{"id":11635,"date":"2021-09-19T11:37:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-19T18:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/BigJimIndustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=11635"},"modified":"2021-09-23T11:40:41","modified_gmt":"2021-09-23T18:40:41","slug":"cruising-nashville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2021\/09\/19\/cruising-nashville\/","title":{"rendered":"Cruising Nashville"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

from The New York Times<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Heart of Nashville, Rolling Parties Rage at Every Stoplight<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

As Nashville\u2019s popularity has grown, so has the \u201ctransportainment\u201d business \u2014 a motley assortment including old buses, farm tractors and a truck with a hot tub. Many think it has gotten out of hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Rick Rojas<\/a> \/ Photographs by\u00a0William DeShazer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"In
The Big Green Tractor Tours trailer rolled through downtown Nashville in August.Credit…William DeShazer for The New York Times.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

NASHVILLE \u2014 The John Deere tractor pulled onto Broadway and rumbled into the madness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a Friday night in the heart of Nashville, as crowds and music spilled from packed clubs, it lumbered along at 5 miles per hour, tugging a canopied trailer with flashing lights and a group of friends from Denver sipping drinks and dancing to Shania Twain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t especially conspicuous. The Big Green Tractor, as it\u2019s called, passed an open-air school bus crammed with partiers, and then another, and another. It also crept beside a vehicle with women leaning over a railing in tank tops printed with the slogan \u201cLet\u2019s Get Nashty!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tractor hadn\u2019t even made it a mile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the Wild West out here,\u201d Ronee Heatherly said from her perch behind the bar of the Big Green Tractor, where she served variously as safety monitor, bartender, D.J., photographer, tour guide and taunter of ride-share drivers blocking the tractor\u2019s path. (She blasted the Ludacris song \u201cMove\u201d as she stared them down.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Nashville has cemented its reputation as a destination for getaways and bachelorette trips, party vehicles have proliferated, promising a rollicking good time and quite a stage to see and be seen while exploring the city. But there\u2019s a growing sense \u2014 among residents, local officials, even some in the so-called transportainment industry \u2014 that it has all gotten out of hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe made the monster, and now we can\u2019t control the monster,\u201d said Steve Haruch, a journalist and the editor of the book\u00a0\u201cGreetings From New Nashville.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s the plot of every monster movie.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[ click to continue reading at The New York Times<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from The New York Times In the Heart of Nashville, Rolling Parties Rage at Every Stoplight As Nashville\u2019s popularity has grown, so has the \u201ctransportainment\u201d business \u2014 a motley assortment including old buses, farm tractors and a truck with a hot tub. Many think it has gotten out of hand. By\u00a0Rick Rojas \/ Photographs by\u00a0William […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11635\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}