Day 15 Oct 17 – Country Music Hall Of Fame

Today was our last outing in Nashville. We spent the afternoon at the Country MusiC Hall of Fame. A store house of exhibits of all of the country music greats. I would suggest a must see if you are in the area, country music fan or not.

Rosalie was mildly interested as one might expect of a four year old. She did find a few of the exhibits and the coloring station interesting though. We came away with several great coloring productions.

http://countrymusichalloffame.org/

Day 14 Oct 16 - A day at home

Today was a do little, relaxing day. It's a good thing as it has been raining lightly all day. Probably the remnants of the system that moved through Texas.

It was a short school day for Rosalie, followed by a walk in the rain so that the little one could jump in every mud puddle we came across. Lost count at 30...

Day 13 Oct 15 - A visit to the Hermitage

It seems that our 7th president Andrew Jackson had his home about 7 miles from where we are parked. After some trials and failures as a young man he ended up with a few hundred acres, some cotton and a few slaves. Over the years the estate grew to over 1000 acres with as many as 150 slaves at one point..

The man lead an busy life, being home only 1/4 of the time it seems. Unfortunately his wife died just prior to him taking office for the first of his two terms as president.

It was an interesting couple of hours in some rather nice weather. Rosalie as usual trotted along, and was also giving tours through one of the cabins at one point. The local school was providing junior docents. The 10 year olds had memorized small stories and were positioned at various points along the tour trail.

A stop at the local Goodwill to pick up some reading material, then back to the home base for the night.

Day 12 Oct 14 - Tickets to the Opry and back stage tour, grocery shopping

We went and picked up some tickets to Friday's Grand Ole Opry show then took an interesting backstage tour.

The tour guide did a great job of giving us a feel for what goes on behind the scenes. The guide was one of the children in the corn field on one of the episodes of the old show Hee-Haw show so she has grown up around the Opry though is not one of the inductees. Apparently a fair number of the Opry members do show up from time to time either to host, be a head liner or just drop in to say hi. Fridays head liner or most recognized name is Restless Heart.

Then off to the mundane task of grocery shopping for the week. 

Day 11 Oct 13 - Hayride, Halloween crafts trip downtown, ballon unicorn

We started today with a local hay ride through the RV park, complete with Yogi Bear. We were missing the hay however, and the ride was over in about 8 minutes.. but.....

Rosalie made a few Holloween crafts, then we headed to down town Nashville.

Now, we have not studied down town Nashville. The intent was to just drive down Music Row. We did make it to Music Row a few hours later but had to stop off at Broadway were the are blocks and blocks of bars, each with it's own band's music filtering out the door onto the street. One of those times were we wished we had taken up the offer of a nanny... ( Vi where are you... :o)  ).

Oh well, we probably would not have done a pub crawl justice but it would have been interesting trying. Might have to make an adults only run to Memphis and Nashville some day...

Rosalie charmed a pink balloon unicorn from a friendly street vendor just prior to dinner. A so-so dinner, a late drive down the actual Music Row, the business district for the music industry apparently as there were no entertainment venues on Music Row itself.

Back home late again. Sure is tough to keep the nightly schedule when we are on the road.

Day 10 Oct 12 - Travel day. Leave Memphis arrive in Nashville

Today we have to bid a fond farewell to the Tom Sawyer RV park. It was a rather nice place to hole up for a week. We shall miss the barge traffic...

On the way to Nashville we stopped off at Parkers Crossroads. This was about 1-1/2 hours out of Memphis, our designated stop time. A quick stop to get a loaf of bread and a quick scan of the map did not show a local park, so we drove south just to see what might be down there and stumbled across a Civil war tour stopping point. This particular trail was to commemorate the battle of Parkers Cross Roads. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Parker%27s_Cross_Roads.

It was a nice place to stop for lunch and learn a bit about one of the many Civil war battles.

Then back on the road to Nashville. We spent some frustrating time in Nashville trying to navigate to the camp ground and around the local traffic jam but make it we finally did... Nashville Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park.

Day 9 Oct 11 - Stax Museum, Childrens Museum, Dinner at Alfreds, carriage ride

We visited the Museum of American Soul Music located at the site of the old Stax recording studio. http://www.staxmuseum.com/. Stax has a rather rich legacy of some of the best black music of it's time. Where Motown was releasing polished black music for consumption by the white community Stax was releasing the real deal.

It's seemed Stax was almost a shoe string operation compared to the biggies but Stax brought us the likes of Albert King, Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding, Wilson Picket and a host of others. Some of the Stax finds were quite literally from the local neighborhood. Well worth a tour if you are in Memphis.

Then we went in search of something more along Rosalie's line. The Children's Museum of Memphis. A very nice museum with plenty of hands on for the kiddos.

Dinner was on the upper patio at Alfreds. About the only outdoor venue that overlooks Beal street. A great place for people watching.

Topped off the evening with a horse carriage ride back to the truck in the Cinderella carriage no less...