Music City...Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville 4-17 thru 4-22

Well, here we are in Nashville, TN, home of country music! I had to hold Walt back, he wanted to get on stage everywhere we went! Especially at the Wild Horse Saloon!This is the Ryman Auditorium - the original home of the Grand Ole Opry. Beautiful old architecture! Below is a pic of the Tennessee Titan football stadium.We went to a couple of country music shows and in the campground where we stayed - Two Rivers, we met the road manager and piano player for The Judds! It was exciting to talk to them and hear "inside info" about their experiences on the road with the stars! They have also invited us to join them on the next tour with VIP show tickets! How can we refuse that! The tour starts in November (around Thanksgiving) in Connecticut and ends in Las Vegas. We will probably meet up with them closer to Vegas. Did you know Naomi is really Diana and Wynonna is really Christine?  Actually Ashley is really Ashley but not a Judd (different father).  As most of you know, we are headed to WV, with a stop over in VA to visit some friends. The road manager actually lives in Virginia Beach and wants us to contact him when we get there to attend an informal jam session with some other country musicians while we are there. We are really excited about this! I have received regular emails from them since we left Nashville! Tooooo Cooool!This is a pic of our RV with the Judds road manager's RV right behind us. His RV used to belong to the Judds, they bought it in 1995. They have several Prevost tour buses now!  They would rather travel in this old RV because the Prevost RV's are equipped with about 10 bunks and a bathroom with no shower and no slide outs.  Would  you believe Naomi and Wynonna started out in just a car! Wow, who says there is no future in country music!

Red Bay, AL

Here we are in Red Bay, Alabama - The Home of "Tiffin Motorhomes". These are pictures of the office and manufacturing facilities of Tiffin Motorhomes. As you have probably figured out, this was the birthplace of our home on wheels.This is Main Street Red Bay! Looks a little like Plains, GA, doesn't it? Except Red Bay has two traffic lights! In these pics it looks like some interesting shops, however most of them are out of business - unless they are owned by the Tiffin family. This is the world famous "Swamp Johns" restaurant in Red Bay. The best catfish in the land! Notice the gas pumps out front? Yes, it used to be a gas station. Dinner is served in the oil change bay! No matter the outside, good eats inside! Don't miss it if you are in Red Bay!This is our accomodations at the Tiffin RV park in Red Bay. We left the pollen in Alexander City and got plenty of dust here! It will take us a week of cleaning to remove the pollen and now the dust too! The weather was quite warm and we had a good time, even with the dust. We had a few extra touches added to our home, by master cabinet maker Chris Berry, during our stay in the area. He does beautiful work!This is one of the traffic lights in town. Brown sign directs you to the Tiffin RV park.This, as you can see, is the Allegro Club. It is exclusively for owners of Tiffin Allegro motorhomes. Yes, we pay annual dues and even get a newsletter for the privilege of entering into these hallowed halls of Allegro merchandise!

Wind Creek State Park, Alexander City, AL

This is our little home in the woods of Alexander City, AL.  It was a beautiful park right on Lake Martin. We enjoyed our stay there eventhough the pollen was horrendous! Our black Ford Explorer suddenly turned yellow! The lake was lovely, but had an ugly yellow scum covering on it. The house belongs to our friends Greg and Sandy Stafford. They were not there while we were, however Walt did make a house call to do an electrical switch fix for them while we were in town. I neatened up some of Sandy's flower gardens while we were there.Here we are relaxing around our campfire - no smores in sight!Walt is never far from his phone.... think he was getting orders from Greg!This is some of the beautiful wisteria growing in abundance around the area. The foliage of dogwood and wisteria was gorgeous!We enjoyed our time in Alabama, especially the restaurants! The thing we were anxious to get away from was the HEAVY pollen. Fortunately, the evening before we left we did get some rain.

Plains Georgia

Well, here we are in Georgia! Home of former President, Jimmy Carter and the Peanut! On Saturday we took a sightseeing train through a few small towns in central Georgia.  The towns have some historical significance and include stopping in Plains.  As you probably know, Plains is where President Jimmy Carter grew up and still currently lives.  He and his wife Rosyln still live in the only house they ever owned.  On Sunday, President Carter teaches Sunday School at the local Baptist church.

This is a picture of downtown Plains, Georgia.  The community displayed pictures taken in 1925 and I swear, they could have been taken yesterday. The building below was Jimmy Carter's headquarters during his presidential campaign. Small, but none the less, a national landmark.

This is a picture of Jimmy Carter's boyhood home. It is furnished as it was when he lived there. To the right of the house is a clay tennis court where Jimmy and his father used to compete in tennis matches. The Carter family also owned a small store next to the house, which was only open on Saturdays.

It was a long day and I thought I would take the opportunity to catch a couple of ZZZZ's.  I guess Donna had a good nights sleep the night before because she certainally looks more wide awake than I do. We were in the first class section with tables. However, the seats in coach class were more comfy!

Donna, looking a little more tired. After all, she did walk all the way down Main street in Plains! The train cars that are used were manufactured in 1949.  The train is operated by the National Park Service and is operated mainly by volunteers.  It was a very relaxing and scenic trip and we would recommend it to anyone who is in the area.

Lake City, Florida

Well, here we are in lovely Lake City, Florida as we continue our journey northward. On our way to find an interesting (non-franchised) place for dinner, we gave the town a brief tour. We like to try to find local eateries as often as we can, to get a taste of the local fare. For my interest, we stopped by an antique shop, which turned out to be mostly junk but still fun to look at! Some of the things bring back memories, especially when you see something and remember seeing the same thing in your grandparents house! As you can see, Walt usually goes for the older technology of tvs and cameras.                                              Not to mention this old tv tube tester!

Remember when tvs had big tubes in the back? When the TV would screw up, we would take the vacuum tubes out and go to the drug store and check them on this machine.  When you found the bad tube, you would replace it with a new one and everything worked fine.  Walt was also drawn  to these old coke machines - some of which he has fond memories of how to sneak drinks out of! Just give him a straw or a church key and a cup! No more thirst!

Lake City also offers a small museum in an old house where they proudly display momentos and artifacts of times gone by in the community.  The picture of the outside of the museum actually reminds me of a house my grandmother (Bootie) used to live in, in Poca, WV.

Above is a picture of an antique slot machine.  Big M always looks for the 5 cent machine, I bet this one is just for her.

Lake City was also home to the first J.C. Penney store in the state. All in all, it is a quaint, friendly little town and we enjoyed our visit very much. Now onward - northward!Soon we will venture on to our next destination - Georgia!

Blue Angels

As you can see, we recently went to an air show. The show was at MacDill Air Force Base, in Tampa, Florida, Sat. 3-20-10. It featured the Blue Angels. The technology put into these planes is amazing and the training of the pilots is unbelievable.   The precision is nothing short of perfection. The entire show is pure art! If you ever get the opportunity to see this performance - do! I promise you, it is worth every minute of your time.     Today was a gorgeous day to be out! The temps were in the high 70s with a light breeze and the sky was beautifully clear. We not only saw a fantastic show, we also put in a lot of walking - just what the doctor ordered for both of us! We shared the day and activities with our good friends Joe and Marcia Jones. They are full-time RVers too. They are presently residing at MacDill AFB. After the show, we went out for Mexican food. Although Mexican is not one of my (Donna) favorites, this was quite good! Good friends, good food = good times!     

Today, Sunday 3-21, was a quiet day for us. We stayed in, did laundry and made homemade veggie soup. Not much fun going anywhere when it rains all day.                                                                                                                         We are about ready to "hit the road", finally! We will be leaving the Tampa area Sunday, March 28th.  We plan to slowly travel north toward and through Alabama, Tennessee, east to Virginia, north to Pennsylvania and end up in West Virginia by the end of May for Chris's graduation.  When we leave WV, we will head out to Ohio, Indiana, up to the Chicago area, on to Wisconsin and then wander our way out west.  We hope to see Mt. Rushmore and Yellowstone on our way up to Seattle.  From there we will work our way down the coast all the way to southern California. We will keep you posted on our adventures! Anticipation!

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"Big Daddy" Don Gartlets

Many readers have no idea who Big Daddy Don Gartlets is.  Back in the 60s he was the hottest thing in drag racing.  He broke many track records including being the first person to exceed 200 MPH in 1/8 mile!  Not 1/4 mile but 1/8 mile.  Talk about G force!

Don has a drag racing museum and a classic car museum in Ocala Florida.  Attached are a few pictures of some of the items in the museum and a few of the wilder cars.

After we visited the museum we had linner at Outback steakhouse.  Donna has been talking about steak lately so we had one at Outback and I will be doing some Rib Eyes on the grill today.  That should conclude her need for steak and we can get back to chicken.

After we had linner we drove around Ocala and on the way home we stopped at an antique mall.  I always like looking at the old magazines.  Ads for old free standing TV's in color and you can even get it with remote control!  Ad's for '57 Chevy's selling for a little over $2,000.00.  Wish I had 10 of them.

The weather here has been extremely cold.  Most mornings we wake up to frost on the car.  The highs have been in the upper 50s to lower 60s.

We are in Bushnell, FL now and will be returning to the Brandon area again next weekend.  I have a physical with the VA the following Monday and Donna has an appointment at the Cleveland Clinic in Ft. Lauderdale the following Thursday, for her leg problem.  We will be staying around the Brandon area until the weather starts getting back to normal.  In the worse case, we plan to start heading North by the end of March.

Below are a few pictures for the nostalgia file