Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Meeting Lois!

We have had a busy few days since arriving back into Canada. The weather has not been too bad during the day, but still dipping down near freezing at night. It will come!

We are all set up in our home Park, and the Owners have turned on all the services for us. They treat us right as they do not really open the Park until May 1.

When we arrived last Saturday afternoon, we got set up on our site, and were just yearning to get in to visit the kids, and meet our 5th Granchild, Lois!

It sure did not take Lois long to warm up to her Grandmother. She is such an easy going little girl it seems, who very seldom cries, and seems to sleep a whole lot! Maybe Kristina and Chris would say different, but she sure seems like a big time keeper to me!

After Judy warmed up Lois, I was able to swoop in and take over! Lois is just 7 weeks old now, but I could not believe how much she weighs and how alert and active she is. They truly do grow up fast! We were back into the house on Monday, and I got to hold on to little Lois for over an hour, with no muss or fuss! What a kid!

Oh yes, we did also get to greet Gwenny and Charlie!

How do you like my super special effects picture of Charlie above? Took a lot of skill to quickly grab the iPhone, and then snap a picture while moving the camera you know! Many people pay for special effects like this!

Gwenny was as pleasant as ever, hanging onto one of her "Stuffies..." Judy and I got to spend today with the two of them at the local Park, as Kristina stayed at home with Lois. We had a ball!

We are busy doing lots of running around catching up on Dr. appointments, etc... will keep us busy for a while.

Till tomorrow...

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Yes, we are back in Canada!

Wow... that is quick you might say... what happened to the tour of Nashville???? Well, just having a whole bunch of fun, and never was able to get time together to put it all in Blog format.

Cheryl and Judy did a bunch of planning on the Nashville trip, and it paid off. We had a busy couple days, by taking in the Hop On, Hop Off Trolly Tour, which is always a good idea when you visit a City you do not know real well. It took about an hour and a half to complete and they sure know the good spots to take you.

We also go to take a tour of the new Johnny Cash Mueseum. This is very well done, and Johnny Cash was one of the big ones.

As you can imagine, this Mueseum is full of artifacts from the life of Johnny Cash. We spent a couple hours here, and enjoyed! Well done from start to finish. You could pretty much listen to all of his songs, and there were many!

We also took a tour of the Ryman Auditorium

This Auditorium has been around forever! Anyone who is anybody played here at one point in time! This building dates back to the 1880's for crying out loud, and is made of wood! Back then, it cost $100,000.00 to build! Once a week now, The Grand Ole Opry plays here.

Next on our hit list was The Country Music Hall of Fame! What a spot this is... it just opened a few years ago, and is an amazing place to visit. The complete history of Country Music can be found here.

 

Above is the Grand Entrance into the Hall of Fame... amazing spot to visit.

All the gold records are pasted to the walls... these a just a few of them.

This was an amazing Cady, that belonged to Elvis of all people... gold door handles, and stuff like that!

If you remember the old Smoky and the Bandit Movies, this is the Bandit Trans Am from the second Movie, which starred Burt Reynolds of course...

It is hard to explain the Hall of Fame, and has to be viewed by yourself to get it's appreciation. We spent a whole day pretty well going through it, and could have gone back for more. It is very interactive, and full of costumes and guitars! There is a terrific tribute section to Kenny Rogers, and Johnny Cash of course.

The first evening we were downtown, we did a bunch of bar hopping... all is good folks, we took the Park Shuttle and left the car at home! Had to put a picture of the bar above, which belongs to Jimmy Buffet! My good friend, Gerard, will remember our excursion to Jimmy's Bar in Key West!

Above is the Bridgestone Centre, where the Nashville Preditors play. There is a bug buzz in Nashville over the current series against Chicago.

We had two terrific days of touring Nashville and hope to come back one day. There is lots to see and do, and plenty of great Restaurants to enjoy, which we did!

Not all was perfect though, as on the second day of our tour, we drove into Town in our Chevy Cruze, along with Tom and Cheryl. We were travelling the 1/2 hour drive back out to where we were staying at the KOA north of Nashville. While travelling on the HOV lane of Hwy. 65, the rush hour traffic came to an abrupt stop, well, all the cars did except for the one directly behind us. We got rear ended by a Dodge Grand Caravan. Gave us one real good hit, and brought everything to a stop. I will not go into a lot of other details, but suffice to say at this point, there were no major injuries to the four of us in our car, or the two people in the minivan. The car is still driveable, and can and will be fixed. It is always stressful when you have an accident, and even more so when it happens in a Country not your own. Many thanks to the Nashville area Police, Fire, and Ambulance Services that were on the scene in a hurry and handled it all in a very professional manner.

Anyhow, sure feels good to get home tonight, and had a big chance to go and visit Chris and Kristina, along with the kids. We got to meet our latest Grand, Lois, who is just incredible, however that will be another blog coming up real soon...promise!

Till tomorrow...

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

The Home of Country Music...

Yesterday we said our goodbye's to the gang in Johnson City... we had a great 3 weeks plus visit here, doing a lot of things, and having a great time!

This morning we hit the highway with Tom and Cheryl in tow, and headed due west about 250 miles or so over to Nashville! We plan on staying here for 3 nights, and doing some site seeing before we head north to the Canadian Border.

We stopped at a great rest area, just due west of Knoxville. You don't get to see these two rigs on the road side by side too often...turned into a great day to travel, with lots of sun, and nice warm temperatures.

So, we are all tucked into the KOA in North Nashville tonight... Judy and Cheryl put together an interesting two days of touring starting tomorrow, so I better go and re-charge my touring batteries.

Till tomorrow...

Monday, April 20, 2015

It's Bristol Baby!

Well, we can now say that we have had the full Bristol Experience! Quite the day yesterday, with the NASCAR Race that was scheduled for 500 laps of Bristol Motor Speedway!

Above Tom and Cheryl, Judy and I, along with Shawn, make our way from the parking lots into the Race Track. Problem was.... it was raining, and raining hard! Had been all morning, which is not good when you have a 1:00 p.m. start time. Next problem was the weather forecast was simply not good a all for the whole day!

We got there a bit early so we could walk around the vendor area... free coffee and donuts! Perfect!

We made our way up the big long ramps.... your heart healthy workout for the day.

Got to our seats in time for the fireworks and the Air Force Flyover....

Ya, those clouds were black...

The rain finally let up at 1:30, and it took them an hour to dry the track... the race actually started at 2:30, but they only ran 22 laps, and then the deluge came...

We found a semi dry spot under the stands to put in a bit of time... then decided to head back home to Shawn's place, and actually had dinner. The TV told us they were going to start the race at around 7:30 in the evening, so what the heck, we headed back out to the track!

We were all glad we did, as we got to see the entire race! The rains let up a bit, and it turned out to be a nice evening.

Matt Kenseth managed to previal as the Race Winner in his Dollar General Car!

 

The winner was in question right to the end, so it turned into a great race!

We made our way back to the parking lots, only to be dumped on by a deluge of rain, 30 seconds before we got to the car! Of course! Just a little goodbye from Bristol!

Till tomorrow...

Saturday, April 18, 2015

It's Race Weekend at Bristol!

Bristol Motor Speedway is one of the major venues for the NASCAR Circuit, as they usually make 2 stops here each season. Shawn usually goes to these races with some friends, and asked Tom and I to come along today for the Afinity Race... the major Food City Race is on tomorrow, ( but with not a good weather forecast...).

Bristol is a short track, but they can fit 160,000 race fans into the bowl you see above... what a spot to watch a race from!

Above is the start of the race this afternoon, which was won by #22 Joey Lagano, who led this race from start to finish! As you can see, the stands were not filled today, but maybe had about 60,000 in attendance.

The great thing about Bristol, is the banking on the corners, which is about 36 degrees I believe. It is hard to tell from the picture above, but the banking is big time to keep these cars enclosed in the track.

There is always a lot of action around the pits in Nascar, and today was no exception...

That is Joey above, after the race finished, doing a big smokey burn out with his car to celebrate his victory...

The Bristol Track is quite a property, hidden in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Tennessee...a very unique spot to visit. Hopefully it does not rain too much tomorrow, and we get to see the race between rain drops..... we will see.

As Shawn, Tom and I were leaving the track this afternoon, Shawn could not resist sitting in this 2015 red Chevrolet Corvette! What a car, and it was on $62,000.00 U.S. What a deal! What do you think Jenn???

Till tomorrow...

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Stanley Cup Playoffs!

Let the quest begin....

It all starts tonight!

Sunday, April 12, 2015

What else is there to do on the weekend...

Simply a beautiful Tennessee Weekend! Great weather to enjoy the outdoors!

Today as you can see, we enjoyed a complete pool day! The pool was at 85 degrees F. Just perfect! Emmie and Paige are like a pair of tadpoles... they can swim like fish, it is amazing!

The 3 videos below are all very short shots of the kids having a blast... check them out...

 

On Saturday, Judy and I had Emmie and Paige over to the RV for a while... the girls wanted to come and visit Patra! She does not get a lot of company...

Now it may seem from Patra's reaction, she does not look too impressed, but remember, she does not see little people very often and she is 15 years old now...lol

Had a great visit and a great weekend!

Till tomorrow...

Friday, April 10, 2015

A visit over to the Great Smoky Mountains...

Took a road trip over near Maryville, Tennessee, which is just below Knoxville, or a 2 hour and a half hour drive from Johnson City due east. I have a Cousin, Carrie and her Husband, Bill, who recently moved from Florida, up to Tennessee, and we wanted to visit and check out the new Tennessee digs... it was a great day weather wise, as the temps soared up into the 80's F.

That is my Cousin on the left, and her Mom, Georgina is on my right... Bill was off travelling around the world on business so we did not get to run into him this trip. The Smoky Mountains were in fine form yesterday...

Carrie and Bill bought a great place, on about 32 acres of Tennessee land... it has a drive way that will rival Shawn and Jenns, for climbing! Every driveway down here seems to be long and have a mountain to climb! Their house is nestled in the Smoky Mountains, and has nice breezes that keep blowing... a much needed relief from the Florida summers!

Above is Carrie's Mom, and her Dad, Bill. They live up in Ontario and have been visiting for a while in Tennessee. They head back home this coming weekend. It was great to see them, and catch up with all the Family Happenings... Georgina's Dad, and my Dad, were Brothers!

We got to the house just in time for a terrific ham lunch... terrific! We spent a few hours talking and getting caught up, and then it was time for us to head back to Johnson City. Carrie suggested she could take us over to Look Out Point, which was just a few miles from the house, and we could climb the look out tower for some exercise, and get a great view of the area. Why not!

After navagating a bunch of switch backs, we climbed the Smoky's and got up to Look Out Point... we had to climb 3 sets of big cement ramps to get to the observation area...

That is Carrie and I up on the ramps... Judy took this pic from below...

The views were terrific as you could see for miles...

We had a great visit, it was good to see them all again. Judy and I made our way back home, through Pidgeon Forge, and stopped for a great Italian Dinner at a Restaurant there. Pidgeon Forge is a huge Tourist area, and is just filled with a variety of restaurants... you would never get to them all.

Took our time coming back home, turning a 2 hour trip to about 4 1/2 it seemed, but we enjoyed it!

Till tomorrow...