We are now in Nashville TN at a wonderful Core Of Engineers (COE) campground on the J Percy Priest Reservoir. This campground is only $20 a night and only about 15 miles from downtown and the same to the Grand Ole Opry. The only problem with this campground is that a lot of people know about it and stay here so it is full most of the time.
We left Elizabethtown KY around noon for the 125 mile trip to Nashville. The main reason we left so late was that we couldn’t find an open site at any of the campgrounds. This area seems to be busy even this time of year. The only place we found was the COE that we couldn’t get availability information on. Anyway, we did something we don’t usually do, leave with no idea if we could get a site. We can always stay at a rest park and then just head on down the road and not visit Nashville.
Finding this COE was difficult for us since our Garmin didn’t recognize the GPS coordinates that were given. Patty worked on trying to find an alternate method of getting directions to the campground. Well, she didn’t find the directions until we were 3 miles from downtown Nashville where she had the Garmin taking us. Obviously the campground was not going to be downtown so I had to pull off of the road while Patty continued to work on getting directions. She finally got a text list of directions on her cell that she could read to me as I drove. This was not an optimum way to travel. Patty would say “turn on Bell Ave,” and then I would ask “how far is that?” to which I would get an, “I don't know!” This meant that we had to drive real slow looking at all of the street signs for the street names as they came up so I could get the rig turned on to it. We had a long line of traffic behind us at one point.
We finally got to the COE to find that they had just one site opening and that was due to a person being evicted for some reason. The site was also only good for one night and then we would need to move tomorrow. That’s a real pain in the ass! Well, what are to do, we took the site and it was probably the best campground site we have ever been on.
We were right on the edge of the reservoir with a huge secluded site. The site was concrete with a fire pit including wood and a round concrete picnic table. The site was a little hard to get into as it was a back in and down a hill on a curve. It was also on the hardest side, the passenger side. Patty and I have gotten real good at back in sites though so it went pretty good. I think this site would be almost impossible to get into after dark though.
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| Our first site at the Nashville TN COE. |
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| View out of our dirty back window. |
We left the site and headed the 15 miles over to the Grand Ole Opry. The Opry shares a parking lot with a large shopping mall. The entrance is also just one lane from the highway exit making it a pretty slow go to get to the lot. We got there an hour and a half before the event but that was not early enough if you want to get in one of the restaurants in the mall. We had to settle for some Mexican fast food which was just OK.
We finished eating and went over to the Opry and got our seats. Now, this is not our type of music but we really like most music that is live. This Opry house was built in 1974 after the old one burnt down. It is a really nice place; however, the seats are very tight. Another observation is that most of the performers are very old. We would guess the age to be mostly over 70 and some over 80! The only performer we had heard of was Mel Tillis and he is 82. There were a few younger performers but not very many.
The show lasted about 2.5 hours with a short 15 minute intermission in the middle. We had a good time, not great, but good. Would we do it again, Ahhh…no.
On the 5th Sunday we needed to move to another site. I took a walk up to the office and found out which sites would be open for the next 3 nights which there was only 2 open. I walked around the mile long campground to check out the 2 sites and to get my morning exercise. I walked the campground 3 times and determined that site # 1 would work the best for us. Neither of the sites would allow us to get satellite TV but that is OK.
I got back to our site and picked up Patty in the Truck and went to look at the sites again and we both picked site #1. It is not on the water but it is still a beautiful site. About 150 feet long and not even close to another site. It really is total privacy here. We went and paid our $60 for the next three nights and then back to the RV to get ready to move the half mile to our next site. I think this is the shortest move we have ever made.
We are so proud of ourselves with our back in skills now! This site has a narrow entrance and is also on the harder to back in passenger side of the rig. Patty knew exactly where to have me stop before the reverse move and when to tell me to start to straighten up. We were in the site in one move! However, we did do some jockeying around to get the RV in just the right position at the back of the site. Even with the last minute movements, we were into the site and the truck removed within 10 minutes. We are feeling pretty good with that!
Today we decided to just hang around the campsite and relax. We knew we had the move today and we pushed pretty hard yesterday to get to our site and then get out to the Opry so we wanted just a down day. We started a nice fire around 4pm and we hung out around it until about 9pm under a full moon. We cooked baked potatoes and 2 pork chops on the fire and ate out on the picnic table. What a great night.
Tomorrow it is supposed to rain again for the next 2 days. We want to go into town and see the sites and maybe have dinner with music. We shall see.
Stay Tuned!
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