanted Earnhardt's black Prada shoes but I wasn't going to ask the man for them, geez.

"She liked it and that was pretty awesome that she wanted it," Waltrip said. "I was kind of tired of hearing about it anyway. I probably didn't need to be wearing it."

Why, was it ugly?

"I didn't know," he said. "I thought it was pretty cool, but when I got here people started making fun of it. But let me just tell you what I'd rather be. I'd rather be warm in an ugly sweater than cold in this T-shirt."

Well said.

Later in his media interviews, Waltrip told us of his New Year's Eve celebration at the Mooresville, N.C. bowling alley.

"I bowled from 5:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. and my arm hurt worse than you could imagine the next day. But it was perfect. My daughter loved it. It was cool to have the family together," he said.

What was your high game?

"Well, the answer is 168. But the last time I went, I bowled 188. I thought I was getting toward a 200 game. That was the first time I had bowled in a long time. But I had to let my right arm heal because it really got sore, very bad. I couldn't use it for things that I'm used to using it for anymore."

TMI moment of the weekend!

Denny Hamlin saves Waltrip: "Like writing and whatnot."

Waltrip responds: "Yes, writing and whatnot."

6 p.m. -- And that was the end of the day until it was time to head off to the Wildhorse Saloon for what was called "The Groove," a red carpet type event for drivers and singers on their way to the silent auction portion of the night. And when I say silent, I mean so silent we were told not to report on it. That's a big 10-4, so I got restless and wandered next door to the Nashville Cowboy where they sold boots.

8 p.m. -- Here is where I met Jack Burger, my new best friend. He served me an adult beverage and gave me a full education on Western boots. Apparently I was completely in the dark about the culture of cowboy boots. I said I wanted some authentic cowboy boots.

That was my first mistake.

"They are called Western boots, you can't call them cowboy boots anymore," Burger replied.

After we established that, I told him that I worked for NASCAR.COM. Turns out, I was shopping at the same joint NASCAR president Mike Helton shopped before attending the red carpet event next door.

"Look at my new boots, they SCREAM country"

He picked up some fancy, lizard skin Lucchese classic boots and when I saw the price tag I almost had a heart attack. Who knew the price of Western boots rivaled those of Manolo Blahnik and Jimmie Choo. So of course now I wanted my own pair. That way Helton and I would be forever bonded in our footwear taste. Yeah right. But at least my boss, who fashions some black Python Tony Lama boots, should be impressed with my new knowledge.

Kyle Petty was also in Friday and picked up a couple pair, but his biggest purchase was custom-made Luccheses with hand-carved, sterling silver skulls on the sides.

Before I sat down on Burger's cow-skin church pew to get fitted for my own pair, I thought maybe I should head back to the Wildhorse Saloon. Nah, this was way more important.

After trying on at least four different pair, I realized I had tried on enough hides to start my own metropolitan zoo. Seriously, the man had elephant, crocodile, snake, water buffalo, cow, goat, ostrich and even horse!

Burger said the folks from PETA tend to stay away from his store, so my guilt faded once I realized how comfortable my new hand-made J.B. Dillon Reserves felt on my tired feet.

And with that, me and my new water buffalo hide walked home. I couldn't help but walk with an attitude.

Who knows, maybe this time next year I'll take on line dancing.