Nashville, Tennessee

     It's very HOT.  I knew that it would be warmer as we headed south, but whew.  The heat hit suddenly.  Record temps for Nashville this time of year. It is supposed to be even warmer tomorrow. We know that our air conditioning works, anyway.
    It was a short drive from Horse Cave to Nashville.  Outside Bowling Green we saw warning signs that Interstate 40 is closed due to floods.  It seemed worrisome until I looked at a map and saw that it is almost 300 miles away and we are not heading in that direction.  Our stop for the next two nights is at another KOA outside of Nashville right near OpryLand.  We are across the street from the Cumberland River which is also at flood stage  -but not a problem for the campground.  This is a very nice campground with big shade trees and a lots of grass.

    We went downtown Nashville in late afternoon.  I was in Nashville for a Search and Rescue National conference in the early 90's.  Things looked a lot more prosperous then.  It is still interesting to walk along the River (quite flooded now) with a long line of old warehouses across the street.  We walked up to the short street called "Printer's Alley" which housed many printers in small shops in the 1800's and then was home to newspaper offices in the early 20th century.  During Prohibition it became a Speakeasy district.  It is now lined with small bars and nightclubs that spotlight folks who are trying to "make it" in the Nashville music scene.  It looked fairly seedy now.
   Our walk took us past the Ryman Auditorium which was the home of the Grand Ole Opry from 1943 to 1974.  Then walked down to Broadway where we found the Hatch Show Print Shop which has been in business since 1879.  The oldest known poster print shop in America.  The walls were lined with old print blocks and posters including an really old one for Johnny Cash at the Minneapolis Auditorium.  It was really interesting.
    I was fading fast in the heat so we stopped for dinner at a micro-brewery and then went back to the outskirts of Nashville to our campground.  It has cooled off a little, but I think that we will be having the air on all night.  Still it was lovely to sit outside under the big, old trees and watch people move around the campground - one of our favorite traveling occupations.