Nashville Meanderings

We drove out of the clouds and gloom about midway through Kentucky.  And then it was so bright it was difficult to see.  After a few hours of straight driving we slipped back into our slow travel mode, at least for now.  Entering Nashville, we stopped at the Gaylord Opryland Resort, something we’ve wanted to see since the last time we were here on a business trip several years ago.

This is worthy of our Biggest/Greatest collection as it is the largest hotel in the US, with 2888 guest rooms.  It also has nine acres of atriums under glass, which is what we really wanted to see.  Winding walkways through tropical landscapes, multiple indoor gardens, and a bunch of different retail and restaurant spaces situated throughout.  There’s even a riverboat you can ride on (for a fee, of course) that plies the waterway in the atrium.

We did the tourist thing and parked the RV in the parking lot of the nearby Opry Mills Mall.  Plenty of parking space and it’s all free.  We walked through the remnants of the outdoor ice exhibition, where skating and sledding were still taking place on chilled floors outside the Events Center.  I suppose if you can’t go to the snow and ice, you bring the snow and ice home or make it for your ice arenas and sledding hills.

We spent over an hour wandering through the atriums, enjoying the lush foliage, and what remained of the Christmas decorations.  Definitely worth the trip, if you are ever near Nashville.

We then drove to Cheekwood Estate and Gardens and walked around  the gardens and sculpture park for a while.  Our Meijer Gardens membership got us in here also (win!) so this was another cheap date. I understand the Christmas light show here is quite impressive at night, but we were there in the daytime so no lights for us.  And the gardens in Winter are probably a bit less impressive than other times of the year, but there were actually some flowers blooming: a couple varieties of violets, just planted, and all in bloom.

Back home, a violet is a noxious weed that takes over any landscaping.

Probably the coolest thing this time of year is the mansion.  Built in 1934, and clocking in at 30,000 square feet, this home was patterned after English country mansions, and many of the pieces of art and furniture were obtained from Europe.  The first floor was set up as a museum, patterned after how the mansion looked when the Cheek family lived there, and the second floor was completely renovated into an art gallery, displaying Cheekwood’s own collection and the work of Sarah Nguyen, who does a lot with hand-cut Tyvek.  Shining a light through this onto the wall behind results in some cool effects.

A bridge made entirely from glass block

This was not the original chandelier, but, made of long fibers and lit from the ends,
it was the perfect addition to this grand staircase.

Being a former color scientist, I thought that the portico entrance into the mansion was interesting.  The ceiling was a grand scale cyanometer, a tool used to measure the blueness of the sky.  According to the card on the wall, Typically, a cyanometer is a simple handheld paper device which displays 53 gradient shades of Prussian blue, beginning with white and ending with black,  Here, the artist has adapted the concept of the cyanometer to Cheekwood’s historic portico, encouraging visitors to consider the ever-present connection between sky, place, nature, and color.  Whatever connection is made, I just thought it was a neat way to paint a portico.

Leaving here, we drove to the start of the Natchez Trace, wanting to get a bit of a drive in before dark.  We won’t make great time as the speed limit for the first 10 miles or so was 40 miles per hour, and 50 there after, but there’s virtually no traffic, it winds through some beautiful country side, and it’s not the Interstate.  

We stopped at Jackson’s Falls Picnic Area to make some dinner as it grew dark.  Nice overlook through the trees of the Duck River and the valley beyond.

Dinner was pretty much decided by opening the door to the fridge and catching the first thing that fell out.  Leftover tater-tot casserole.  Sounds good.

After dinner we drove for another 20 miles or so in the dark and stopped at the Meriwether Lewis campground.  It was here that we saw an even better light show than can be seen at the Cheekwood Estate.  It’s so dark here that the stars just pop out of the sky, so we enjoyed this light show for a while before the cold eventually drove us back inside.

287 miles traveled today.