It was getting to the end of October as we left Virginia, and as we headed up into the hills headed towards Tennessee, we began to really see some beautiful fall colours. We spent the night halfway between Petersburg and Athens, Tennessee at a little campground where we were treated to some wonderful southern hospitality. As we pulled in, late in the day, the manager and his wife asked about our journey and we talked for a bit about what a lovely country this is and also their desire to visit our home province of British Columbia. As we didn’t need any hookups, they told us to just choose an empty spot and park for free! Wow! It was a lovely afternoon and we hoped to be able to sit outside and enjoy our dinner. However, shortly after we parked and took out the chairs, the sun started to set and the temperature dropped. A LOT!!! Yikes!!! We ditched the plan of eating outside, quickly made our dinner and hoped back into the van to eat. It was a pretty cold night, one where we used all of the blankets and were still a little chilly early in the morning, but we survived and were rewarded with beautiful sunshine on the frosty ground the next day. Needless to say, we didn’t stick around to make breakfast, but headed into town for a quick McDonalds fill up before heading off to Athens.

Why Athens you ask? Well, it turns out that I have family history here in Tennessee and wanted to see some documents for myself. My cousins, Ronnie and Betty had both seen these and put copies up on our family tree, but seeing them for myself was important for me, so stop we did. As rain was in the forecast, we booked a motel and then headed for the courthouse where we spent several interesting hours chatting with a lovely older gentleman in the basement about genealogy while he helped us look for things. We managed to find the marriage register for my great great grandfather and his bride as well as reference to a deed, registered upstairs. When we went to find it, in a giant book, the writing was pretty difficult to read and the location of the property pretty much impossible to figure out. It referenced the land as “to the south of this guy, to the west of this tree…”. Oh well, it was fun just to see it, even though I have no idea where it is! As we left the courthouse, the rain was really coming down. We had planned to move on that night but decided one more night at the motel was better than driving in a downpour, so we ordered pizza and had a relaxing evening in.

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The next day, we drove through the little town of McMinnville on our way to Nashville. I just wanted a picture as one of my great great uncle’s names was McMinn.

Then, it was on to Nashville, home of Country Music! We arrived on Saturday afternoon and having checked our iOverlander app, knew that it was possible to park by the Tennessee Titans stadium, right across the river from Nashville. There is a little parking lot way down at the end and there was no signage about not parking overnight, nor was there any indication that we needed to pay. We saw a couple of big trucks from Fox Sports parked there and asked a driver if he knew anything about overnight parking. He didn’t, but also didn’t think it would be a big deal if we parked there. We noticed there was a shuttle into town operating there, and people would park and take it into town, but we wanted to walk over the footbridge, so just parked the van and walked the lovely walkway, getting our first glimpse of downtown Nashville from there.

We spend a fun couple of hours wandering the streets, heading country music coming from pretty much every bar we passed (and there are a LOT of bars). Eventually, we stopped in at one to enjoy a couple of beers and something to eat while both enjoying the live music and watching a college football game – perfect for us!!! There are a lot of museums in downtown Nashville, such as the Johnny Cash museum and of course, the Grand Ole Opry, but the admission is a bit pricey and as neither of us are giant Country music fans, we decided not to check them out, although I am sure they are both very very cool. However, along with a million bars, this area of Nashville is well stocked with boot stores and I am a huge fan of cowboy boots. We wandered through and I checked out a number of boots, not really thinking of buying, until Jim pointed out a pair that I just couldn’t resist. So now, I have to find a place in the van for my boots!!! Oh darn!!!

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We thoroughly enjoyed our time in the crazy part of Nashville before finally wandering back over the bridge to our now very quiet parking lot. The deal with this lot is it is not available on game days, but we figured we’d be out early in the morning well before the game the next day, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Well, that turned out to be almost true. The next morning, very early, Jim heard a large rig backing up, but didn’t hear anyone near us, so went back to sleep. A little later, around 7, we both woke up to more activity. Looking out, we saw a lot of vehicles now moving in, so we figured we should probably leave these folks to their setting up. We took down the window covers and then got a really good look at what was now all around us. There was a giant Police Incidence Response trailer parked off to the side and a whole lot of police cars all around!!! Oh no!!! This lot wasn’t for workers at the game – it was for the police!!!! Sheepishly, we drove through the gate, garnering some puzzled looks no doubt, but not stopped by anyone. Wow! We sure dodged one there!!!!

After making our escape, we stopped in to have breakfast at a yummy biscuit restaurant (I love southern food!!!) before heading over to check out the Parthenon. What? Wait!!! The Parthenon is in Greece, not Tennessee!!! Well, yes and no. For the Tennessee Centennial Exposition in 1897, the city of Nashville built a full-scale replica of the Parthenon. It was too early for what is now an art gallery to be open, but we parked and walked around the exterior, staring in awe at the structure. We had a few hours to kill before we could go inside, and were pretty tired from our early morning, so we put up the window covers and had a snooze, which was great! An hour later, we popped back out and joined the Sunday crowds to check out the inside. On the ground floor there was some art, but nothing really stood out to us so we headed upstairs. Here we found the most amazing thing. A full scale replica of the statue of Athena that had been in the original Parthenon. Well, now this was truly something to behold and we spent time just taking in the incredible statue.

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Later, it was time to check in at the Hayes Street Hotel. We had booked this hotel, thinking it would be nice to have a night in Nashville where we didn’t have to drive and could relax. It is in the areas known as Music Row, which is away from the crazy music scene but where many record studios area instead. After checking in, we wandered around, finding the famous RCA Studio B where Elvis once recorded, which was pretty cool to see. After our little wander, we stopped by a bar where everyone was wearing their Cleveland Browns gear and hoping their team could knock off New England. We had a beer and cheered them on until it was obvious that their dreams would not be fulfilled this day, so we left them to their misery and wandered back to our room for a rest. We originally thought there would be music at our hotel, but it turned out that Sundays there is none. However, when we headed out for dinner, we were directed to a great little place just a few blocks over where we enjoyed some great food, drinks and live music. It was a wonderful way to wrap up our visit to Nashville. Next stop? We are headed down the Natchez Parkway where we hope to do a little cycling as we drive down this beautiful parkway that stretches from Nashville down to Natchez, Mississippi.

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