Nashville, Tennessee

We are in Nashville, Tennessee at the Nashville Country RV Park.  On our first full day here we went to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.  We saw the special yearlong display honoring superstar Reba Entire. They had her costumes, memorabilia, and a nice documentary about her life in the spotlight.  The film highlights her years in the rodeo, singing as a kid, her rise to music super stardom, her film, television, and Broadway acting career.
                                                                       

                                                                         

Reba's Accomplishments

 The rest of the hall of fame was awesome too.  Lots of info about all of the members of the hall of fame as well as possible future inductees.  There is an area that has all of the plaques of the members of the hall, a restaurant, hundreds of displays, guitars, and of course, numerous walls of silver, gold and platinum albums.  There is a He Haw display and so much more.  It takes several hours to go through, but it is worth it.

Debbie at one of the walls of Gold & Platinum records

  

One of the walls of hall of fame plaques

Dolly Parton's plaque, one of the many

Part of the huge Carrie Underwood display

One or Porter Wagoner's fabulous suits

One of Hank William's suits

Country Superstar wanna be Debbie on the red carpet

On day three we drove to the Loveless Motel & Cafe, a former motel, now a restaurant and tourist trap.  The motel rooms and cabins are now stores. While we were there, a group with some 1920's cars came on a trip from Natchez to Nashville.  We got to see the cars, but didn't eat or buy anything in the shops.                                                                           
                                                                               

                                                                             

Autumn is here and the colors are starting to turn

More colors

  Later that day we checked another item off of our bucket list.  The Grand Ole Opry.  Eight acts that all were exceptional.  4,400 screaming fans got to see and hear Maggie Rose, Dustin Lynch, and country legends the Del McCoury Band, Montgomery Gentry, Larry Gatlin, T.G. Shepard, Ricky Skaggs and Bee Gees legend Barry Gibb singing with Kelly Lang.  We could take photos, but videotaping was forbidden.  I cannot tell you in words, how great this two and a half hours was.  We will come back to Nashville just for the Grand Ole Opry.  The Grand Ole Opry is a live radio show on W.S.M., Sirius radio, and many other stations.  It is the longest running radio show on Earth. Ricky Scaggs and Barry Gibbs sang several BeeGees hits and brought the house down!
                                                                            

                                                                                      

Maggie Rose

The Del McCoury Group

Dustin Lynch

Larry Gatlin with his daughter

T.G Shepard

Montgomery Gentry

Barry Gibb & Kelly Lang sang "Islands in the Sky" to a standing ovation

Rick Skaggs

Barry Gibb & Ricky Skaggs brought down the house!  What a night!

On our last full day in Nashville we went to tour Barbara Mandrell's Log Cabin "Fontanel", all 27,000 square feet on 136 acres.    This is a lavish palace, full of memorabilia, swimming pool, shooting range, family rooms and guest rooms.  Saying "Lavish" might do this home an injustice. Luxurious! 
                                                                                 

The front  porch area of the "Log Cabin", plus wings on each side.

The Dining Room

The reception area full of memoribilia.  See Debbie on the far couch.

Overlooking the pool area

The pool is covered and will be used as a dance floor at a wedding this week

An upstairs hallway, full of memoribilia on the way to the bedrooms

Barbara's Miss Tennessee Teen USA sash

A guitar signed by The Eagles

Half of Barbar's bathroom with a marble bath tub

The other half of Barbara's bathroom and makeup table

Play cards in the gameroom

Play the juke box or the Dolly Pardon Pinball Machine

Debbie the Soda Jerk in the gameroom

Play pool in the gameroom

Downtown Nashville in the morning fog

The Tennessee Titans Stadium

                                                                                                           
                                                                              

Atlanta, Georgia

We are staying in the woods at the beautiful and very large Corps of Engineers McKinney campground on Lake Allatoona in Acworth, Georgia.  We are just north of Atlanta and we are visiting friends and family nearby.  On our second day in the area, we visited with Donna Jackson in Canton, Georgia.  Donna and Debbie worked together in the '70's and  early '80's and they have been lifelong friends.  They call themselves "twins" and argue as to which is the "evil twin."  Donna bought Debbie the new shirt that you see in the photo below.   We had a nice day with Donna and we had lunch at Red Lobster.

McKinney Campground, site # 77

            Donna Jackson and Debbie   Which is the evil twin?           
                                          

 Tuesday we dined in Kennesaw with Debbie's Sister and Brother-in-Law, Laurie and Lou Bottino.  We had a great Rigatoni and Sausage Italian feast.  On Friday night we went out with Laurie and Lou to the Trackside Restaurant in Kennesaw.  Debbie had Salmon and I had Shrimp and Grits.  Yummy!  Saturday we watched TV and Lou and Debbie's Alma mater, USF, got destroyed by the Louisville football team.  Then a great barbequed chicken dinner before we headed back to the RV.  We had a great time with Laurie and Lou.
                                                                   

Debbie and sister Laurie

 Vince, Lou, Laurie and Debbie
                                                                              

 While in Atlanta, we went to the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum and learned a lot about his presidency, numerous accomplishments and his charitable works.  He accomplished quite a lot during his 4 years as president.  We also toured the Georgia Capitol building in Atlanta.  We got to even go into the Governor's office and look around.

The Jimmy Carter Presidential Center and Museum

Debbie gives a speech from Mr. Carter's podium

Debbie in the Oval Office

Jimmy Carter's Nobel Peace Prize

The Georgia Capitol

Debbie and I in the Georgia Governor's office

The Senate floor in the Georgia Capitol

                                                                     
                                                                
                                                                             

The Good Sam/ Camping World Rally @ Atlanta Motor Speedway

We are at the Good Sam/Camping World Rally in Atlanta at the Atlanta Motor Speedway for 5 days.  There are 2,997 rigs here, that is at least 6,000 other RVers.  We are attending lots of seminars about RV's and their inter workings.  We are also seeing a lot of new RV's, one in particular that Debbie wants us to trade up to.  There are several hundred vendors here selling RV related products,as well as booths with campgrounds from around the country showing you their amenities, locations, and all the reasons you show either stay or live there all or part of the year.  Lots of free goodies too!
The first night's entertainers were the Beach Boys, and they were great, even 51 years after their first hit.  Night # 2 was Vince Gill, who rocked us with country music.  The last night we got to hear the Vogues, that 60's group with excellent harmony.  Then Fireworks! What an event!  Sunday morning 400 of us veterans march in a parade.  Then we were honored in a nice ceremony. 

Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys

The incredible Beach Boy, Mike Love

 The Beach Boys

Vince Gill

Vince Gill

The Vogues

The Vogues

Marching with the other Navy Veterans

                                                                        
                                                                        

                                                                           

Fort Payne, Alabama

We are in Fort Payne, just as a stopover on our way to "The Rally" in Hampton, Georgia.  We are here for just three days to get some laundry done and to relax for a day.  But, the real reason we chose Fort Payne as the rest stop is that this is the home of "Alabama" the country singing group.
We would have liked to have gone to their museum here, but it is closed on Monday and Tuesday and we got here late Sunday and leave on Wednesday morning.  But, we did get to see the park dedicated to them and a monument in their honor.  Around here, Alabama is known as "The Boys from Fort Payne."  They had 21 consecutive #1 Country hits and a total of 42 #1's. They are  the greatest country group of all time.  They were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2006.
                                                                                    

                                                                                   

Friends on the Tennesee Backroads

     Two of our friends live in small towns in the hills of Tennessee.  A much more relaxed, quieter, easier pace than the area we lived in Florida.  Melody and Santos Camacho live in Lenoir City.  They have a beautiful home on top of a hill.  Melody was Debbie's Matron of Honor at our wedding, and Santos (better known as Junior) videotaped our wedding.  They moved to Tennessee in 2002 and this is our first visit with them since then. I'm sorry to say the we did not have our camera when we visited and have no photos of them or their home and property.  We had a great visit.
     We then visited and camped out with the Brandes Family.  We met them in Pikeville, about 20 miles from their home in Sparta.  Tyler Brandes worked with Debbie at the Cox Lumber Company, which was owned by Tyler's Grandfather.  Debbie has known Tyler, now 36, since he came with his dad to work at age 6.  He even called her his Lumber yard Mom.  They worked together for many years.  Tyler's wife is Ashley, and they have three boys, Benjamin is 10, Warren is 7, and Carson is 3.  They are great boys and we had a lot of fun camping and visiting with them.  We also went to the Hickory Valley Volunteer Fire Departments All You Can Eat Breakfast fundraiser on Saturday.  We got to see all the firetrucks and the station.  Tyler is a Lieutenant at the Fire Department.  We also stopped at a few farm stands and at Wooden's we bought cookies, pie, and an apple dumpling.  We hope to visit with both families again on our way through Tennessee in 2015.
                                                                        
                                                                      

From the left-Vince, Warren Tyler & Carson, Debbie, Ashley and Benjamin

Fall Creek Falls

Deb preparing to cross the rope bridge

                                                                              

Warren rides shotgun in the Fire Truck

Benjamin in the jump seat of the fire truck

A late dinner at the campground

The Brandes boys at the apple house

                                                                              

Pigeon Forge, Tennessee

We are in the Pigeon Forge, Gatlingburg, Sevierville area for a week to see some shows and to enjoy the weather and the mountains.  We are at Walden Creek Campground, a small campground just off the main highway in Pigeon Forge.  Since arriving we had the oil in the truck changed, did the laundry and saw two shows.  We went to the Lumberjack Feud the 2nd night and to Country Tonight on the 3rd night.  The Lumberjacks were split into two teams for the battle.  They did axe throws, log rolling, tree climbs and a variety of wood chopping events.  It came with a pork and chicken dinner with Italian green beans, mashed potatoes, mac n' cheese and and an apple fritter for dessert. Yum!

                                                                                                  Lumberjack Feud    

Chopping fast!

Sawing competition

Another event

Log rolling

Deb cheered the loudest in our section and won a "Lumberjack Cookie"

   The Country Tonight show was fantastic!  Great performers singing current and classic country songs, with some comedy and lots of dancing.  It was very good.                                                                         

Melanie Hyder

Treyphena Layman

12 year old Willow Osborne was great!

Colin Chandler, 12 years old, was great also.

King Kong was up to his old tricks again at the Wax Museum

                                                                              
The last two shows that we saw were The Hatfield and McCoy Feud and the Mystery Theater.   No photos allowed at the Mystery Theater.  Both were very good and the food was the average show food, chicken, pork or pulled pork.  It was acceptable.  The feud between the Hatfield and McCoy's was good, with lots of banjo and guitar music, as well as some good acting and clogging.  All in all, Pigeon Forge was entertaining.  We also went two three wineries and purchased two bottles of local wine.
                                                                            

The feud continued

Good Country Music

The Theater

In the end, Pa Hatfield proposes to Ma McCoy and after 51 years, the feud ends