We’ve enjoyed our five
days in Nashville. This time we stayed at the Nashville KOA and it has had many
upgrades since our last visit several years ago.
Last Sunday we took our
niece Brittany out for dinner. She is my sister Cathy’s daughter and we hadn’t
seen her since last December in Tampa. It was fun spending some time with her
and catching up.
On Monday afternoon we
went to nearby Opry Mills Mall to see the movie “Once Upon A time in Hollywood”.
It is funny, period piece about 1969 Los Angeles from Quentin Tarantino
starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and many other stars.
We took a shuttle downtown
on Wednesday night to have dinner and check out a few honky tonk bars. We’ve
taken the shuttle before and for $10/person it’s a great way to go downtown and
not have to worry about traffic or parking. We enjoyed BBQ, then stopped by
Legends Corner, Tootsies Orchid Lounge, and Tequila Cowboy Bar & Grill to
listen to the live music. We were surprised to see the pink Cadillac sitting
atop the bar in Tequila Cowboy and very surprised they used “medicine” paper
cups to serve up shots of alcohol. Huh??
We leave Nashville tomorrow and head west to Memphis where
we stay at Tom Sawyer’s Mississippi River RV park. It’s always fun to watch the
Mississippi River barge traffic go past the park.
Steve & Julie
Cornelius
We enjoyed our four-night
stay in Dandridge, Tennessee at the Anchor Down RV Resort. It’s one of the best
RV resorts we’ve stayed at in all our travels. It was developed in opened in
early 2014 and has 170 campsites, some 70 with wood-burning outdoor fireplaces.
The RV resort is situated on Douglas Lake just north of the busy Sevierville,
Pidgeon Ford, Gatlinburg area.
On Friday we drove over to
see Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The park straddles the border of
Tennessee and North Carolina. The Smoky Mountains are at the southern end of
the Appalachians. It is America’s most visited National Park.
We left Dandridge today and drove just over 200-miles down
I-40 to spend five nights in Nashville.
Steve & Julie
Cornelius
We found our way to Fort
Belvoir, Virginia last Tuesday, July 16th. It was our first time
there and we were pleasantly surprised at how nice the military campground was.
Opened in May 2013, there were great views of Gunston Cove, just off the Potomac
River from the campground. We also enjoyed watching several osprey nests near
our campsite.
We met old friends, Kevin
and Avis, that we knew in Colorado Springs for dinner on Thursday evening. We
hadn’t seen them in almost nine years. Kevin was my task lead before we retired
in November 2010. They live in nearby Maryland and we really enjoyed
reconnecting with them.
On Friday we visited George
Washington’s Mount Vernon, the historic home of George and Martha Washington.
Julie had been there as a child but I had never before visited. Over the years,
there have been over 80-million visitors to Mount Vernon. I was surprised to
see that the home had a wooden exterior, painted to look like stucco. The restored
estate is in amazing condition for being over 260-years old (built in 1758).
Like much of the Midwest and east coast, we suffered from
the heat wave with temperatures in the upper-90s and heat indexes near 110. We
decided to skip going into Washington and stayed home, trying to stay cool.
We left Fort Belvoir this morning and are heading west to visit
the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee.
Steve & Julie Cornelius
“The First State” Delaware
is the 50th state we’ve visited in our travels around the USA. Delaware
was the first state to ratify the new U.S. Constitution on December 7, 1787.
We had a nice drive from
New Jersey, crossing the Delaware River, into Delaware and following Highway 1 to
Rehoboth Beach. We spent five nights at Delaware Seashore State Park and my
sister Marcia and brother-in-law Mike met us here last Thursday, driving over
from Winchester, VA.
We enjoyed going out for
dinner with Mike and Marcia on Friday in nearby Bethany Beach. After dinner, we
drove about 15-miles south to the famous Ocean City, Maryland boardwalk. We
rode a city-operated tram that went over two-miles along the wooden boardwalk
and then rode it back to where we parked.
On Saturday, we went into
Rehoboth Beach for lunch and to see its beach and its boardwalk.
Yesterday we went to our state
park beach, about a block away, where we enjoyed dinner at their very popular bar
and grill right on the beach. We’ve never seen such a nice place to eat in a
state park.
Today, our last full-day
here, we went to the beach. We thoroughly enjoyed our day at the beach. It
wasn’t as crowded as it gets on the weekends, but was still a little busy with
families on vacation.
Tomorrow we head to Fort Belvoir, VA which is about
20-miles south of Washington DC. We’ll be there for six nights.
Steve & Julie Cornelius
We left the Hanscom AFB
FamCamp on Friday, July 5th and to Middleboro, MA, southeast of
Boston and near Cape Cod. We had reservations for four nights at a KOA
campground and we got lucky and ended up with the best campsite in the whole darn
place. Our patio site included patio table and chairs, fire pit and a regular
size bar-b-que grill.
We enjoyed an early dinner
at Dave’s Diner in Middleboro. Typical east coast diner with really good food.
On Saturday we did a
day-trip over to nearby Rhode Island, our 49th state to visit. We decided
to go to Newport. We enjoyed a nice lunch at the Brick Alley Pub &
Restaurant and both had to try their clam chowder.
We walked down to the
harbor and saw lots of boats, mostly yachts and sail boats. The Queen Mary 2
was anchored nearby and busy shuttling passengers to and from shore. We soon
realized that this area of Newport was all about the tourists, with its many
gift and souvenir shops and restaurants.
We drove out to Cape Cod
on Monday, specifically Hyannis Port. I had totally forgot that we visited
Hyannis Port three years ago when we went to nearby Plymouth. I didn’t realize
it until we went to the JFK Memorial near the beach in Hyannis Port.
We left Middleboro on Tuesday morning. We stayed last night
in New York state and tonight in New Jersey, on our way to see Delaware, our 50th
state to visit!
Steve & Julie
Cornelius
