2014-16 Lebanon Tennessee

2014-16

Nashville Tennessee
Lebanon

Antique Archeology

Campground:  Army Corp park, J Percy Priest Lake:  Poole Knobs campground.  Senior rate $12, regular $22 for water view sites.  Water/Elec. 50amp.  Mostly pull-thrus with many having lake views.  Heavily wooded.

Campground:  Cedars of Lebanon State park.  $17.50 (senior rate 25% discount)  water/elect. 50 amp. No wi-fi signal and very poor Verizon signal.

the 50amp sites are close together, but very neat and paved

Since I needed to stay in the area for 4 more days waiting for my appointment to have the TV connections fixed on the camper, I was able to get a site for 4 nights with water views at Poole Knobs campground.  What a difference from a heavily woods campsite to open water views.  Bringing up a point about anyone who camps full time, we have the most diverse views from our campsites and they never get boring as we are able to change them so often.

a wonderful rock ledge at the base of my campsite

The fireflies are once again lighting up in the evening putting on a blinking light show, a frog croaks near the waters edge and a lone great blue heron flies in to the shoreline hoping to catch an evening meal. The shoreline along the campsites is a no-wake zone making for very pleasant and quiet viewing of the boats and ski-doos as they go by.

Just a note regarding last weeks report.  Did you know that Barbra Mandrel had quite the accident years ago just before building the mansion that I visited?  She was in a car accident and didn’t have her seat belt on causing lots of broken bones and a couple of years of recovery on her part.  One gal on the tour who lives in the Nashville area remembered it well and said how everyone in her family from that day on, used their seat belts.  She also related how because of that accident, many state laws were enacted requiring seatbelts and also stepping on enforcement of those laws.

Well since I’m in the Nashville area for a few extra days, I’ve continued my touring and decided to use one of my Total Access Passes to go to the Country Music Hall of Fame which has been expanded to double it’s size since I was last there.  It is also the repository of the largest collection of country music recordings and memorabilia in the country.  Many of their exhibits have been improved, though a new one which was good overall, on the influence of Bakersfield California in the development of country rock music, could still use some tweaking.  In particular much of the music in the Bakersfield exhibits overlapped making for an unpleasant cacophony of sounds and music.  Hope their able to fix it as it could be a spectacular exhibit.

extensive collection of instruments

archive collections can be seen in the background of film and recordings

the one and only, Patsy Cline

Elvis's gold cadillac

she paid for a music education wing

Main lobby

Now your probably going to get a chuckle over this next one.  My good friend Kathy Schnedler recommended that I go see the “American Pickers” store in Nashville.  They have one of those reality shows that follows to antique pickers as they travel the back roads finding great vintage pieces to resell.  Well, I did a quick search using my smart phone and set it on GPS directions.  Got to the Marathon Motor Works, an old factory that has been converted into shops and is the location of the American Pickers store.  Now this is where it gets interesting.  I parked and walked around the place, also hoping to find a place to eat, walked into a shop called “Antique Archeology”.  Inside was all this old stuff and a huge line of people that completely wrapped around the interior space looking to me like they were waiting to have their orders for sodas or ice-cream taken.   I quickly walked out, still looking for the American Pickers.  Hunger won out and I left the area in search of food.  A few days later, I drove back and asked the first person who I walked past if they knew where the American Pickers store was.  You guessed it, it was the store I had stumbled into.  By the way, the only sign outside is a rusty rooster over the front door.  How was I supposed to know?  Fortunately it wasn’t as crowded this time and I got a chance to look around the shop.  I was surprised they didn’t have as much “stuff” as I would have expected, but they did have lots of Antique Archeology merchandise in the way of t-shirts, hats, books and such.  T-shirts were going for $25.  I did not buy one even though I like the show, figured they didn’t need my money, but still, it was fun to explore what finds they had come across and remember seeing a few items that were featured on their tv show.

I love old water towers

the old Marathon Motor Works building

Antique Archeology

Antique Archeology

Antique Archeology

Antique Archeology

Antique Archeology

Here’s another oddity.  While I was at one of the Tennessee visitor centers I happened upon a brochure advertising the National Banana Pudding Festival.  It’s held in October in Centerville TN and they have a banana pudding cook-off, two stages with music and entertainment, visit the puddin’ path and soooo much more.  Well I guess there is now a festival for just about anything you could think up.   I doubt I will make it to the Pudding Festival but if you do, please let me know what you think about it.

Distance Traveled:  38 miles

Lebanon Tennessee

A short drive to get to the RV repair folks and then onto my campground where I’ll stay over the 4th of July holiday.  Sounds easy doesn’t it?  38 miles.  No problem.  Welllll, until I get to the address of Dunlap Rv and it’s not there.  Where could it be?  It’s not a couple more miles on down the road.  After stopping and asking a few folks in a gas station, we figure out they moved to new headquarters and didn’t bother to change their website.  To make a long story short, they did just move into their new headquarters.  All the repair guys are around the age of 18-20 something.  Mine checked out the non functioning tv booster and antenna, not even sure what he was looking at as he pointed at the booster and said “what‘s that?”, then said he’d call it into the manufacturer and get back with me by noon today.  Do you think he called, left a message, anything?  The answer to that would be no.  Tried calling a few times from the campground but I have such poor cell phone reception it kept cutting me off before I was able to make a connection.  As you can see, it’s not all touring, pretty scenery and fun every day.  But I’ll work though this and let you know the outcome.

Thought I’d try and fix it myself, since I figured it was just the tv booster that was bad.  Picked up a new one, gave it a try but that was a no go.  Drove over to Dunlap’s to find out the story over there and the guy said he could assure me they were working on the issue.  Couldn’t tell me if or what had been ordered.  No real apology for not calling.  I may decide to drive up to Indiana to get the thing fixed at the factory, but we’ll see what happens over the next week. After all 458 miles, it’s doable for a full time Rv-er.

In the meantime while I’m here in the Lebanon Tennessee area, I have no cell phone coverage or wi-fi service at the state park.  First time that’s occurred in quite some time.  Actually the phone picks up a signal briefly and downloads e-mails and face book messages and quits.  It’ll have to do until I head on to the next location.  Life is tuff on the road sometimes.  No TV, No Cell phone and no wi-fi, I feel like I’m really roughing it this week.

One more oddity, I found this new strip mall on the outskirts of  Nashville, abandoned or empty with no paved drive or parking lot associated with it.  just out in the middle of a field, empty.


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