A Busy Week in Boot Country

Last week we were at Two Rivers Campground near Opry Mills in Nashville, Tennessee.

Our narrow site at Two Rivers RV Park (Nashville, TN)

Not our favorite place, unfortunately – our pull-through site was extremely narrow, the road in front our site had a large puddle from some heavy rains, and there was a constant highway drone from TN-155. The park had some nice amenities that we didn’t take advantage of, such as a swimming pool and live music in the evenings. We did take advantage of the on-site laundry facilities, however.

It was also a busy week for me for work, making it difficult to leave the campground. We met one of Susan’s good friends for dinner a couple of nights – once in her home town of Franklin (just south of Nashville), and another in the Opry Mills Shopping Mall (that apparently replaced the Opryland USA themepark back in 1999 — who knew?). Susan spent a night catching up with her old friend, so for once it was just Eli & me in the bed. That was pretty nice! 🙂

David & Eli – Country Music Hall of Fame (Nashville, TN)

Saturday was our big day to actually explore downtown Nashville. We took the Music City trolley tour and our first stop was the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum.

Garth Brook’s Guitar for “The Dance” (Country Music Hall of Fame)

That was pretty neat – lots of interesting stories about some of the key players that launched the Nashville music scene and some fun artifacts, including Elvis’s “Solid Gold” Cadillac and the guitar that Garth Brooks played The Dance on. I’m a big GB fan, so that was neat for me to see.

And the Hall of Fame wall, filled floor to ceiling with Gold and Platinum records, was pretty overwhelming! Eli was getting a little bored of the whole thing by the end, however. So we went outside for a quick lunch from the hot dog cart and let him run around in the park. It was a gorgeous day!

Lunch break on a beautiful day (Nashville, TN)

Our next stop on the trolley ride was the Farmer’s Market, near the Nashville Bicentennial Park. Plenty of pumpkins and other reminders of the fall season. Eli loved running around among the mums. And I saw a flyer for what would probably have been an amazing event – Bacon and Bourboun tasting. Unfortunately it wasn’t going to work with our schedule for this visit. Bummer!

Eli, Mom, Mums (Farmer’s Market, Nashville TN)

Eli loved walking on this beautiful day (Wall of History, Nashville TN)

We then walked over to the Bicentennial Park, where Eli continued his enthusiastic walking, this time up and down the granite Wall of History that details Tennessee’s history from a billion years ago to the modern age. Needless to say, after that he crashed hard for a short power nap!

Unfortunately, we had to wait over 30 minutes for our trolley to pick us up – and when it did, it was jam-packed, standing-room-only. That was very disappointing. It took a number of stops before the crowd thinned out, but eventually it did and we were able to enjoy the rest of our tour around Music Row, Vanderbilt University, and finally down Broadway.

Broadway is the main drag with all the bars and honky-tonks – and the night life was starting to roll by the time we wrapped up our tour around 4pm. We checked out a couple of shops looking for cowboy boots, but ultimately decided not to splurge (at least not yet – maybe when we pass through Texas?). We thought about staying for dinner, but 5-6pm Saturday on Broadway is not the time & place to find a place to eat in a timely fashion with a toddler.

Eli boot shopping (Boot Country, Nashville TN)

I definitely would have liked to have spent more time checking out downtown Nashville, but that was just wasn’t practical. This is the downside of traveling with a toddler – hard to get out for any kind of a date night or night life. I’m definitely putting Nashville on a list of “places I want to come back to” – it seems like a great destination for a family or friends get-together-and-party event!