Hubert, NC to Nashville, TN

Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2020

This morning Gary & I and Johnny & Stacie headed out from their house in our respective tiny homes. First stop was 250 miles down the road to Tanglewood RV Park in Clemmons, NC. This is a county park with hiking trails, a golf course, ball fields, day use area, horses, lots of deer and a campground. Thoroughly enjoyed our stay here. The campground was surprisingly crowded for a mid-week stay in September. We saw some kids in the park doing online learning. This is definitely a different type of Fall this year! Johnny, Stacie, Niky and I all went for a walk. Gary was chillin at the campsite. Great walking trails and we saw lots of deer. We would definitely stop back here again. This was a “contactless entry” into the park. All the paperwork was done via email. Dinner was a combined effort between the two households and lots of chatter! 

Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2020

This morning we headed off to Anchor Down RV Resort in Dandridge, TN on Douglas Lake. Pretty ride through the Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina and the TN mountains. Very picturesque as we crossed I-40 headed west. The campground is indeed a resort. A little pricey at almost $70 a night but so worth it! Absolutely amazing views of the lake and the mountains in the distance. Just beautiful. There was a beach, pool, various boats, kayaks for rent etc. We did a long walk around the campground and admired all the great views, then sat outside and visited and made pork quesadillas at our place for dinner that night. This campground, too, was quite busy! 

Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020

Gary had scheduled an oil change and tire rotation on our truck for today. It was also the first time we had seen rain in months as there has been a drought all summer in the Northeast! Johnny & Stacie were nice enough to follow us to drop off the truck then we spent the day with them checking out Lazy Days RV. They are thinking of trading up to a larger size RV so we spent the day going in and out of RVs. They found some brands they liked but no purchases made. The four of us had lunch outside at a Jason’s Deli with Niky. We had eaten at one of those before in Galveston. Great food! We also visited a Bass Pro Shop which are fun to wander through with stuffed animals, water features, shooting range etc. After all that, J&S dropped us back at the dealership and we picked up our truck and came home and had a quiet night. 

Friday, Sept. 25, 2020

Woke up this morning to a gorgeous sky and headed out to take some morning photos by the lake. We hit the road once again heading west on I-40 through some pretty country. In route our tire pressure monitoring system was reading that one of our tires on the truck was super hot. We stopped at a rest stop so he could check it and found that the tire was fine. The monitoring system was off. Oh-kay. Will have to see about that. 

Today we headed to Cedar Creek Campground on Old Hickory Lake outside of Nashville in Mt. Juliet. This is a Corp of Engineer Park which usually means spacious sites by the water and cheap! This one was half price at $15 a night since Gary is 62. Corp parks also can be down some narrow roads, which this one was as well. We probably won’t stay here again… narrow road leading to the campground and narrow interior roads and a narrow back-in site with a drop off on either side. Fun. But we got our tiny home parked and didn’t go down a gully. All good. May not have been pretty but we got ‘er done. 

Our site was one back from the lake but still had nice views. We were entertained by a goose threesome who thought they owned the site across from us by the water. They were constantly headed over there. Funny. We also saw an egret and Great Blue Heron by the lake each day we were here and loads of deer in the campground! 

Stacie and I went for a walk once we were all settled. This campground neighbors an expensive gated community. We wandered in there to admire the four car garages, big brick homes, and fancy pool set-ups, and side-stepped goose poop on the side walk. Apparently the geese don’t care that it’s a gated community. Hee hee. A piece of land alone here (no house on it) was $340,000. Our turn to cook dinner. Gary did burgers on the grill and Stacie contributed french fries. 

Saturday, Sept. 26th

Today the four of us hiked at Long Hunter State Park. The 4-mile hike we originally wanted to do we couldn’t because the parking lot was full-up (covid regulations). So we found another “inland” hike within the park to do. It wasn’t the most picturesque but still interesting and we came across two women, a baby and a cardigan corgi. That particular dog I had never seen before. Very pretty! (Picture below.) We started chatting with the women. The new mom was telling us about some other pretty lakes in the area and how she was a therapist now working from home. Her baby had been born just before covid hit. She said the silver lining to all of this was that she and her husband were able to be home with their new baby for several months before he had to go back to work. She is still working from home. I love to hear stories like that! People finding the good. 

After the “inland” hike we did another hike down to the picnic area and fishing area which was more picturesque and sat on rocks by the water’s edge and had lunch. From there we headed to Percy Priest Dam for a walk by the dam on the paved walking/bike path. All told we walked about 5 miles… Niky in his stroller part of the time. So cute!

We headed back to our campground and relaxed outside and the four of us enjoyed Stacie’s stew for dinner. We can’t get over how many deer are in this area. We see them all the time in the campground and on the roads leading up to the campground. Luckily they seem to stay off the road. We noticed one house has a deer feeder in their front yard. I’ve never seen so many deer in one general area before. 

Sunday, Sept. 27th

Stacie cooked breakfast for us all before we headed into Nashville to do some exploring. We ended up going to areas we hadn’t been before including Centennial Park, a 132 acre urban park, with a 1 mile walking trail around a pond, a sunken garden, and the iconic Parthenon which is an art museum. The Parthenon is the center piece of the park and was built for the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition. (Thus the reason the park is called Centennial Park.) This is a replica to the original Parthenon in Athens, Greece which is considered the “pinnacle of classical architecture.” It’s just so surprising to see this massive building in the middle of a park near downtown Nashville. The museum is open for limited attendance but it was a beautiful day and we had Niky with us so we bypassed the museum in favor of walking around. We enjoyed the walking trail around the pond and seeing the ducks and sunken garden. 

From here we headed into downtown and parked near the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge which we, of course, had to cross. It is a truss bridge that spans the Cumberland River and spans over half a mile and is one of the longest pedestrian bridges in the world. Go figure! Who knew! This is also near the Titans stadium. Thankfully there was no game being played at home today, although with no people allowed in the stands, crowds may not have been a problem anyway.

After we wandered around this area, we headed to Hard Rock Cafe for an outdoor (expensive!) lunch, which J&S picked up the tab for. You shouldn’t have!!!  We then walked around Broadway Street to walk off lunch. Masks were mandatory on Broadway, which was a good thing. And they’ve extended the sidewalk into the street to widen it. We window shopped, but didn’t go into any shops or bars. Then it was time to head back to our tiny homes. 

Monday, Sept. 28th

Today some rain was in the forecast. We all decided to visit Nashville’s Farmers’ Market. Apparently the farmers’ market is an every day occurrence here. However, Monday was a VERY slow day! Not many vendors here but we did see some nice pottery, pumpkins, and a cool garden shop. Across the street from the Farmers’ Market was the 11 acre Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park which we had not visited before. Located near the capitol building, it was created in 1996 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the establishment of Tennessee’s statehood. It’s got a great walking path with a granite wall of information about Tennessee’s history plus a 95-bell carillon, a 200 ft. granite map of the state and a WWII memorial. We did not see everything as it started to rain… and apparently we all melt in the rain. We headed back to J&S’s truck for the ride back to our tiny homes to chill for the afternoon and reconvene for dinner which was Stacie’s leftover stew. 

Tomorrow we move on to Arkansas.