Jules’ Journal: NASHVILLE, TN

By: Julianne Lillie

Friends & Family!: One of the coolest things about traveling around the country is that you get to visit your friends and family who are stationed all over! It just so happens that we know quite a few folks that call Nashville their home and we certainly made the rounds! It’s also fun for family and friends to come meet us at destinations as well – which is what happened here in the Great Smokies!

The President of our company (CerpassRx) – my boss & my friend, Eric Yonkus, and his family moved to Nashville almost a year ago. We got to eat a nice steak dinner at Oak with him and his family on Friday night (10/7) and catch up with them. It was so nice to get out of our “foursome bubble” and visit with other people for a change!

Late Saturday night (10/8) the “Grandparents Crew” arrived! Jason’s dad and stepmom, Ron & Marla, drove up to Nashville along with my Grandma who hitched a ride with them, Jeri Wilson. We’ve been looking forward to their visit for so long! I can’t even describe the feeling of hugging their necks and receiving their love after such a long time and distance away. It means the world to us that they came all this way to partake in our memory making in Tennessee! They stayed with us the rest of the time in Nashville and traveled with us to Gatlinburg as well. In fact, they took kids a day early with them to Gatlinburg and allowed Jason and I to have a night all to ourselves in Nashville for our last night. That was priceless!

My cousin, Brandy Carnell, has called Nashville home for several years now and is pursuing her dream of writing music while nursing pays the bills. She is very talented and somehow seems to know everybody everywhere in town! We got to eat finger lickin’ good chicken with her on Sunday night (10/9) at Puckett’s. It was so good catching up with her side of the family and hugging her neck!

Good friends of ours, Stacey & Don Graham, also have called Nashville their home now for about a year. Our friendship goes back about 10 years to the G Wear days! They are the busiest people I know and unfortunately Don was called out to business in Canada. However on Monday (10/10) Jason and I had the pleasure of meeting up with Stacey for afternoon coffee/tea at a local coffee shop. We hadn’t seen each other in about 5 years so it was so fun hearing about their last few years (& moves). Since this was the night in Nashville without kids, she gave us a great suggestion of a low-key date night in Historic Franklin. After our date night it was early enough we swung by her house to finally meet her kiddos and visit a tad bit longer! It was so refreshing to kick off my shoes and just lounge in someone’s house for a change!

We were so thankful everyone made the time to see us! It was so good for our souls being able to meet up with our friends and family that we don’t always get to see! Relationships are so important…that’s what life is all about!

10/8/22 - All things OPRY!: Before the “Grandparents Crew” came to visit, we had a day in Nashville to the 4 of us. This day we explored the Gaylord Opryland Resort and what an experience that was! Words do not do it justice! It is 52 acres of resort with multiple INDOOR waterfalls (tallest over 40 feet high), dancing fountains, and an actual “live” INDOOR river.

We took a riverboat tour cruise & learned the history about the property and some fun facts. Here's us on the riverboat:

Opryland Resort currently has over 2,800 rooms, 4 presidential suites, and 6 massive ballrooms. And they are still growing! The next phase will add another 1,000 rooms. Opryland also has an indoor waterpark called SoundWaves (which we couldn’t do because you had to stay on property), a shopping mall, tons of eateries & restaurants, and a gorgeous botanical garden! We did as much as we could do in a day which was all but the waterpark. We even had an animal encounter and learned about turtles!

We then headed back to the RV for a late lunch & watched the Sooners get crushed by UT. (Just embarrassing!) The kids also packed bags for sleepovers tonight in Grandmar & Grandad’s cabin! We did a couple loads of laundry and ate a light dinner before heading out at 5pm to the Grand ‘Ole Opry.

On our way, we learned that the Grandparents Crew were very close so we decided to surprise greet them at their campground entrance. Caught the surprise on video while we were on the phone with them:

We were able to hug their necks and then headed off to the Grand ‘Ole Opry while they settled in. We celebrated the 97th Birthday of the Grand ‘Ole Opry that night and paid tribute to Loretta Lynn who had just passed away.

We had the pleasure of tappin’ our feet to Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, Chapel Hart, & Deanna Carter to name a few! Jason and I had a “good ‘ole time” while the kids endured it without complaining. (Country music is not their jam!) At the end of the show we all sang Happy Birthday to the Opry with a big 'ole Opry-sized cake!

After the Opry, we headed back to the camper where we traded the 2 kids for Great Gram. The kids had a sleepover with Grandmar & Grandad in their cabin and Great Gram had a sleepover in our RV!

10/9/22 - Country Music Galore: Sunday morning we woke up and met the rest of our party at Cowboy Church for 10am worship. Cowboy Church was located inside a Bar/Saloon called the Troubador Theatre right around the corner from our Campground. It was a very interesting crowd & setting for a worship service, but it all seemed to work!

Big stage up front and tables and chairs around. A few wooden pews in the center where the dance floor is.

Even “Elvis” joined us for church as you can see in the photo below!

And you can see the full service bar behind us!

Jason and his dad:

Worship consisted of listening to 2 up & coming entertainers who took center stage and each sang a few songs…. Some old hymns and some of their own written songs.

Turns out there were several producers and well known songwriters there in the audience (other than Elvis). Steve Kilgore was a producer who was sitting directly in front of me. I googled him later and looks like he's a "whose who" of Nashville. At the time, we didn’t realize we were among Nashville’s famous while we worshipped next to a fully stocked bar! Ha! And the service wasn’t complete without a good ‘ole country hellfire & brimstone preachin’! Jett ended up going to “kids church” during the message which consisted of him and 2 other kids. (Most of the church congregation were grandparents or older!)

After church, we headed to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Despite the fact that it was noon on a Sunday, we saw so many pedal taverns and mobile bars with bachelorette parties! We saw some things we’ve never seen before in Nashville…. Like tractors pulling bar parties on trailers. (Think about that for a second…How is that legal? Open containers, no seat belts, no seats for that matter! Some didn’t even have rails! CRAZY!) Here's a quick peak of one I caught video of:

Anyways, back to the Country Music Hall of Fame. It had expanded since Great Gram was there about 15-20 years ago. We explored 2 levels of exhibits with memorabilia, information, videos, and collectible cars from all of Country Music’s greatest! Great Gram got a picture with Minnie Pearl’s exhibit who was her mother’s namesake.

Jett loved Elvis Presley’s car.

Jaycie and I loved looking at all the intricate & be-dazzled costumes and dresses…Oh and boots of course! And also all things Taylor Swift!

The kids got to do a craft which Great Gram happily supervised.

After that, we went back to the camper for a little rest time before meeting up with cousin Brandy for dinner. It was a super fun day with our people!

10/10/22 – Send off & Date Night: We ate an early breakfast at Bob Evans and it was delicious as always! Great Gram paid for us all – thank you! After breakfast, we had to swap kids dirty clothes for clean clothes in their bags and pack for Gatlinburg! It was quite the fiasco! Here’s a before photo of packing the car:

And after photos – Success!

We ended up sending them (all 5) off around 11:30amish. Then Jason and I ended up running errands to Walmart for groceries and made a quick Lowe’s run. After errands, we met up with Stacey and that’s when she suggested a date night to Historic Franklin so we went! It was such an adorable, picturesque main street with shops, eateries, and an old time theatre.

The Chocolate/ice cream shop there is filmed a lot by Hallmark and is a setting for many Hallmark movies. We found the cutest little bookstore & bought Jaycie some Christmas presents! We also picked her up a free book!

We ate at an Italian restaurant, had a glass of wine, and ice cream for desert!

It was a much needed date night and night away from the kiddos. Thank you Grandparents Crew!