Okay… time to bring the blog up to date.  I finally got some of my photo download issues worked out for the time being.  So let me tell you about our day trip to Nashville and then I’ll follow up with separate blog posts about our trip back west to where we are now in Pahrump, NV.

Stilla and I drove the Silverado down to Nashville from the daughters house in Bowling Green, KY where we’ve been parked for the last two months.  This was on the 18th of September, just before we started our westward trek to make it to the Alpine SoCal Rally which starts on the 29th of September in Pahrump, NV.  But more about that in my next blog post.

We made the 67 mile trip from Bowling Green in about an hour and ended up in downtown Nashville for a little sightseeing.

The hardest part about visiting downtown Nashville was finding a parking spot.  We finally found a parking lot a couple blocks from downtown that cost us $21 for 4 hours.  Here’s some of our pics from the downtown area:

The pedal bar tours were pretty popular as you can see from the photos:

There were even “party barges” running around downtown:

After eating lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe we wandered through some of the stores and finally ended up on the the upper deck of the Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery which is the view in the picture below.

The highlight of our day trip to Nashville was stopping by to tour the Antique Archaeology store from the television series American Pickers.

There was quite a line of folks waiting to get in when we arrived.  There isn’t an entrance fee, but they limit the number of people in the store at any one time.  Definitely a popular tourist stop… they even had tour buses stop at the store which is only one small part of the larger Marathon Motor Works building which has been renovated to feature numerous different shops.

Hallway of the Marathon Motor Works building (below) leads to numerous little curio and antique stores.

A popular photo op in front of the door to the Antique Archaeology American Pickers store (below).  I think every other person that was waiting in line for their turn to enter the store took the same picture.

Inside the store:  I recognized many of the items in the store from episodes of the television series.  Maybe you recognize some items as well?

And yes, I got the t-shirt 🙂

Stilla took my picture (below) in front of the famous Von Dutch Volkswagen motorcycle that was featured in one of the American Pickers episodes.

One of the other shops in the Marathon Motor Works building sold Jack Daniels items and had a Jack Daniels themed Indian motorcycle on display:

This Cadillac (below) was showing off outside the building when we finished the tour, so I had to take a couple of pictures, right?

It looks like someone put the old early ’60s Cadillac body on an old Army 2 1/2 ton truck chassis.  What do you think?

We finished off our day trip to Nashville by stopping at the Parthenon which is a full-scale replica of the original Parthenon in Athens.  It was built in 1897 as part of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition.  Read more on this from my friend Wikipedia  (link here).

The Parthenon is located in Centennial Park just west of downtown Nashville.  The park is also where the famous Natchez Trace Parkway begins.

My friend Wikipedia® says:  The Natchez Trace, also known as the “Old Natchez Trace”, is a historic forest trail within the United States which extends roughly 440 miles (710 km) from Natchez, Mississippi, to Nashville, Tennessee, linking the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Mississippi Rivers.  The trail was created and used for centuries by Native Americans, and was later used by early European and American explorers, traders, and emigrants in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Today, the path is commemorated by the 444-mile (715 km) Natchez Trace Parkway and Bridge, which follow the approximate path of the Trace,[1] as well as the related Natchez Trace Trail. Parts of the original trail are still accessible and some segments are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

I’ve been told that the parkway is a popular drive that I’d like to do sometime in the future with the motorhome.

The Parthenon building was pretty impressive but unfortunately we couldn’t tour inside because they had already closed for the day.

After a full day of touring around Nashville, we drove back to Bowling Green to get ready to pack up and start heading west for our next adventure in the Urban Escape Vehicle.

Hope you enjoyed the pics from Nashville as much as we enjoyed taking them.  Stay tuned for the next installment which details our westward trek to Nevada…