November 5, 2022
We were excited to be back in Tennessee a place we love. We were looking forward to seeing old familiar places and lot of friends and we weren’t disappointed.
10/30 – We got up this morning and headed up to Lafayette, TN to go to church with friends. We had lived in this are 22 years ago and still have a lot of friends here. The church we attended cover a huge area but there were not a lot of people over that area. It has grown so much since we have been gone. Now the members we attended with are able to attend a chapel closer to their homes. The members who were in our church ward now are scattered among 5 new wards from Mt Juliet, TN to Franklin, KY. We decided to go to Lafayette ward so we could go visit Red Boiling Springs after church since it was just a short distance up the road from there. We were able to see a half dozen members from our old ward.
The drive to church was just over an hour and Waze played a game of how many narrow backroads can it put us on to get us there. It was an interesting but beautiful trip up that way. It was wonderful seeing friends we haven’t seen in years and catching up with them.
After church we headed up to Red Boiling Springs, TN. It is the town Frank’s mother’s family was from. The Beans, Slates, Chitwoods, Owens, and Donohos have all live in this small town for hundreds of years. When we used to live in Tennessee we would go up to the Donoho Hotel every year for the Donoho family reunion. It is now owned by a new family and they said the Donoho reunion is no longer held there. Red Boiling Springs is famous for their five different mineral waters. In the 1800’s and early 1900’s people would come up there for a cure and to rest and be restored by the water. https://redboilingspringstn.com/ Several inns were built for all the people who came and three still stand The Armour, The Thomas House and The Donoho. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donoho_Hotel
After visiting Red Boiling Springs we headed over to Portland, TN where we lived for 5 years. Portland is the strawberry capital of Tennessee and they take that role to heart with big strawberries scattered throughout the town. When we lived in Portland only 6,000 people lived there but in the last 20 years it has double in size and grown. It was fun seeing the town, where our son Pieter took music lessons.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland,Tennessee
We had to visit our old house that we owned in Portland. It is over 120 years old. They have changed it a bit by extending the porch into what used to be the carport, adding a swimming pool and fencing the yard. When we lived there Frank and our son Bill built a two story garage and it was nice to see their work has withstood the last 20+ years.
Portland, TN is up on a ridge just a few miles from Kentucky. Back during prohibition there were Ridgerunners who were transporter of illegal moonshine liquor. They were said to “run the ridges” with their illicit cargo to bypass the roads down in the hollows where law enforcement officers might find them. The belief is that many of these Ridgerunners ran the liquor up to Kentucky over the ridge between Gallatin and Portland Tennessee. When we lived there the ridge was a narrow, winding, two-lane road with cliffs going up on one side of the road and drops on the other side. As we would travel that road we would often see abandoned cars that had gone off the edge of the road many years before. It was a scary road to drive but we traveled it on a regular basis as it was the only way to get down to Gallatin. Since that time they have built a four-lane bypass that no longer has the cliffs and drops of the old road. We decided to see if we could wander around and found the old ridge road and after a few wrong turns we were able to find it. It is no longer used except by locals who live off it but it was fun to go around the corners once again and remember all the times we drove this road with three kids in the backseat and prayed to get up it safely.
10/31- Frank worked all day but when he was done this afternoon we went to Opry Mills Mall and the Opryland Hotel. When we lived in Tennessee that area used to be Opryland Amusement park and the Hotel was about half the size it is now. The mall is huge and we walked the whole mall. Ate dinner at Johnny Rockets in the mall. There were so many different things to see. They had an Aquarium Restaurant, Rain Forest Cafe and Madame Tussauds’ Wax Musuem.
Then we headed over to the Grand Old Opry House, but it was closed for the evening and wouldn’t have any more tours until tomorrow.
We drove over to the Opryland Hotel but parking was $30 so we drove back to the mall and parked there and walked to the hotel. We walked through their outside Iceland to get to the hotel. They were getting ready for the Christmas season and already had some decorations up.
Then we walked into the Hotel which was decorated for Halloween. We laughed about the Hotel being Christmas on the outside and Halloween inside.
We used to go to the Opryland Hotel when we lived in Nashville just to walk around and admire the beauty and ride the boats they have that run through the mall. So that was what we did. We enjoyed all the beauty throughout the ride. They pointed out a red line that showed how high the water had risen in the hotel during their flood several years back. The hotel is over 700,000 square feet. Needless to say we couldn’t see all of it. We enjoyed remembering the past and how much we enjoyed the area back when Nashville was a much smaller town. https://www.marriott.com/en-us/hotels/bnago-gaylord-opryland-resort-and-convention-center/overview/?scid=c75c3684-038a-4db3-9f39-a8f7105552b0&gclid=CjwKCAjwtp2bBhAGEiwAOZZTuIWh_loWOY9FeYgnMXcdpeRB2FHSJGi9c3jDsR2ucnP-1PBEiDdxFxoCJl8QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
We made it back to our car just as it started to rain. I had walked over 14,000 steps today. I was sad to come back to our motor home and not get to share candy with Trick or Treaters. We were hoping that some of the kids at the RV Park would come knocking but no one did.
11/1- Since we didn’t get to tour Grand Old Opry last night I took the campground shuttle over there this morning while Frank was working. I took a backstage tour and it was fun to see and hear about the stars that preform there and the Music Hall. The tour started with a brief video where holograms of Garth Brooks and Tricia Yearwood told us about the history of the Grand Old Opry.
We were able to see where the stars enter the building on the night of performances. The hotel of fame of which artists have been inducted to the Grand Old Opry. The Opry stars all have their own mailboxes where they receive letters from fans. Then we visited the various dressing rooms. Some where specific stars, one was from first time performers and others where used by whoever choose them that night.
Finally we reached the stage, when they moved from the Ryman Theater to their new location they took a circle from that stage and moved it to the new Grand Old Opry so the stars could stand on the same spot that had been stood on by Opry stars from the 1940’s on. We all had an opportunity to stand on the very spot on the stage where the stars stand. https://www.opry.com/tours
This evening Frank and I went to downtown Nashville where he used to work. The downtown area is still full of honkytonks and music but it also has a large homeless population wandering around. We had hoped to tour the Ryman which was the original Grand Old Opera Hall but since they were having a show that evening they were closed for tours. The Ryman was built in the 1890s as a Gospel Tabernacle but became home to the Grand Ole Opry in 1943 until they built their new hall in 1974. https://ryman.com/
Since the Ryman was closed we checked out a couple honkytonks and listened to some live music before walking by the Cumberland River and seeing Fort Nashborough. https://www.nashville.gov/departments/parks/historic-sites/fort-nashborough
11/2- Today was wash day and it took me almost all day to get two loads of laundry down. The dryers at the campground weren’t very good and so every 45 minutes I would check and find the clothes still damp. Took me almost 2 hours to get our clothes dry. Then this evening Frank and I headed up to Franklin, Kentucky to have dinner with some old friends. We hung out at the Colorado Grill and talked for a long time. It was good to see them again after 20+ years and to catch up on the past. On the way back to the campground we stopped at the mall so I could get some new tennis shoes. I have about walked the soles off the ones I have and with all the walking we do in our touring I needed new ones.
11/3- After Frank got done with work this morning it was time to hit the road for Memphis. We are staying at Tom Sawyer’s campground right on the Mississippi. The water is way down right now due to the drought yet we were still able to see barges going up and down the river. There weren’t any riverboats running right now and I was sad that we didn’t get to see them.
It was fun exploring the campground and finding a huge weeping willow tree that reminded me of one I used to play under when I was a kid. My friends and I would hide under the branches. https://tomsawyerrvpark.com/
11/4- This afternoon we headed into downtown Memphis where we were able to walk along the Mississippi River and see the Riverboats at dock.
I had really wanted to see the famous Peabody Ducks. In 1932 the general manager of the Peabody and a friend brought back some live ducks after a hunting trip and put them in the fountain in the middle of the hotel. But the duck march didn’t start until 1940 when Edward Pembroke taught the ducks to march to the fountain in the morning and back to their penthouse Duck Hotel in the evening. It is very popular and you have to get there early to even find a good seat. We arrived an hour and a half early and still weren’t close. Luckily for me I noticed two woman who were trying to get a picture with the current Duck Master. I offered to take their picture for them and was invited to share a seat at their front row table. I had an amazing view of the ducks marching out. It was fun to listen to the Duck Master tell us about the ducks and the history of the hotel. http://www.peabodymemphis.com/peabody-ducks/
Tonight we had a terrible storm come in with winds gusts of 45 mph+. When a big gust would hit the whole RV would shake and at times we worried that we might tip over. Followig the advice of other RVers we pulled our slides in as they just act as wings for the wind to catch. It helped with the shaking but still it was a long night of very little sleep. This is probably the first time we both wished we were in a house since we left home.
11/5- Leaving Tennessee today on our trip back to Houston for the holidays. Because of the storm last night and not getting to sleep until early this morning we both slept in until 10 am. Then we had to hustle to get ready to head out. We arrived in Hot Springs, Arkansas this afternoon at a beautiful campground on the river and near the lake. I explored the campground where we will be staying for the next week.
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