Nashville, TN

Friday, April 27th 

Gary put on his big boy pants and navigated back down the mountain with the switchbacks. Piece of cake and we’d totally stay at Mama Gertie’s again. Just a really cool spot! We had a nice drive heading west on 40 to just east of Nashville at a Corp of Engineer Park called Seven Points Campground on Percy Priest Lake in Hermitage. Lovely campground on a lake with 60 sites. We made an instant friend with the hosts checking us in as the husband is also a “Gary.” So that was a running joke with the two guys every time they saw each other. We had “I love you man” going back and forth.

We had a back-in site, which we handled (almost) like pros. I was very proud of us! We had a false start but got it in and out of the road in record time (for us!). Baby steps! Our site is spacious and private as they typically are at these corp parks.

Once again over the last several days Kya has been our little good will ambassador. We’ve met two couples from Tennessee, a gentleman from Charleston and a couple, Stacie & Johnny, who are about 2 weeks into an 8 month cross country trip who live on the coast in North Carolina. They aren’t retired yet but are taking 8 months off of work. We made fast friends with them and coincidentally, they are also headed to the same campground we are in West Memphis. Our next stop!

Saturday, April 28th

Kya got me up at 4AM to walk her. It was almost worth it as the full moon reflecting off the water was gorgeous! We had a lazy morning then headed off to Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage. It’s a beautiful estate that he retired to after his two terms as president. The tour of the grounds was interesting with handheld audio devices that you could turn on at will and pop in a number at various spots to hear information about Rachel (Mrs. Jackson) or Andrew. The gardens were beautiful. The mansion tour was given by several costumed volunteers strategically located throughout the mansion. Coincidentally, the day before Andrew Jackson’s grave at Hermitage had been vandalized.

The only negative was doing this on a Saturday. We waited in line for an hour for a 20 minute tour of the house. Ugh. Should have saved it for another day. Live and learn. Although even the guides were surprised by the number of people in attendance.

A few interesting Andrew Jackson Facts:

• Mrs. Rachel Jackson was unhappily married when she met Andrew. By all accounts, she was a very outgoing and charming woman. He was smitten immediately. She loved to entertain and smoked a pipe. She sounds like a hot ticket! They eloped together before her divorce was final. They had to put a PR spin on that development when he was running for president and employ some fake news of their own.

• He owned over 100 slaves, a number well beyond the norm of 10 or 15. From records, they can tell that he kept families together so that could be one reason for the large number of slaves, or that’s just putting a positive spin on bad behavior. He apparently did not see a problem with abiding by the Declaration of Independence where “all men are created equal” and being a slave owner. He felt the bible said that this was supposed to be the way it was.  Reportedly on his death bed he expressed regret.

• Hannah was a slave who ran the Jackson’s home for 40 years. When the Union army conquered Nashville and gave a safe haven to slaves, she left immediately. Who wouldn’t want freedom?!

After touring the Hermitage we picked up some groceries headed back to check on Miss Kya who had helped herself to a roll of paper towels. We had a relaxing evening which included watching Spiderman which we’d brought along with us.

Sunday, April 29th

We decided to do a hike with Kya today so we took a ride over to the Percy Priest Dam, which is the same body of water our campground is on. They have fabulous hiking trails over there, plus a dog park, and of course, the dam. A favorite for locals and visitors alike. We met some four legged friends. A favorite was a 4 month old Bermise Mountain Dog pup. Cute as a button!

We also ran into Stacie & Johnny over there with their dog. They were going biking. Our new besties! They joined us in the afternoon sitting outside at the campground and then every day after that we saw each other! A very fun time with them!

Monday, April 30th

We headed into Nashville to visit the Gaylord Opryland Resort, which used to be Hotel Opryland, complete with 17 restaurants, a 3.5 story waterfall plus numerous smaller waterfalls, 8,000 tropical plants, and a quarter mile long indoor river that you can take a flatboat ride on. A cool feature is that the river is comprised of water samples from more than 1,700 rivers throughout the world (including every registered river in the US). There were about 7 rivers in NH that were represented. Very cool! All the restaurants, shopping, river, and botanical gardens are under an atrium. There’s even an antebellum mansion (steakhouse) under the atrium. It’s unbelievable! (Thank you, John S., for the tip to make sure we see this!) It’s free to visit the hotel and the botanical gardens, if you don’t factor in the $29 parking fee. But, fellow TN campers in Asheville had clued us in that if you have lunch at one of the restaurants, you can get your ticket validated and the parking is free. Granted lunch cost $50, but let’s not quibble.

After we had our fill of looking at botanical gardens and stuffing our faces at the Cascades restaurant listening to waterfalls, we headed back to the campground and were once again joined by Stacie & Johnny where we all took part in an adult beverage or two.

Tuesday, May 1st

We headed back into Nashville. This time to the downtown area to visit the historic Ryman Auditorium and get a tour. Lovely old building! Built by Mr. Ryman as a church in 1892, then upon his death in 1904 it was renamed in his honor to the Ryman Auditorium. In a nod to women’s empowerment, Lula Naff ran the Ryman and booked talent for years until her retirement in the 1950’s. She booked Bob Hope, Katherine Hepburn, Rudolph Valentino and so many others. Every Saturday night for years it hosted the Grand Ole Opry and became known as the “Mother Church of Country Music”.  It was considered the “Carnegie Hall of the South” because of the amazing acoustics. The Grand Ole Opry eventually moved to different digs and the Ryman got old, closed and fell into disrepair. Both locals and artists rallied to save it and after a major renovation it reopened in 1994. It looks like a church… beautiful arched stained glass windows, wooden pews and wooden floors, displays of Minnie Pearl’s hat, numerous gold lame and rhinestone costumes of various artists and other finery (perhaps that last part doesn’t look quite so church like).

They have a Letterpress Shop in the building and make just about all the posters for the Ryman. From this (retired) graphic designer’s view, they are truly works of art! Traditionally designed, exquisite time capsules of a bygone age. Actually all the graphics in the building have that historic vintage flavor and are tasteful, simple and so perfect!

After visiting the Ryman, we headed down Broadway. OMG! Loved the historic buildings, honky tonk bars with music blaring before noontime, and fabulous signage! Charm galore… as weird as that sounds!  We wandered around for awhile. Visited Nudie’s Bar. Not what you think… it’s actually the first owner’s name! It has the longest bar (100 ft) in Nashville and is in a 100 year old building. There’s a rooftop deck, a cadillac hanging from the ceiling, and tons of memorabilia on the walls.

We also visited the Goo Goo Shop! We’d never heard of a Goo Goo Cluster. Turns out it’s the world’s first combination candy bar ever created – the creator was the Standard Candy Company in Nashville in 1912. This piece of lusciousness contains marshmallow nougat, caramel, and roasted peanuts covered in milk chocolate. We haven’t actually tried it yet. It’s sitting in the fridge. We’ll see how good it is.  We also had gelato for lunch. Can you tell a theme????

We called it a day in Nashville at that point and headed home. We had dinner with Stacie & Johnny at their place on Tuesday night. They were nice enough to host! They introduced us to the concept of a “tin foil supper” – ground beef and whatever spices and veggies you want wrapped in tin foil and put on the grill to cook. A keeper!  We’ll be doing that again! We had a fun night with them and hugged our goodbyes and made plans to see them in West Memphis in just a few days!

Wednesday, May 2nd

Kya’s chronic bronchitis had been getting a bit worse over the last few days, so we had contacted our vet at home and got another prescription for her bronchial dilator medication (we found a cheaper alternative than the $94 version) and we’re also starting her on a different cortisone treatment. So far, so good. She’s hacking less and seems happier and this med isn’t making her pee like a sieve, thankfully.

We visited Long Hunter State Park about 20 minutes from the campground in a gorgeous area with mini mansions all around. Actually this whole area in Hermitage and Mt. Juliet seems fairly well to do. We did a 4 mile hike with Miss Kya. Gorgeous day with beautiful breezes and temps in the low 80s. We relaxed in the afternoon outside and were visited by six deer grazing just in the trees beyond our campsite. So sweet. We had a campfire in the evening to cap off our Nashville stay.

Thursday, May 3rd

Today was errand day and we had the pleasure of chatting with a few family members by phone. Big shout out thank you to Ellen & Wayne for helping Mom get her computer back up and functioning. You guys are the best and we love you buckets!!!!

We have had the best time in Nashville! We would totally come to this campground again. And, we would also totally love to visit Nashville and stay in the downtown area and be able to partake more readily with the myriad of live music options, food, and perhaps see a show at the historic Ryman theatre or the Grand Ole Opry! Tough to do it all!

Tomorrow we head to West Memphis, Arkansas to Tom Sawyer RV Park along the banks of the mighty Mississippi, we will catch up with Johnny and Stacie there. We are just across the river from Memphis, TN where we plan to visit Graceland etc. Can’t wait!