Friends, Family and great Food!
We were extremely busy in Nashville and it is one of our favorite places to visit. This is our third visit but we were still able to do some different things. We finally tried Hot Chicken at Hattie B’s! It was awesome and we highly recommend this special Nashville staple. We plan to go every time we are in Nashville.
We stayed in our usual RV park, Two Rivers and got a surprise visit from friends we know from Sycamore IL! Cyndy and Denny Ramer were there for a couple of days because Denny hurt his back. They were taking a detour from their planned trip (to Paducah, KY) to see a doctor and potentially get some physical therapy. They were staying in Nashville because they couldn’t get into the RV park in Paducah for a couple of days. As of this writing, he is doing much better!
We also met Noel and Dave Newhouse in Nashville. They live in San Antonio and come to Sycamore IL each summer to see their sons and grandchildren. We knew they would be in Nashville at the same time we were and I convinced them to have dinner with us at The Standard. Awesome restaurant in a Victorian home downtown Nashville and we made reservations for the 4 of us. It was a great evening with awesome friends and great food!
Along with friends, my sister Amy and her son Anthony (my nephew) visited us at the RV park! I made my famous sloppy joe’s and we had a great time. Anthony gave us a blanket that was perfect for the RV!
We love the blanket and appreciate Amy and Anthony. Anthony is a top salesmen at a Ford dealership in Tullahoma (Russel Barnett Ford of Tullahoma). I made an appointment with him to checkout a new Bronco. Fortunately he had a Bronco to test drive with a soft top, just what I was looking for. The Bronco drove great and a very smooth ride! The soft top was easy to pull back revealing the entire interior. Just what we wanted! So I ordered one and should be ready next year.
Amy came to the dealership and so did an old friend from high school – Dan Zehring! He had just moved to the area from Gilbert AZ and was loving the Tennessee life! We all went to lunch and reminisced high school life in Mishawaka. It was a great time!
Grand Ole Opry
So we have done the Opry before but this time it was very special. Normally there would be about 4 acts that would perform a couple of songs each and that would be the show. This time, they were performing Country Classic songs with the Gatlin Brothers as the emcee! It was awesome and Larry Gatlin was extremely humorous and of course very knowledgeable about the songs and artists that were playing that night. Along with the Gatlin Brothers were Linda Davis, Teea Goans and Jim Lauderdale.
What brought the house down was Josh Turner. He was the final act and of course he did some of his hit songs and was awesome. He played a new song and it was the first time they did it live. It’s called “The Soldier’s Gift”. Very patriotic and moving, not a dry eye in the house! I highly recommend you listen to this great American song.
General Jackson Showboat
Just on the other side of the Grand Ole Opry is the General Jackson Showboat. This has been around for a while but we have never been on it. It is essentially a dinner show on a boat that goes up the river to downtown Nashville and back. Very talented singers/dancers with a live band! The food was great also and the view of downtown Nashville was spectacular!
The Huckabee Show
We are huge fans of Mike Huckabee and watch his show every week. He uses the TBN studios on what used to be the Conway Twitty campus. A lot of history there and it was very cool to see the entire area. Of course we couldn’t wait to get into the show. We ended up on the far right section (as you’re facing the audience) but Patti and I were able to watch the show on TV and we could see ourselves in a couple of shots so it was very cool! Definitely do this when you are in Nashville!
So you are probably wondering… Did we go downtown to Broadway street? Well we did but it wasn’t a great experience. It has been 2 years since coming to downtown and a lot has changed. Rather than “honky tonks” it just seemed like everyone was out clubbing and it had a look of Las Vegas. There was a new Apple store right across the oldest honky tonks and it was just out of place. It was huge and it looked like something that belonged on the Mag Mile in Chicago. Party buses were everywhere!! Picture big school buses that were opened up with no roof, blaring loud music and lots of, shall we just leave it at, party-ers on them. Of course we were there on a Saturday night at the same time the Rolling Stones were playing in the football stadium across the river so downtown was packed! Very disappointed and we probably will come back but during the week.
Overall we had a great time in Nashville and we will be back!