Travel around Nashville

Wednesday-Sunday (Jul 15-19):

On Wednesday we left the Texas T Campground and made the short trip to Seven Points Campground which is closer to Nashville. This campground is a Corp of Engineers park located on a lake near Nashville. We made the move closer to Nashville since we were putting the motor home in the repair shop to have the water pump replaced on the engine tomorrow. The site was very narrow and had a number of trees around it. We were not able to put up our satellite dish but were able to get local channels from Nashville. We walked around the campground before turning in for the evening. The weather here in Tennessee has been unusually hot so it has limited our outdoor activities.

On Thursday morning we dropped The Duchess off at Crosspoint Cummins Repair in Nashville and did some errands during the time the work was being done. We went to Costco to pick up Connie's new glasses and then visited the Centennial Park in Nashville where a replica of the Parthenon from Rome has been built. The park also has a walking trail that we strolled around and tried to stay in the shade.

We then ate lunch (had a gyro) and did some shopping at Walmart before returning to the repair shop to pick up The Duchess. From there we proceeded to our next campground at the Bledsoe Creek State Park. Once we got set up we realized that I had left my sun glasses at the repair shop and Connie had lost one pair of her new glasses.

Our pull through campsite at Bledsoe Creek State Park
50 amp service with water but no sewer

Friday morning we returned to Nashville to see if we could find Connie's glasses and retrieve mine from the Cummins repair shop. We retraced our steps but were unable to find Connie's glasses. So we made another visit to Costco to order a replacement pair.

Saturday was Connie's birthday. We decided to visit Nashville again to see a couple of places we found on TripAdvisor. We stopped by Gander Mountain store to look at what they had in the way on camping chairs and did not find anything that we liked. We did end up buying some clothing that was on sale (several lightweight shirts and some rain jackets). From there we went to Lane's Motor Museum where they have a large collection of unusual vehicles from all over the world. There are vehicles from the USA, Japan, England, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Russia. The are cars from the 1890's up to a few years ago along with motorcycles, scooters, powered bikes and racing bicycles. They have about 130 cars on display with another 300 cars that can be viewed at selected times for an additional fee. Here are a few photos of some of the collection:

Delivery vehicle from Japan

Honda car with a Honda scooter in the hatch

One of several vehicles that used a propeller to power the car

Connie with one of the mini cars on display. Notice the
bicycle in the back that also used a propeller

Could I fit into this?

An all aluminum mini car

Connie trying to decide which one she wanted

This is a concept car based on the car's interior looking like a living room.
The car had only one door and the driver had to crawl over some seats to get to
the driver's seat.

This car ran on coal. The coal was put in the large front fenders and burned.
The methane gas produced by the coal was used to power the car.

There was even a car that you started by pedaling instead of cranking.

After spending several hours at the car museum we went downtown to the Bourbon Street Blues and Boogie Bar to listen to some music and have something to eat. The singer was from Lufkin Texas and the bass player was from Nashville. They were very good and we enjoyed the music they played.

We return back to the campground where Connie fixed the angel food/crushed pineapple cake we had for my birthday earlier in the month and really liked. We finished the day off with some smoked salmon and a bottle of wine.

On Sunday we decided to stay in the park and do some hiking and kayaking. We did a 4 mile hike around the park in the morning. Some of the trail was along Bledsoe Creek while some of it was quite steep going up hills. By the time we finished the walk we were both dripping wet.

Trail along the creek

Connie coming up the "stairs" along the trail

We have seen lots of wildlife (I use the term very loosely) here in the park. There is a group of deer with several fawns who will eat grass right next to our motor home. We have also seen a flock of wild turkeys, numerous ducks and geese, cranes and lots and lots of squirrels.

Ducks near our campsite

Crane along the trail

In the afternoon we aired up the inflatable kayak and rowed along the creek for about 1.25 hours. Some of the land along the creek is privately owned with some large houses built on the property. In the evening we put up the Coleman canopy we had purchased earlier in the week at Walmart. The box says you can put it up in 3 minutes but it took us a lot longer than that to get it up.