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Opryland: Where Outside is Inside

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Birds, Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , on December 4, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Looking up at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel rooms from one of the complex's atriums. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Looking up at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel rooms from one of the complex’s atriums. — Photo by Pat Bean

 “Do not disturb signs should be written in the language of the hotel maids.” –Tim Bedore           

Adventures with Pepper: Day 52 continued   

One of numerous waterfalls that help create the illusion of bringing the outdoors inside. -- Photo by Pat Bean

One of numerous waterfalls that help create the illusion of bringing the outdoors inside. — Photo by Pat Bean

          What started out in 1877 as the 600-room Opryland Hotel   is today the largest non-casino hotel in this country. Numerous expansions and the big renovation after the hotel was flooded in May of 2010, along with the next door Grand Ole Opry, have inspired the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center ad men  to use the words, “You won’t believe what’s under our roof,” in their promotional copy.

A tour of the hotel was the second part of this Gray Line tour, which earlier had me standing on the “Unbroken Circle” of the Grand Ole Opry stage.

Wow, I think was my surprised response as I wandered through the complex and then took the quarter-mile boat ride around the glass-roofed, landscaped-to-perfection complex.

 

I wondered what Opryland charges these colorful wood ducks for their space in one of the complex's atriums. I shot this photo of the ducks during the boat ride.

I wondered what Opryland charges these colorful wood ducks for their space in one of the complex’s atriums. I shot this photo of the ducks during the boat ride.

Normal room rates to stay at the hotel range from $169 to $244 per night. I was curious and checked it out to see how it compared with the $34 per night cost of my stay at the Nashville Country RV Park.                        While it would have been fun to stay in the hotel during my Nashville stay, it wasn’t within my travel budget, nor, I suspected, would my canine traveling companion, Pepper, have been allowed to stay with me.

Book Report: Still dinking along while some of my writing colleagues are making amazing amounts of progress on their projects. But I got most of my Christmas shopping done yesterday.

The Wondering Wanderer's blog pick of the day.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: What I See is What I Shoot http://tinyurl.com/c9kgaqx Far away in the Wonderland. A quirky blog that usually fascinates me. Today you can learn how to say bicycle in Russian

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Reflections

Posted in Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged , , , , , , on December 2, 2012| 2 Comments »

fountain“Everyone and everything that shows up in our life is a reflection of something that is happening inside of us.” Alan Cohen

Gaylord Opryland’s Resurgenge

Resurgence sits in the Cascades Lobby at Gaylord Opryland. -- Photo by Pat Bean

Resurgence sits in the Cascades Lobby at Gaylord Opryland. — Photo by Pat Bean

When I saw this glass sculpture, I immediately assumed it was the work of the famed glass artist Chihuly. But unlike another blogger, who will remain nameless to protect the guilty, I double-checked and discovered it wasn’t.

The piece is called resurgence and was installed as part of Gaylord Opryland Resort’s restoration after the huge complex was flooded, along with much of Nashville, in May of 2010.

Opryland’s press releases say the piece was made in Sweden but didn’t mention the artist, or perhaps artists.

I thought the piece was fantastic, especially the way light reflected of it. Don’t you?

A glass sculpture by Chihuly that was on display as part of a plant-glass exhibit at the Missouri Botanical Gardens in 2006. -- Photo by Pat Bean

A glass sculpture by Chihuly that was on display as part of a plant-glass exhibit at the Missouri Botanical Gardens in 2006. — Photo by Pat Bean

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Nashville: Country Music Hall of Fame

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Favorite Places, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 28, 2012| 3 Comments »

The day I visited the Country Western Music Hall of Fame was the anniversary of Minnie Pearl’s 100th birthday. What a treasure she was, but it was all an act. She was a sophisticated lady with a huge Nashville mansion. — Photo by Pat Bean

            “You are the music while the music lasts.” – T.S. Eliot

Adventures with Pepper: Day 51 Continued

Can you picture Buck Owens wearing this … — Photo by Pat Bean

            When I listen to music — which is not too often because it demands all of my focus — it’s usually country western, to the bemoaned ears of some of my more musically elite friends.

And when I have a choice, I’ll always choose to listen to Willie Nelson.

So it was that when this day’s Gray Line tour ended the day at the Country Western Music Hall of Fame, I was particularly interested in seeing if I could find evidence of his life here. I did, high on the wall of the Hall of Fame inductees.

The first country western singer who had grabbed my attention, along with a childhood crush, was Roy Rogers, and so I looked and found him up there on the wall, too.

… and Buck standing next to Taylor Swift. Can you picture it. — Photo by Pat Bean

What a contrast their gray-toned plaques made with the huge colorful display of Taylor Swift that was currently on exhibit at the Western Music Hall of Fame. Since male country western singer inductees outnumber women by almost ten to one, it was interesting to see the new face of country music.

Our tour guide let us have about an hour to wander through the country western museum. Among the highlights that attracted my attention were the flashy clothing worn by country western singers.

The stage costumes made me wonder what a picture Buck Owens and Taylor Swift would have made sharing the stage.

Book Report:I hang my head in shame. But I’ve cleared the decks today for some serious work on Travels with Maggie.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: The Literary Man http://tinyurl.com/cxeqtvd Still painting. An inspiration for all of us young-at-heart oldsters.

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Nashville, Tennessee

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , on November 26, 2012| 6 Comments »

“The one thing that all great cities have in common is that they are all different.” Cate Blanchard

Nashville cityscape. I snapped this picture out the window of the bus, as I did the others shown here. — Photo by Pat Bean

            “I love cities.” Danny Boyle

Adventures with Pepper: Days 51

It’s called “Ghost Ballet” and sits by the Tennessee River. One interpretation is that it is two ends of a bridge. our tour guide wasn’t impressed. I saw roller coaster rails. What do you see? — Photo by Pat Bean

The Gray Lines bus driver-guide was full of facts but lacked the twitch of humor I’ve experienced on other tours. The city of Nashville, however, made up for the oversight.

I loved the jumble of color down this narrow street. — Photo by Pat Bean

From the red disjointed bridge “Ghost Ballet” sculpture to the Parthenon replica and the shiny city scape to the vivid colors of Fleet Street, the city fascinated me.

Besides music, Nashville is also a mecca for the publishing industry. Along with all my sight-seeing, my visit was an opportunity for me to personally meet my American Profile magazine editor. I blog for the magazine’s Discovering America online presence every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday at http://blogs.americanprofile.com/

I don’t do big cities often, preferring to base my travels around the wonders of Mother Nature, but they’re the perfect contrast to keep my travels interesting.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Book Report: Thanksgiving and lots of family visiting from Florida, including an 11-month old great-grandson and other visiting children and grandchildren. Need I say more.

Bean’s Pat: Ummmm, really http://tinyurl.com/cm498pd Retirement, the New Freedom or Rock and Roll and Geritol? This one’s for those of us who have more days behind us than ahead of us. It made me laugh.

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Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Favorite Places, Journeys, Nature, Travel, tagged , , on November 22, 2012| 8 Comments »

100 Things for which I’m Thankful – In No Particular Order

Every sunrise brings with it zest for a new day, for which I’m extremely thankful. — Photo by Pat Bean

  1. Belly laughs
  2. The sound  of rain pinging on my RV roof
  3. My large family.
  4. Pepper, my happy, friendly new canine traveling companion.
  5. Rich African  coffee heavily laced with cream
  6. The Blue Ridge Parkway
  7. Cool nights that let me snuggle beneath a soft quilt
  8. That this old broad is still reasonably healthy and still able to travel
  9. Hearty  hugs from people who mean it
  10. A good massage from a woman with magic fingers
  11. That I’m finally a great-grandmother
  12. My association with the women of Story Circle Network
  13. A good haircut
  14. Scenic  hiking trails
  15. Achievements  of my kids, grandkids and friends
  16. My zest  for life
  17. Walking  barefoot on a sandy beach
  18. Learning something new
  19. The flash  of sun illuminating the tail feathers of an overhead red-tailed hawk
  20. Waterfalls
  21. That after 134,000 miles, my RV, Gypsy Lee, still has go in her.
  22. Ibuprofen to relieve aches and pains
  23. Discovering a new author I like
  24. Taking a grandchild on their first roller coaster ride
  25. Watching fall redress the trees
  26. Van Gogh paintings
  27. Butterflies
  28. My  computer and the Internet
  29. My newly  gained voice as a writer
  30. Rainbows
  31. Living in  America where a woman can safely travel alone
  32. Sunrises  and sunsets
  33. Funky,  dangling earrings that belie my age
  34. Bra-less  days
  35. Summers  not spent in Texas
  36. Good memories of my mother
  37. Old  friends and new friends
  38. A field of wildflowers
  39. Reese”s  peanut butter cups
  40. The wind  blowing through my hair
  41. My daily walks with Pepper
  42. Hot soup  on a cold day
  43. A  wee-morning hours chatter with a long-time girlfriend over Jack Daniels  and Coke.
  44. A  daughter-in-law guardian angel who keeps track of my travels, forwards my      mail and supplies me with my favorite coffee
  45. The honking of geese as they fly overhead
  46. Lake reflections
  47. Family meals eaten around a table
  48. My curiosity
  49. Comfortable  shoes
  50. America,  the beautiful
  51. Clean  showers in RV parks
  52. Electricity
  53. My bicycle
  54. People who care deeply about something
  55. The wolf’s  return to Yellowstone
  56. The  journey between destinations
  57. A comfortable bed and a perfect pillow
  58. WordPress for hosting this blog
  59. New white  sox
  60. Water in  all its forms
  61. Scented candles
  62. A sky full of stars
  63. Glasses that allow me to read
  64. Pleasant  surprises
  65. An honest  politician
  66. Bird watching with my bird-watching son
  67. Evenings spent around a campfire
  68. Good Sam emergency services
  69. Good, real ice cream, chocolate milk shakes
  70. Nice and Easy, No. 99 – so I can forever be a blonde
  71. Coyote  howls
  72. Wrinkle-free clothing
  73. Gentle dentists
  74. My  independence
  75. The  fragrant scent of a blooming gardenia bush, which always reminds me of my      grandmother
  76. The diversity I find in people watching
  77. Large,  gnarly live oak trees
  78. Audible  books
  79. Maps
  80. A good editor
  81. Books with satisfying endings
  82. The strong women of the past who fought so I could vote
  83. A cup of  Earl Grey tea
  84. The color  turquoise
  85. Boat rides
  86. Antibiotics and vaccinations
  87. Smiles
  88. A frisky squirrel in a tree outside my RV
  89. Guided  trolley tours
  90. My new Canon pocket, zoom camera
  91. Washers and dryers
  92. Blank  journals to fill
  93. A shady RV  camp site beside a small lake
  94. A hearty  11 a.m. breakfast for lunch
  95. The music  of a humpback whale
  96. Stained  glass windows
  97. Birds
  98. National  parks
  99. The family  computer nerds who get the bugs out of my laptop
  100. Readers of my blog

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Gypsy Lee Stretches her Wheels

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Favorite Places, Journeys, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on November 19, 2012| Leave a Comment »

“People who make no mistakes lack boldness and the spirit of adventure. They are the brakes on the wheels of progress.” – Dale Turner   

Just how many pictures of colorful leaves are you going to take, I finally started asking myself. — Photo by Pat Bean

 Adventures with Pepper: Day 49

After the Appalachian foothills of West Virginia, Skyline Trail in Shenandoah National Park, the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia and North Carolina and Smoky Mountain National Park into Tennessee, where my RV was lucky to be able to get up to the 35 mph travel limit, Gypsy Lee needed to stretch her wheels.

The Hermitage, home of President Andrew Jackson in Nashville. — Wikipedia photo

So, because I planned a journey of about 210 miles this day, I reluctantly took to Interstate 40.  to Nashville.            The roadsides were autumn colorful, and the drive not too stressful, until the last fourth of the journey when I hit Nashville Traffic. All lackadaisical sight-seeing and journal notes went out the window at this point.

It got even worse when I got onto Highway 45, also known as Old Hickory Boulevard and which passed by the Hermitage, President Andrew Jackson’s former plantation. This home became a public museum honoring both Jackson and the antebellum South way back in 1869. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1860 and is the fourth most visited presidential home in the country today.

The structure escaped a near-disaster during a 1998 Nashville tornado outbreak. While the house escaped, many old trees, some of which might have been planted by Jackson himself, were blown down. Wood from these fallen trees was used by the Gibson guitar company to make 200 limited edition “Old Hickory” guitars.

A fitting use in a city that’s known for music, I thought.

Book Report: Spent an hour working on Travels with Maggie this morning. No word-count report because I’m doing what I probably shouldn’t be doing. The book is about 85 percent complete but I was suffering from a need to go back and reread everything up to this point. I felt I needed a refresher read before I tie everything up. I also wanted to make a few changes that I decided on a couple of week’s ago in the book’s structure.

Bean’s Pat: Palestine Rose http://tinyurl.com/bmptucc I avidly believe this is oh so true. How about you?

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Green

Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged , , , , , , on November 17, 2012| 4 Comments »

“I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and
respecting her seniority.” — Elwyn Brooks White, Essays of E.B. White,  1977

 

This red-eared slider turtle lives in a green world in the creek that runs through Springfield Park in Rowlett, Texas. — Photo by Pat Bean

 

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Good-Bye Dolly, Hello Smokies

Posted in Dogs, Favorite Places, Journeys, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on November 13, 2012| 4 Comments »

    

Gaping at sights like King Kong as I drove through Pigeon Forge, Tennessee is probably one of the reasons I missed my turn. I shot this photo out my RV window while stopped at a traffic light. — Photo by Pat Bean

        “Half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness.” – Ray Bradbury

Adventures with Pepper: Day 46-47

After a week’s layover at Yogi’s in the Smokies Campground, I finally decided it was time for me to get back on the road again.

I came across this scene on my way down Big Cove Road just outside of Yogi’s in the Smokies. It stopped me and my camera in its tracks. — Photo by Pat Bean

First I said my good-byes to Dolly, the matriarch of the family group that adopted me and Pepper and fed us campfire steaks. Dolly was 75, the mother of seven children and lots of grandchildren, but she told me she still had plenty of get-up-and-go.            I left her with the encouragement to get up and go often. And she promised she would take my example and do so

My goal for the day was to drive through Smoky Mountain National Park. It was steep, which by now I had become used to, but it was also crowded.  I only stopped a few times and left the park early so I could go through Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

Pepper and I had lunch by this small gurgling stream in Smoky Mountain National Park.

They were crowded, too, but full of interesting sights. I guess I gawked too much because I missed my turn, a mistake that added several hours to what was only going to be a short day’s drive.

I drove one section of Highway 441 twice because I got wrong directions – most likely because I asked the wrong question.

I ended up taking Highway 411 to Marysville and back-tracking a few miles on Highway 321, the road I had missed.

I ended the day at Mystic River, which turned out to be a Passport America campground, which was good because the full price was $45. As a passport member, I paid only half of that. It was a very nice campground and I stuck around the next day. .

Book Report: I drove the 300 miles back to Dallas from Lake Jackson yesterday and never got to Travels with Maggie. Hopefully I’ll get an hour’s worth of writing in later today.

Bean’s Pat: A Trip to Antarctica http://tinyurl.com/c6te3yc This sounds like an awesome arm-chair traveling event.

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A Dog-Wrangled Invitation

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Dogs, Travel, Writing, tagged , , on November 12, 2012| 2 Comments »

            “The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.” — Samuel Butler, Notebooks, 1912

Pepper investigating that purple cow back in Waynesboro, Virginia. — Photo by Pat Bean

Adventures with Pepper: Days 38-45

As my regular readers know, I lost Maggie, the dog who was my traveling companion during my first eight years of living on the road.

Pepper and me taken at the SPCA shelter in Plano, Texas, on the day she hopped into my lab, looked up at me and with her eyes clearly said: I’m going home with you. I hadn’t been looking for either a puppy or a terrier. — Photo by Pat Bean

After a horrendous period of grieving, I acquired Pepper, who has been my travel companion since April 20th.  She was a four-month-old rag mop of a  Scotty-mix, the Plano, Texas, SPCA Shelter staff said, when I rescued her.

Since then, she’s doubled in size to about 20 or so pounds, and has become a piece of my heart.   Where Maggie was the Grand Diva of dogs, Pepper is a rowdy tomboy whose greatest joy in life is giving me chin kisses and rough-housing with bigger dogs.

At Yogi’s in the Smokies campground, where I spent a week, the dog she played with was a young black lab that belonged to a large family group that were my neighbors. One afternoon, after we had laughingly watched the two of them play, I got a knock on my RV door.

Pepper keeping an eye on me from her high perch on our over-the-cab bed. — Photo by Pat Bean

“Would Pepper’s mom like to come have steak around the campfire with us,” two young girls asked.

Pepper’s mom said, “Yes.”

Book Report: Travels with Maggie is now up to 61,868 words.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Hunting Trolls in Norway http://tinyurl.com/b9bovh6 Travel is all about learning something new, and not getting eaten by trolls.  

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Renewal

Posted in Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged , , , , , , , on November 10, 2012| 4 Comments »

A Ducky Family

Half-breed ducks at Springfield Park in Rowlett, Texas. — Photo by Pat Bean

When I first began bird watching, a flock of ducks like this  had me scrambling through my guidebooks over and over in my efforts to identify them. A seasoned birder finally took pity on me and explained that they were hybrids, half  mallard-and half something else, usually the white domestic ducks that hang about in civilized ponds.

“You won’t find them in any birding field guide, and the AOU (American Ornithological Union) discounts them as a legitimate bird species,” he said.  “And they can’t reproduce,” he said.

These days I recognize  such hybrids immediately.  And in my crazy mind, they speak to me about how life, in all of its forms, is constantly trying to renew itself.

 

 

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