Roller Coaster Road Trip 2014: The Grand Ole Opry

After our short jaunt to Mammoth Cave National Park, it was on to the next state on our trip, one which I'd never been to before but always wanted to visit.

Let's take a trip to Tennessee...find a spot by a lazy tree...

Yes, Tennessee, more specifically Nashville, was a place I'd always wanted to see.  It was actually the one destination on our itinerary that did not involve an amusement park and we were all just as excited to check it out as we were for any of the theme parks we visited. 

Since we arrived in Nashville late in the day, we decided to hold off until the morning to explore, and our first destination was Nashville's most famous of landmarks,, the Grand Ole Opry.  Now I've never been a big fan of country music, but being in Nashville and especially at the the Opry, you can't help but be excited to be there for its significance to the music world in general.   The experience was one which I'll remember for a long, long time.  

*Just an FYI for anyone out there thinking of visiting Nashville and the Opry...the place is not actually within the limits of Nashville proper, but about a 20-minute drive outside of the city.

It was Rich's idea to book the backstage tour.  His sister, mom and niece had done it a couple of years ago and they told him how good it was.  And it was probably the best introduction to all the history that is the Opry and country music itself that we could have had.

We booked our tour for 11:30 a.m. and waited around for about a half-hour, checking out the gift shop and surrounding area, which included a shopping mall and the Gaylord Opryland Hotel (stay tuned...).  While we waited, there was this nice local girl working a lunch menu from the entrance to the tour, and I asked her about something I'd been noticing ever since we had arrived in Tennessee.

Practically everywhere we went, there was this sign in the front window indicating "no handguns allowed."  I though it was odd, and since the girl was so friendly I thought I'd ask her about it...

Do that many people really carry around guns?

Well, no, not around here in Nashville, but yeah, in the surrounding areas.  Sure. 

Coming from New York, where we probably have more reason to carry a gun than anywhere else, but don't, this was a little disconcerting.  Wait a second, we were in the Bible Belt!  (Things that make ya go hmmmmm!!!!)

Back to the Opry...

Anyway, that half an hour went by quickly and before you knew it, we were in an anteroom getting our introduction, via video, from country music superstar and Opry member Blake Shelton.  Once the video intro was complete, it was time for our tour.  I actually got goosebumps as we walked by the backstage door where the singer's enter the Opry, all of the dressing rooms and the lounge.  We saw the front desk and the wall where all of the Opry's members were posted in little gold plates.  We got to see the sound stage where the show Nashville is often filmed, and all of the stars' personal mailboxes.  The whole thing was hella cool!

The piece die resistance, though, had to be the stage itself.  This was the culminating stop on the tour, the place where so many great country artists have performed, from Dolly Parton to Carrie Underwood, Darius Rucker, Garth Brooks and so many more.  We even got to stand on this famous little wooden circle, that has been a part of the Opry stage since its inception, the very spot where all of the greats stood and sang their hearts out over the past almost 90 years.  Now that's history! 

  

The Grand Ole Opry is a must if you ever get to Nashville, and if you're really into country music, catch a live show (yes, they still happen all the time!) in addition to the backstage tour.  You don't have to be a country music fan to really, really enjoy it.

Stay tuned for some more places we visited on our Roller Coaster Road Trip 2014.

  

Meanwhile check out some more pictures from the Grand Ole Opry and also my previous entries on our road trip:

Hitting the Roller Coaster Road

New States

King's Island and The Beast

The Smoky Mountain Alpine Coaster

Holiday World

The Coasters of Holiday World

Louisville, Kentucky: Big Four Bridge and Waterfront Park

Zip Lining at Louisville Mega Cavern

Kentucky Kingdom and the Louisville Highlands

Weezie Tries to Stop Smoking

The Kentucky Bourbon Trail

Mammoth Cave National Park

Roller Coaster Road Trip 2014: Mammoth Cave National Park

My summer became so busy somewhere around the first week of August that I lost any time I had to finish my Roller Coaster Road Trip stories, and I want to finish talking about the trip because even cooler things were yet to come.  So here I continue...

Mammoth Cave National Park

Our last stop in Kentucky before we hit Tennessee was Mammoth Cave National Park. I really wasn't sure how this experience was going to be, considering I'm not that crazy about caves and we had just done a cave thing in Louisville.  Besides, after visiting the Jim Beam Distillery, it was already getting late in the day and we weren't sure how much, if any, time we'd have there.  Luckily, we had entered the Central Time Zone...

Mammoth Cave is the longest cave system known in the world.  It is located in Edmonson, Kentucky, not too far from the Tennessee border.  The ride from the highway's exit to the site seemed to take forever, and no wonder because the park sits on more than 52,000 acres of property...huge! Eventually we made it to the visitor's center and thanks to the changing of time zones, we had a couple of hours to spend there, enough to take one of the many tours they offered of the immense system of underground caves.  

We took a look at the schedule of tours, there are several to choose from with a wide variety of lengths and level of difficulty, and quickly found one that was perfect for us, a short introductory tour.   We had to wait a bit for our tour to begin, but that was alright because the grounds were beautiful and there was a mini-museum inside the visitor's center that was pretty darned interesting. 

At tour time we were greeted by our guide, one of the rangers at the park.  I forget his name, but I won't soon forget him.  He was a well-spoken gentleman, and he was very proud of his heritage. I remember him distinctly because his pride was unlike anything I'd ever come across.  You see, he was descended from slaves and from the way he spoke you could tell that he believed it was an honor to be so.  He praised and appreciated the contributions his people had made in this country, and he exhibited no signs of bitterness that one might expect.  He carried himself with dignity and humility throughout the time we spent with him and though he was just a tour guide, I admired him as a person. 

Prior to going down into the cave we were to explore, the ranger told us about himself and then gave us a few warnings.  The first one was to be on the lookout for timber rattlesnakes.  Rattlesnakes? Gulp!  I immediately scanned the ground around me, but we were on a paved walkway, so I really didn't think one would come out and attack us.  Next he explained about this disease that's been infecting and killing millions of North American bats, and if we were to see any bats on the floor or exhibiting strange behavior, we needed to call on him pronto.  Third, the air temperature in the cave was going to be decidedly cooler than the air outside.  With that information, we were off...

Upon entering the cave you could feel the cool air rushing up and out.  We descended a flight of stairs towards the entrance and once we were all inside, the ranger closed a safety door behind us. We were inside a passageway that lead towards an old saltpeter mine from Civil War days.  It was eerie, to say the least.  The tour was what one might expect of a cave system.  The area of the system we were in had one large room, where the saltpeter mine was, along with another long passageway that went deeper inside.  For effect, lights were turned on and shut off as we walked along, and at one point the ranger wanted us to feel as early Native Americans felt when they first explored the cave as much as six thousand years ago.  He turned off all the lights!  

All in all, I highly recommend a visit to Mammoth Cave National Park if you ever find yourself in the area.  The park itself is beautiful and the cave systems fascinating.  To learn more about it, just click on the link within this post and check it out, and stay tuned for some more places we visited on our Roller Coaster Road Trip 2014.

  

Here are my previous entries on our road trip:

Hitting the Roller Coaster Road

New States

King's Island and The Beast

The Smoky Mountain Alpine Coaster

Holiday World

The Coasters of Holiday World

Louisville, Kentucky: Big Four Bridge and Waterfront Park

Zip Lining at Louisville Mega Cavern

Kentucky Kingdom and the Louisville Highlands

Weezie Tries to Stop Smoking

The Kentucky Bourbon Trail

It Was an Awesome Summer!

It's that time, again, the precise time of the year when all teacher's are saying to themselves, "what happened to summer?"  Yes, it is Labor Day evening, the very last night before the start of school for many a teacher, including me.  No more sleeping late, no more lounging around, no more fun.  Life as I've known it for the past two months has ceased.  Poor me!  Lol...

Um, wait a second...

Haha, well that was last night.  I started a post, but then got interrupted and never got back to it.  Such is the life of a part time writer.  I thought it was a good intro, so I'm leaving it in here.  The feel of the post I want is that of sadness at summer's end, and since I already went into school today to prep for my year, I don't quite have that same feeling I did last night.  So there, pretend it is still Labor Day evening.

The summer of 2014 was a short one by school summer vacation standards.  Nine weeks...that's about a week shorter than normal.  I guess it's just the way the calendar fell, but I'm not complaining.  I tell my students all the time that they will never in their lives get as much vacation as they do now as students, so they need to appreciate it.  I certainly do.

A Big Weekend Starts Off a Big Summer

I had an awesome summer, and I think it went by so quickly not only because of the calendar, but because I spent about 22 days of it away from home, and that's not counting day trips. There were some great memories to be had, right from the start, too, as I began the summer fun on the Eve of the last day of school spending some quality time at Corey Creek Vineyards with two very special ladies, Heather and Terry.

The fun continued at Cherry Grove as me and one of my best besties, Laura Kim, celebrated the start of summer with an overnight stay in Cherry Grove.  My pal Rich joined us for dinner and great food and plenty of laughs were had. 

      Happy much?  Ah, good times! 

A Very Special Reunion

On Saturday night, I hosted a reunion of three other very special ladies with whom I worked a long, long time ago at Citibank.  My friend Linda, who now lives in South Carolina, was coming to Long Island for a visit, which prompted a get together at my house, with Joann and Caroline.  The four of us hadn't seen each other in a few years, but you would never have known it.  We picked up right where we left off and had a blast.  My summer got off to a great, great start!  

  

You're a tiiiiger!

                               Mr. Bill 

Spank me good baby!

Roller Coaster Road Trip 2014

On Sunday, July 6th, my pals Rich, Eddie and I set off on a nine-day trip that took us over 3,000 miles through nine states, riding too many roller coasters to count, zip-lining in a cave, bourbon tasting, sight-seeing, cave exploring and a whole lot more!  This Roller Coaster Road Trip 2014 was one full of laughs, surprises, and a whole lot of awesomeness.  Stay tuned for more posts on that trip, but for now take a look at some of what we saw...

P-Town and a Sailing Adventure

In August, I took a very different kind of trip, one that allowed me to revisit a place I had had so much fun in last summer along with a whole new type of adventure.  I've written extensively about my Sailing Adventure to Acadia National Park in Maine, but I hadn't written too much about P-Town.  Yes, that trip was still fun, but disappointing, not quite living up to last year, and being deathly ill didn't help.  But thankfully I was given the gift of this sail to Maine and it not only was one of the most thrilling things I did all summer, it matches up to almost anything I've done in my life.   

The look on my face sums up how 

I felt about P-Town the Sequel 

Everything In Between

The rest of the summer was interspersed with other fun stuff, like evening trips to Fire Island, wine tasting, drag shows, lots of dinners with friends, and of course, more roller coasters.  Yes, the summer of 2014 was probably one of the busiest and most leisurely one I've ever had, and I am grateful to have had it.  I always say, enjoy every moment of life, and appreciate all of the good things to the fullest!  I leave now with a few more photos of some of my other fun moments of summer.  I hope yours was as good as mine because you deserve it! For now it's time to jump back in the teaching saddle and get back to work!