I recently returned from a trip to Tennessee, which, if you weren’t aware, is a VERY long drive from Boston! We made the most of it though, stopping at some funny roadside attractions and taking in the changing sights of our vast and beautiful country. A particular highlight of the drive was seeing views of Shenandoah National Park at dusk.
The first stop on our trip was the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which was lovely. We enjoyed a nine-mile hike on Rich Mountain, an 11-mile bike ride through Cades Cove and a trip down the Little River on inner tubes to relax and cool down after all that exercise.
The park was breathtaking, extremely clean and the people we met were incredibly friendly. We even saw a bear! Luckily, it was from a decent distance and we were safe in our car.
After getting our fill of nature, we headed to Nashville: Music City. We happened to be there on the night of the Country Music Television Awards, so the town was extra festive. We went to Hatch Show Print, one of the oldest working letterpress print shops in America, which has produced posters for greats like Hank Williams and Johnny Cash. Down the street from there, we went to Gruhn Guitars, where you can buy an instrument that costs as much as a car. And of course, we strolled down Music Row before eating some of the best brisket I’ve ever had at Jack’s Bar-B-Que.
Also in Nashville, I saw something I’d never seen before: A Redbox at a McDonald’s. If you’re not familiar with Redbox, it’s a movie rental kiosk usually found at the front of grocery stores where you can rent DVDs for only $1 per night.
Netflix has done an excellent job meeting people’s desires to have movies delivered to their homes either through the mail or on demand via a device such as a computer or video game console like a Nintendo Wii. But Redbox picks up the slack for those people who still like to go out and pick up a movie to watch. Redbox is part of Coinstar, which popularized the coin-counting machines at the front of grocery stores. And now it has done the same with movies.
Editor Michael Cintolo recently featured it in Cabot Top Ten Report, where he wrote:
“Coinstar was founded in 1993 with an interesting business plan: Put big, green Coinstar boxes that count people’s change in the front of grocery and other big-box stores and take a cut of the total. Now the company is using that foot in the door to place Redbox dollar-a-night DVD rental kiosks–24,000 of them to date–in Walmarts, McDonald’s, groceries, pharmacies and other locations across the U.S. (93% of revenue) and internationally (7%). The company also has a network of financial services facilities that allow consumers to make payments, buy prepaid debit cards and perform money transfers. But there’s no doubt that the dollar videos are the big deal right now, with most of the hottest titles available just 28 days after DVD sales begin. Q1 results showed an impressive 254% jump in earnings on a 47% gain in revenues, with Redbox results providing most of the boost. With Movie Gallery announcing its own demise in May, Blockbuster in rocky shape and Netflix moving toward streaming delivery, the future looks bright for Redbox and Coinstar.
“CSTR gapped up from 38 to 44 on that great earnings report on April 30, and the stock has acted well since then. CSTR worked its way to as high as 58 on May 13, and has pulled back slightly, closing last Friday at 53. This is impressive strength in the face of a grumpy market, and CSTR looks like a good buy right here, but a great buy on a pullback toward 50.”