Saturday, August 20

Our flight out of Nashville wasn't until late this afternoon, so we hung around the resort this morning reading.  At lunchtime we went to the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center which was just across the road.  It is a Marriott, one of the luxury collection I'm guessing, and is reportedly the biggest hotel they have with over 2,000 rooms.  We wandered around trying to find a parking lot that wouldn't cost us $20 for just a couple of hours and finally found one that looked promising although it was labeled for buses only.  There were a fair number of cars though, so we asked some golfers walking through what they could tell us about this lot.  "It's free", said one of them.  Just what we wanted to know so we parked and hiked the long walk to the hotel.  As we approached the entrance we noticed a sign directing "Uber, Lyft and Taxis" to a specific lane.  How advanced.  This hotel really is 3 hotels in one, each with their own registration area.  And each has a beautiful atrium in the middle with ponds, fountains, streams, bridges and thousands of plants.  We decided to head to one of the restaurants, Jack Daniels, for lunch and it took us about 15 minutes just to find it.  I had shrimp and grits, which were very good, and Michael had chittlings (pork rinds) and a bean soup, both of which he enjoyed.  Then it was off to gas up the car and head to the airport which was only a 15 minute drive.  There were thunderstorms in the area, but we left pretty close to ontime.  I was holding my breath that we didn't get struck by lightning, which apparently happens on average to each airplane at least once a year.  Our Alaska Airlines flight was direct to Seattle where we had a 3 hour layover.  I saw online that there was an earlier flight to Redmond, but if we wanted to make the change more than 6 hours before the flight, it would cost $150 each plus the difference in airfare.  The agent suggested we just check when we arrive in Seattle.  We had only about 45 minutes before the earlier flight but for once we lucked out and the two gates were very close.  The gate agent said there was room on the earlier flight and didn't even charge us the $25 fee to change so we were happy campers.  Of course our luggage went on the original flight, but we picked it up the next morning with no problems.  Happy to be back home and with fun memories of Tennessee.

Friday, August 19

This was our last full day of the trip.  We spent a quiet morning doing one last load of laundry, watching Olympic golf and playing on our computers.  At lunchtime we went to Uncle Bud's Catfish, Chicken and Such on the recommendation of our friends Barb and Bob.  This is truly a "local dive" with paper towels for napkins and lots of regulars.  We had the fried oysters and catfish.  Everything comes with cole slaw, beans and hush puppies and very friendly service.  Then we were off to see The Hermitage, which was the home of Andrew  Jackson.  Oh my, is that one beautiful and huge house.  Since it is located a fair ways from Nashville, especially in the 1830's when it could take 5 or 6 hours to travel there, many of their guests spent days with the family when they visited.  Some spent months!  They had 2 guest bedrooms with only 3 beds among them so you had to be prepared to share the bed with 1 or even 2 others if the house was full.  Apparently Jackson was the third richest former president when he died, after Washington and Kennedy.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing and finishing up the food we had left over, which made for an interesting dinner.  Tomorrow we say so long to Tennessee.  It's been a fun and educational trip and I have a much more positive opinion of Tennessee and the south in general.

Thursday, August 18

Today was another Civil War battlefield day.  This time we went south to the town of Murfreesboro where the Battle of Stones River was fought December 31, 1862 - January 2, 1863.  This was another bloody battle with about 23,500 casualties.  This is also a National Park Service location and they have a nice Visitor Center but there weren't any tours. We went to the National Cemetery where about 6,100 Union soldiers are buried, about 2,500 of whom are unknown.  All of these unknown soldiers got us to wondering when military dog tags came into use.  According to various sources, some Civil War soldiers made their own as it became known that many bodies were not able to be identified, but the US Military didn't start issuing them until around 1906 or so.

We ate lunch at Demo's which was recommended by our shuttle bus driver the other day.  I had catfish and red rice and beans, both of which were delicious.  Michael was less pleased with his pasta in brown butter and garlic.

A couple of observations over out time here:  gas is anywhere from $1.72 to $2.18 per gallon.  I think it was $2.49 when we left home.  And there are lots of churches in the south and we'd guess that at least 80% of them are Baptist, all of which are large and many of which are HUGE.  It's true what we've heard; Southerners are very friendly.

Wednesday, August 17

Today was one of the best of the trip.  We took a tour down to the town of Franklin where arguably the worst battle of the Civil War was fought.  On November 30, 1864, 20,000 Union soldiers fought 20,000 Confederate soldiers in a horrific hand to hand combat for 5 hours from 4-9 pm (in the dark obviously) which resulted in 10,000 casualties (2,000 dead, 7,000 injured and 1,000 missing).  This battle was fought just outside the town of Franklin which had 750 people at the time.  Every possible building in the area was turned into a field hospital and some of the soldiers were there for 7 months.  The tour first stopped at the Carter House which was right in the center of the fighting.  The Carter family hid in the basement along with their neighbors.  There were 28 people hiding in one room for many hours including many young children and some slaves.  The house and outbuilding walls still have the bullet and canon ball holes.  Then we went to the Lotz House across the street.  This house took several direct hits by canon balls and you can see the patches in the floor.  Lotz was a German wood craftsman who had built the house himself and he knew a wood building would suffer great damage in the battle so he took his family to his neighbors, the Carters, to hide in their stone basement.  And finally we went to the Carnton Plantation which is a magnificent house a mile south of town that was not in the midst of the fighting, but was turned into a Confederate field hospital for about 300 soldiers.  After the war Mr. McGavock, the owner, donated 2 acres to be used as a Confederate cemetery.  About 1,500 bodies were exhumed from their hurried shallow burial spots and buried properly here.  At least one third of them were never identified.  In all 3 of these homes you can still see the blood stains in the wood floors especially near the windows, where the surgeons operated, and near the fireplaces where the wounded gathered for warmth.  The guides were excellent telling the stories of these 3 families and what that day was like for them.  On the drive back the driver showed a video documentary about the remains of a Civil War soldier which were found in Franklin in 2009 during a construction project.  The town got together and arranged a full military funeral in the style of the day and buried the unknown soldier in the town cemetery.  They don't know whether he was from the North or the South, but that didn't matter.  Each of these stories was very touching and the guides really put a human face on the terrible events of that day.

We also learned a lot about life in those days.  A couple of things stand out.  First the expression "sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite" refers to the ropes that held up the mattresses and had to be tightened periodically with a special tool.  And secondly, at that time young boys in portraits often had long hair, sometimes with curls, and even wore dresses.  You could tell it was a boy because the hair would be parted on the side whereas girls' hair was parted in the middle. Boys didn't get to wear long pants, or "britches", until about age 10 or so.

We didn't get home from the tour until about 5:00 pm so we just went to the Kroger and bought a roasted chicken and salads for dinner.

Tuesday, August 16

Today was a pretty quiet day.  We hung around the unit catching up on computer stuff and reading most of the day.  We ventured out for lunch at Chuy's, a Mexican restaurant nearby which is one of a chain and quite good.  It's located in the Opry Mall which is about a mile from us and right next to the Grand Ole Opry, so we walked around the mall after lunch.  The highlight for Michael was the huge Bass Pro Shop where he spent a while in the fly fishing section.

The main activity of the day was our evening at the Grand Ole Opry.  We took the shuttle from the resort so as not to have to figure out parking, which was a good decision.  It was quite an interesting experience.  The theater holds over 4,700 and it was sold out.  They only have shows 3 days a week.  In the 2 hour show (2 shows each night) there were about 7 acts, most singing only 3 songs, with commercial breaks in between since this is actually a radio show as well.  The headliner for this show was Keith Urban.  Our only complaint was that, as often happens with live shows, we couldn't hear the lyrics for most of the songs.  When we got home, out of curiosity we tuned into the radio show for the second show of the evening and the singer was quite clear as if on a recording.

Monday, August 15

This morning we did another load of laundry - love having the washer/dryer right in the units.  We took the resort's shuttle to downtown Nashville, about a 25 minute drive.  It dropped us near the convention center in the middle of town.  We headed to the Johnny Cash Museum which was very interesting.  It had lots of mementos, music, movie shorts and clothes worn by Johnny and June at performances.  I didn't know that he recorded over 1,500 songs.  Then, on the recommendation of the concierge here, we went to Southern restaurant for lunch.  We paid for it with the AMEX card from Wyndham, as well as the entry fee to our next stop at the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum.  Again this was pretty interesting.  They have the gold plated Cadillac limousine which belonged to Elvis as well as the gold plated piano that Priscilla gave him on their first anniversary.  Actually, it was his piano already, she just had it plated in gold as a gift.

As it has been this whole trip, it was very hot and humid so we didn't do much more walking around town.  We caught the shuttle back to the resort and headed for the pool.

Sunday, August 14

Today was moving day and we left Fairfield Glade around 9:30 for the 2+ hour drive to Nashville which was a nice drive through the beautiful Tennessee hills.  We took Interstate 40 since that's the most direct route, but I really hate the Tennessee drivers who tailgate within a couple of car lengths at speeds of 65-70.  Made for a nerve-wracking drive.  We are now at the Wyndham Resort in Nashville, which is about 10 minutes east of town right near the Grand Ole Opry.  We agreed to do a lunchtime owners update again because they were offering a $125 American Express card as the gift.  The 75 minute update turned into more like 2 hours because we got to talking with our salesman and a supervisor, whose parents live in Bend, which was fun.  But then the sales pressure began.  We were strong and didn't buy anything again.  Next we headed to the local Kroger store to get a few supplies.  Like Oregon, you can now buy wine and beer in the grocery stores, but no hard liquor.  Back at the unit we opened a bottle of wine and had frozen pizza and salad again for dinner.  We're getting into a rut.

This is another very nice unit, a large 1 bedroom deluxe.