October 31, 2009: Halloween 2009

 

 

My friend, Julie Henley, always has a neat Halloween party at her house.  She makes alot of foods to look Halloweenish.    We passed out candy to the kids in the neighborhood in North Muskegon. Her husband, son and others tried to scare the trick-or-treaters.  I dressed up like Lucille Ball as I didn't want to go out and spend alot of money on a Halloween costume.

October 2, 2009-Nashville & Andrew Jackson Home

 

I forgot to mention some information about Nashville which is quite interesting.    It has about 595,000 people living there.     Next to New York City, it has the largest banking and finance industry.  That is their #1 industry.   The founders of Dollar General, Krispy Kreme Donuts, and the head of Fed Ex have homes out in the country near the country music star homes.      Maxwell House coffee started in Nashville.      


Anyway, we left for President Andrew Jackson's home as that is in the area.   It is called the Hermitage. It is the 3rd most visited Presidential home.  
He and his wife are buried in the gardens next to the home.  The wall paper in the home is over 200 yrs old.   Everything in the home is the original which is amazing.


We left around 12:30 and started heading home.  I wanted to get home the same day and not have to stay in another hotel, as I wanted Sunday for cleaning up and doing laundry.


We had a nice trip home until we got up into Indiana.     As soon as we got to South Bend, it was dark and the rain was down pouring.   Add that to the glare and construction and you have a scary drive on your hands.     I still can't believe the GPS took us from Indianapolis to 31 North which takes you forever.     We got into Michigan and there was road construction.    I drove about 40 mph through that as it was raining hard, dark, and the glare was getting to me.    I hate night time driving.  The rest of the trip we got to our destinations by 5 or 6 p.m. as I said I would not drive in the dark.    
But, we made it home safely.   We drove a total of 2500 miles. I did about 90% of the driving on the trip.   I think the worse driving on the whole trip was the last 1 1/2 hrs.   


Here are a couple of pictures at Andrew Jackson's home.

October 1, 2009: Nashville, TN and Opryland

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Opryland Hotel is gorgeous inside.     I found out that they spent about 2 million dollars on the plants alone.  They have 4,500 employees at the resort.   It is the World's Largest Non-gaming resort in the World, which I can believe.      We were not crazy, though, about our room. I think we were in the oldest section and you could hear the pipes every time someone turned on the water.   I was surprised as this is an expensive hotel.      

We took a city tour of Nashville and went through the County Music Hall of Fame Museum.     We went down Broadway Street which is where many of the Honky Tonk bars are located.      We went into the Ryman Theater, which is the original Grand Ole Opry.    That closed in 1974.     The new one is out by the Opryland Hotel.  


We also took a tour of the star homes which was interesting.   Many of the homes are in the same area (Brentwood), which is on the south end of the city.   Kenny Chesney and Faith Hill have banned touring buses from going in front of their homes, so we were not able to see them.  Carrie Underwood and Keith Urban's homes are in gated communities so we couldn't see those, either.     But, we did see the homes of Alan Jackson, Trace Adkins,  Brooks & Dunn, Dolly Parton,  and Minnie Pearl.    


In the evening, we went to the Grand Ole Opry and listened to several performers, including Carrie Underwood, which was pretty neat.    I will send you a few photos here, however, I have tons of photos.  I will be sending you the link in another email for all of my pictures from the trip.