Nashville

We parked our RV for four days at a swanky RV resort about 30 minutes outside the city. It was located on a narrow peninsula with lovely water and sunset views. We didn’t spend much time there though since Nashville called.

We decided to spend one night at a destination hotel in Nashville, Gaylord Opryland Resort. We enjoyed the decorations throughout the hotel, the lush indoor gardens and waterways and even swam in the lazy river.

After a nice dinner at the hotel, we walked the 8 minutes to the Grand Ole Opry. What a fun show! It started with John Conlee singing “Rocky Top Tennessee” and The Malpass Brothers did a great rendition of “El Paso”. Jim Peterik (Lead singer of Survivor) told us the story of how Sly Stallone called him and asked him to write a song for the movie Rocky that would “outlive you and me” and then sang “Eye of The Tiger”! By the time the Oak Ridge Boys came out the audience was going nuts, but we listened to that band outside the auditorium since they started flashing spotlights around which made Jerusha dizzy. It was a great night and we have been listening to lots of country music since.

After checking out of the hotel the following day, we went to the country music hall of fame then walked around the city.

Broadway Street is composed of one bar after another, each with live music. Anywhere you stand on the sidewalk you can hear at least three different musicians or bands playing nearby. Add to that, there are dozens of party wagons driving around with 10-20 people (often drunk) singing at the top of their lungs. It had so much energy but was so loud!

The third day we did a Segway Tour. We got to see much more of the city. Our favorite part was the Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park. There is a timeline wall of Tennessee from the pre-European Native Americans through present day. It was fascinating. There was also a WW2 memorial and a carillon with 50 columns containing 95 bells that play the state song on the hour and other tunes on the quarter hours.

After the Segway Tour we went back to the timeline wall and spent a wonderful hour talking to reenactors from hundreds of years of Tennessee history. This living museum is done annually and we happened to be there on that weekend!

Before we left Nashville we had to try their famous Hot Chicken.

We decided that on our long RV drives, we needed a musical playlist. The theme is our road trip so we have included songs about the road, travel, trucks, the USA and the different states. We have tried to find at least one song about each state, or some city in each state. The playlist is here – feel free to make suggestions. We chose not to include slow songs (even though there are many great ones that fit the theme) as we need music that will keep us awake after the fifth hour pulling the RV.