Nashville and Atlanta
Family Updates RV Trip 1999 RV Trip 2005

 

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The trip to Nashville from Memphis is about 3 1/2 hours.   Driving into Nashville
there was a lot of construction in this growing city.   We stayed near the "new"
Grand Old Opry.   It was a Jellystone park with Yogi as our mascot.   Behind the
check-in  was a good size pool and a pavilion where they had karaoke and live
music on Friday and Saturday nights.  There was a country singer there Friday
night who sang a variety of old country songs.

Here is our campsite row.   This place was pretty large and the trees were nice in
the 100 degree heat.  There was a huge playing field that we played aerobie on and the boys played basketball near.   This was another wireless park so we
emailed and updated the website from our campsite!   Very cool.
So this is a large complex with the Grand Old Opry House  This is where the concerts are and where they filmed Hee Haw.   There is a museum, a shopping mall and a nice hotel with a conference center here.   We were expecting an old building like in one of
Gretchen Wilson's videos.   Well that's the "old" Grand Old Opry.  It is downtown and was replaced by this one in 1974.  (Oops!!)    The "old" one is actually the Ryman Auditorium which is like a museum now.  There is also the Country Music Museum here.   Too much to see too little time - Michelle and I will just have to come back for a
weekend sometime - country trip anyone???  They have a great package deal...  Patrick and Will slept through this part of the tour.

Goodbye  Nashville, hello Georgia.
This is the map for Stone Mountain Park outside Atlanta.   It is a state part with a golf course, Marriott hotel, largest relief carving in the world (I could be wrong about that),
a campground across the lake and a resort area made as a replica of the old South.  The easiest way to get from the campground (black circle) to the resort area is by water taxi.

Here is the relief carving.  It is three figures from the Confederacy - General Robert E. Lee, General Stonewall Jackson, and President Davis.
Here the Roemer family waits for dinner.   When it was our turn they called "Cousin Roemer."  We went to the dinner where we received fresh hot rolls via an employee throwing them like hot potatoes at us out of a basket.   She tossed (threw them) at all 7 of us!

 

 

The night ended with at least  a 40 minute laser show with lots of rock and country music and fireworks on the relief carving.  Here we were waiting for it to get started.

 

The show was great - very patriotic.   It talked about the history, and area hot spots (like Memphis and Nashville) and their teams (Boo Braves!).  After the show we had to take the water taxi home.