Nashville,Tn to Alpharetta, GA via Jack Daniel's

It's only 250 miles but we spent the night in northern Georgia after driving only about 175 miles.

For one thing, I had forgotten about loosing one hour going from Tennessee into Georgia & that would have put us into Alpharetta after the Public Storage place for the trailer was closed.

Also, Thanks to daughter Jamel's suggestion, we spent about 1.5 hours in Lynchburg, Tn @ the Jack Daniel's Distillery. It was so very interesting. No tasting...it's a dry county!......BUT they got special permission in 1995 to sell "it" but not allow drinking it there. Due to the fact they got their license way back in 1866

& it's grandfathered-in they are allowed to continue to produce it there.

About half of the tour is outside & it was raining cats and dogs! Luckily, we had umbrellas & clogs so we fared pretty well. They always take a group photo outside but ours needed to be inside due to the rain:

It was a fascinating free tour. Nice free parking with room for the trailer too. Some people "blow-off" the freebies by buying the whiskey. They offered 5 varieties of Jack Daniel's Whiskey for sale. Each type had been explained to us on the tour about each. Don't ask!

If one buys all 5 types offered the cost is $216. The three that we bought are only distributed in Tennessee....thought that wise because we'd never be able to buy them anywhere else. Brilliant!

Anyway, the three came to about $126. I wish they had a handout with the explanations of each. They didn't so now I need to do some online research, I guess.

http://www.jackdaniels.com/

The three we bought are: d Old No. 7, Gentleman Jack and Jack Daniel's Single Barrel

What I knew about whiskey is only the spelling & that the Jack Daniel brand is a bit pricey & from their own website:

Is Jack Daniel's a bourbon?

Jack Daniel's is not a bourbon - it's a Tennessee Whiskey. Jack Daniel's is dripped slowly - drop-by-drop - through ten feet of firmly packed charcoal (made from hard sugar maple) before going into new charred oak barrels for aging. This special process gives Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey its rare smoothness. It's this extra step - charcoal mellowing – that makes Jack Daniel's a Tennessee Whiskey.

Wikipedia has it wrong & calls it a bourbon whiskey. All Greek to me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Daniel's an interesting story about Jack Daniel , the man & what killed him.

Why JD is NOT a bourbon: Jack Daniels is a Tennessee whiskey, which is a different style than what can legally be called "bourbon."

By definition, bourbon must be

1) produced in the US,

2) made from at least 51% corn,

3) aged in brand new, charred oak barrels, and

4) be distilled at no more than 160 proof.

Jack Daniels takes its aged whiskey out of the barrel and filters it through charcoal to "soften" it (this is where the definition of "Tennessee whiskey" came from.) You can't alter bourbon from the barrel to the bottle in any way, so JD loses the chance to call it bourbon legally, even if it met the four points above.

On a side note, Lynchburg, TN (which is where Jack Daniel's distillery is located) is located in a "dry" county - you can't drink any JD at the distillery, or legally buy it anywhere in the vicinity.

Well, now, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

Tornado! Say WHAT?

Well a big storm is coming into the Nashville area & we leave tomorrow morning. There are even tornado warnings just south of us here. It looks as if we'll be driving in rain most of our 250 mile drive from Nashville to Atlanta tomorrow.

At this moment, following the current storm is the only thing on almost all of the TV channels here right now....cannot get 60 Minutes on CBS. Oh well, following this storm is interesting. We have big rain sounds on our roof . I like that...no hail please.

We did go to the Grand Ole Opry for a second show, Saturday night. Some of it was exactly as on Friday. The good thing was that they inducted a new member, Blake Shelton. It was presented to Blake by his good friend Trace Adkins, another country singer. However, one night of the Opry would have been sufficient!

Earlier today we spent some time dumping the tanks so we wouldn't need to do it in the rain tomorrow when we're ready to leave here. Our site didn't have the sewer hookup so we needed hook up & drive to the main dump in the camp.

Once we had the trailer back into our campsite we disconnected the car again & drove off to the Lane Auto Museum. http://lanemotormuseum.org/

They have he largest Czechoslovakian collection outside Europe plus lots other European beautiful old cars

On the way back to camp we stopped to eat. There WAS a geocache near the parking lot of the restaurant but it was dark when we finished eating so we skipped it.

When we got back to camp we got the car all hooked up to the trailer. In the morning all we need to do is disconnect our electrical cord, slide in the popout & go.

As I type the local news is still following the storm. Tornado spottings, lightning strikes are up to 660 ....not a typing error. I guest I'd better get offline ....byeeee

Nix Nix Randy Travis ....my Error; plus the Opry

Jeeze! Just goes to show you how much I do not know about "country'.

Randy Travis turns out to be Trace Adkins......because I don't know "jack"! DUH!

Anyway, Trace Adkins is for tomorrow night; not Randy Travis.

We just returned from tonight's Opry. The 7 pm show was 2 1/2 hrs long with about 45 minutes of commercials!

The music was really good. The performers were mostly old timers. One was 89 years old...Little Jimmy Dickens...they call him LITTLE Jimmy Dickens. He IS that! He put on a good performance...hard to believe his age. He told some funny, silly jokes too.

At first we were very annoyed when the deep voiced MC/announcer, Eddie Stubbs spoke a commercial every 10 minutes. We couldn't believe we paid this kind of money for a show & it had commercials!!! Well, no one ever told us a & we never read nor realized that what we were seeing was a live radio show. Of course it would have commercials.

Here's a link about announcer Eddie Stubbs as well as getting a peek @ Little Jimmy Dickens; yup, he's t he 89 yr old. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ_LczoT414

BTW, since the May 2010 Nashville flood the venue for the Opry was unable to be in their own building until repaired. Their own building was only reopened Sept 28 2010 to a star studded show with some names I actually have heard of.

http://www.wkrn.com/Global/story.asp?S=13233167 This link also has some videos & photos about the Opry, the flood, etc

Nashville is still in the midst of major repairs left over from the flood. It's really sad & difficult to imagine what so many went through. Near the Grand Ole Opry is a HUGE outlet mall that includes an IMAX Theatre & Borders Book Store among it's many shops & it's still totally closed down for flood repairs. It and it's parking lots are completely fenced in by chain-link fencing that seems to go on and on and on.

Chihuly's show at CheekWood....

......was truly wonderful. the Cheekwood Gardens on the rolling hillsides of a Nashvillle SUPERB. It was more beautiful than I had imagined.

The weather was perfect for walking in the fall.

It takes a whole team to make the huge Chihuly glass pieces. Beautifully unique is all I can think of to describe this art. If you've seen the lobby of the Bellagio Casino Hotel in Las Vegas. The huge glass flowers in the ceiling are his work. This garden exhibit, however, was totally different.

This link http://www.chihulyinnashville.com/plan.html will give you an idea.

We were lucky to have decided to go on a weekday instead of the weekend, also showing up about 3:30pm was s a VERY good decision. There was no line at all to get our $12 senior tickets. (non-senior $15)

After walking through the exhibits throughout the gardens & watching a 45 minute video about Chihuly and his team of glass workers we left just about 1/2 hr after the sun set. Maybe 7pm.

Driving out of the parking lot we were shocked to see car lights lined up waiting to enter the park...lined up as far as we could see in two directions....bumper to bumper.

All I can say is that if we had been in that line I would have freaked & said "Get me out of here!!"

I simply would have missed the exhibit. No second thoughts. Just...bye bye & Hasta la vista, baby!!!!

Today we took a 3 1/2 hr Greyline "Nashville Orientation" Tour. A bit pricy @ $92 for two (forgot my coupons...drat) but worth it. As the tour van drove around I had out my iPhone GPS so I could follow along where we were in relationship to our KOA camp so that when we return to places on our own I'll know where we are.

I did not expect to enjoy the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum & we wouldn't have probably gone on our own simply because....well , we like "country" but don't follow it much. Also, in my advance planning I read some reviews. People either LOVED it or didn't cared much for it. Bottom line, we liked it a lot! It's a very modern museum with all kinds of hi-tech things. Glad we went. So much that after the tour we went right over to the Grand Ole Opry & bought show tickets for both tonight, Friday & tomorrow night too. Tonight we have 3rd row center $55 each...I don't recognize any of the names but tomorrow night there is a name I recognize, Randy Travis. On both nights there are lots of performers & we're looking forward to both shows. I guess we'll either have our fill of country music for a long time or be hooked-on-country... Hey, that sounds like a good title for a country song...eh, uh oh.

3 weeks into our annual Fall Trip

Well, I'm so far behind on our blog BUT I'm going to post anyway....without trying to go back to

April when we left Mexico. I keep telling myself I'll fill it all in from April up to the present....we'll see! So for now:

We're in Nashville Tn & will probably be here for 4 or 5 nights.

1st nte a Passport America camp http://www.nashvillecountryrvpark.com/home.cfm

@$20 (incl tax) Sun-Wed but then they go up to a Good Sam rate Thurs-Sat. which is almost the same as the KOA downtown-ish. $34.95 per nite , including taxes, for our size rig. We only need 30 amps. The larger rigs that need 50 amp & big slide-outs DO cost more.

After getting set up in the PA camp we disconnected & took the car downtown to checkout the KOA & we will be moving tomorrow, downtown & eliminate the 16 mile round trip from the PA camp.

BOTH camps are truly beautiful with cable TV & great Internet.

Don't know exactly what we'll be doing in Nashville. There is a Dale Chihuly display http://www.chihulyinnashville.com/ as well as an Impressionist exhibit directly from Musee D'Orsay , Paris. http://www.atthefrist.com/impressionism/ We've been there & always love seeing the Impressionists. We'll know more tomorrow. It just started Oct 15th so it may be difficult to get tickets.

We might even take in some "country" in this Music City. THAT'S usually why people come to Nashville, isn't it?

Whoopie! I just decided to look up the website for the Nashville KOA camp & they have a "HOT DEAL"....if u stay 3 nights u get the 4th free. I guess that helps up make up our minds. 1 nte PA camp & 4 ntes KOA. Now we have LOTS of time to figure out what we want to do ....or not do....sometimes we need to just do nothing & regroup.

Ok, I'm out of here now.

OOPs....not yet...I just found NashTrash tours...has really good reviews & we're considering it if timing works out: http://www.nashtrash.com/ What a hoot!

Ah! the MidWest Autumn Color

We spent only 5 nights in Coldwater, Michigan @ the Waffle Farm Campground. The Fall color was at it’s peak and as beautiful &
awe-inspiring as anything could possibly be; and when the wind whipped up........
well, it’s one of my favorite things in life,
“raining leaves”. Autumn leaves!


“Family” is the main reason we come to Coldwater annually. My mom & sister both live in Coldwater & we do not come here more often because it's a long drive to do more than once a year . I have chosen to no longer fly. Never thought I'd say that having been with Pan Am for 25 years! Oh well, such is life. Things change.

This year my sister was in a medical care facility nursing an operation that rebuilt her broken leg. We were so happy to see her doing extremely well but no one knew how long she would need to remain there. My mom had recently gone through some surgery too so we didn’t feel it was in anyone’s best interest for us to stay longer.

Next stop Nashville.