It’s all about great friends and great music in Nashville, TN.

We are spending the better part of a month in the state of Tennessee. What we are discovering is that a lot of what Tennessee is about is the Music. And that point was rather eloquently hammered home during our nine-day stop in Nashville. This time the musical genre is country, no ifs, ands, or buts; I’m just astounded at the amount of music that came out of Tennessee and we’re only two weeks into our 4-week campaign. Something tells me that our last stop, in eastern Tennessee, a couple weeks from now, in a place called Pigeon Forge, which happens to be the home of Dollywood, will also include a huge helping of 20^th century music history. After that, Judy and I should be so fully educated, that, if prompted, we could deliver an address about the discovery and growth of country, blues, and rock ‘n-roll music in the state of Tennessee. Not that we need or want to, but the point is, we could.

What also made Nashville a special stop on this trip was the visit of our dear friends Lynne and Jeff.  And when I say visit, I mean they flew in from Massachusetts. We picked them up at Nashville airport. They stayed with us in our 325 sq/ft camper, affectionately called Neil the Northpoint, for 3 nights. Then we returned them to Nashville airport for their return flight home. Their three-day visit was just jammed packed with museums, tours, and music. These poor people, Jeff and Lynne, were also our “test subjects” in our never-ending investigation into all the possible ways we can exploit our RV lifestyle. The floor plan of this 5^th wheel, with the extra half bath and the bunk room, worked really well.  Mind you, we were not able to use any of the outdoor furniture because mother nature was our enemy for Lynne and Jeff’s visit. Not one day were we able to sit outside. The weather was just CRAP for their entire visit. We really lived in the RV, and that gave us every reason in the world to get into downtown Nashville and see what the city is all about. And here is what we did.

 Day 1:

• Pick up Jeff & Lynne at the airport in the afternoon, and return to camper to unpack and get comfortable.  Explain flush mechanism on toilet and apologize for having the worst toilet paper on the planet, manufactured to work with RV black water holding tanks.

Home is in Neil the Northpoint.

• Discover a fabulous restaurant near the RV park, called Caney Fork River Valley Grille. The décor was outstanding and included an indoor 75 sq.ft. coy (fish) pond.  Red was the name of our waiter, and he had some outstanding dinner suggestions. All concluded with a smores dessert, served Pu-Pu platter style, complete with flaming cast iron center for melting the marshmallows.

Smores dessert, served Pu-Pu platter.

Day 2:

• Starts when we take a bus from the Country Music Hall of Fame, in downtown Nashville, to tour RCA studio B in the historic Music Row district.  Built in 1956 by RCA Victor.  Studio B had a distinctive musical production style and sound engineering technique which became known as the Nashville sound. In the two decades the studio was in operation, RCA Studio B produced 60 percent of the Billboard magazine's Country chart hits. A couple of names from the long list of talented artists who recorded in studio B includes Elvis Presley, David Bowie, the Monkees, Willie Nelson, and Roy Orbison.

RCA Studio B

• Once we completed our tour, we spent the rest of the day in the mammoth-sized Country Music Hall of Fame. Starting on the third floor, we spent the next 5 hours moving our way through the museum. There is just so much to see. Videos and old clips of country music stars, and so many music stations to listen to all that great music. The museum was pretty close to closing when we entered the Music Hall of Fame Rotunda. The Rotunda is large, open, and inscribed with “Will the Circle Be Unbroken”. The grand space contains 152 bronze plaques for all country music inductees.

 

 Day 3:

• Off in the morning again, destined for downtown Nashville, this time we’re headed to the Ryman Auditorium. Inside the auditorium we took a self-guided tour of the historic 2,362-seat live-performance venue. Designated a National Historic Landmark, and the former home of the Grand Ole Opry, it is one of the most influential and revered concert halls in the world. While on our self-guided tour, the stage is actively being set up for a show, but we still got our picture on that historic stage, as if we were performing for the Grand Ole Opry. 

• The Johnny Cash Museum was our next stop. Great museum to a music legend. Really, when you think about it, Johnny Cash was relevant in 5 decades, had a TV show on ABC (also taped in front of a live audience in the Ryman Auditorium), and performed concerts in prisons for inmates. This museum has old film footage of Johnny singing, photographs of not only himself but his family as well, and, of course, tells the history of his life.  A well laid out and very informative museum.

 

A look down Broadway St. in Nashville.

• Oh my gosh, the fun didn’t stop there. Hell no! After a fantastic dinner in Nashville, and a couple of really good cocktails, we walked up Rep. John Lewis Way, and took our seats in the Tennessee Performing Arts Center. Early on in the planning process, Judy and Lynne had worked out tickets to see “Jagged Little Pill”.  For those not aware, “Jagged Little Pill” is a jukebox musical, with music by Alanis Morissette and Glen Ballard, lyrics by Morissette, and book by Diablo Cody. The music is powerful, and I can remember how phenomenal an album “Jagged Little Pill” was in the 90’s. It was a great show, and we were humming “Jagged Little Pill” songs all the way back to the camper.

 Day 4:

• I’m gonna let you in on a little secret: Many of the RV campsites we stay at have walking trails, pedestrian walkways, greenways, or parks either adjacent to, or a short distance away, and our KOA campsite was no exception. Just a short mile and half drive south was the Two Rivers Park, which contained walking trails. We took a trail down under the highway to a picturesque pedestrian cable suspension bridge over the Cumberland River. On the other side of the river, we found the miles-long Shelby Bottoms Greenway. It was great to get out, and it was the first time we saw the sun in 4 days. Fortunately, we were walking in early spring which was too soon for bugs to be a nuisance, and we encountered a number of small deer grazing in the meadows and brush just off the paved trail. Although this was a travel day for Lynne and Jeff, we were able to squeeze in a 4-mile walk, which was a really nice way to end our visit. Shortly thereafter, we dropped them off at the airport for their return flight to Boston. It was an action-packed visit, and it was wonderful to share our RV lifestyle with our dear friends.

Jeff & Lynne on Cumberland River Pedestrian bridge

Our stop in Nashville included so much more than the four days we spent with Lynne and Jeff.  But there’s only so many words I can put into a blog post, and I’m already very long-winded. So, in 2 quick sentences I will endeavor to add a couple more interesting attractions we visited on our nine-day visit (who we kidding, I can’t write anything in only two sentences).

We visited the homeplace of the nation's 7th president, Andrew Jackson's Hermitage estate. One of the earliest preserved presidential compounds and also the place where Andrew Jackson and his wife Rachel are buried.

Andrew Jackson's Hermitage estate.

We visited the Parthenon Museum in Centennial Park. Not to be believed, but this is a full-scale replica of the original Parthenon in Athens, Greece. It was built in 1897 as part of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition, made out of plaster and wood, and then re-built in concrete in1920-1925, and is now used as an Art Museum. 

So far, our stops in Tennessee have been extraordinarily fun, with a lot to do and see. In one of my earlier blogs, I indicated how impressed I was with the state of Ohio. I now have to add the state of Tennessee to the “I am impressed” category. Coincidentally, both states also house Music Halls of Fame, and we have spent extended time in both states and visited both Halls. If you ever get the chance, I recommend visiting either Hall. They are each fantastic in their own way, and just so much fun for music lovers. Nevertheless, we are not quite done with the state of Tennessee yet. Our next stop is Chattanooga, which is a short 140 miles east of Nashville, and appears to have a lot to explore. We have already made a reservation to take a short train trip with the Tennessee Valley Train Museum, and you will surely read about our experiences in the next blog post as we tell… the Rest of the Story.