Our Road Trips

10/12/2015

10/2-10/12/2015

Our drive to Louisville is about 4 hours including getting through Louisville on a Friday afternoon in the rain with most of I-65 under construction both on the way and in Louisville itself. We had received an email telling us where to turn, which we followed. When we pulled up to the tent set up for the guy checking us in, we are told we are at the wrong place…the email is wrong. I am thinking a corrected email would have been in order? Guess not. So we have to turn around, in the rain, with the car attached…nice. I hit a low-hanging branch trying to turn around and damage the horn on the roof. We finally get to the area they want us to be in and we find we have to leave the car in a separate area and our space isn’t wide enough to put out the awning. So Barb talks a guy into letting us move to a place where we can at least put our awning out. So we get set up and sit in the camper with the heat on and watching all of the other campers arrive in the rain. Several get stuck in the mud and we are also thinking it may be hard to get out on Monday morning…fingers crossed that the rain stops. Time to sleep. We wake up to ‘no rain’ but overcast. The show is delayed while they fix some stuff from the rain but gets going about 1. We start out about 1 but it takes us until almost 2 to make it to the VIP area. We discover that the camping area is about a mile from the VIP area. But we are able to find a table & chairs in a tent close enough to 2 stages to both watch & listen to the bands on the 2 main stages. So, we sit and watch, occasionally walking out to take some pictures of the bands and the crowd. The crowd is a lot younger than we are and a lot more energetic too…we observe ‘crowd surfing’, mosh pits galore and crowds big enough that it is probably not healthy to try to get close, so we enjoy our observation location, out of the sun (when it did peak out) and dry when it rained for a few minutes. We hung in there all the way to the end and we made back to the camper about 1130 pm, long day of music, but an interesting day. Tyler (our grandson) & I traded texts all day with his commentary on the many bands playing that we had never even heard of…Louder than Life indeed. I took pictures and let Tyler see what was happening, he wishes he could have been here too…someday he might. Sunday morning dawned with a bright blue sky and very few clouds…a nice day is here. We head over at noon, run into a couple who also were at the RRR Festival in NJ back in June, as well as several cruises with us. We spend the day near the VIP area, outside, but in the shade of a tree. There is a huge TV close-by with closed-circuit video of all the shows, so we can see & hear all the performances without getting sunburned…nice. The show ends with ZZ Top and the kids are still crowd surfing (to Cheap Sunglasses?). We think they are just having fun and would have been doing it to anything. We have enjoyed the Louder Than Life Music Festival but feel it is for a much younger age group and even though we probably hear 10 times as much live music per year, it is probably best to leave this festival to them.

Monday morning, we pack up, go get the car, hook it up and in 3 blocks we are back on I-71 headed to Madison, Indiana up the Ohio River about 40 miles. In about an hour we are there to spend a day with Carol Chasteen, our friend from Orlando who moved to Indiana to be close to her daughter & her family. We got parked in a City RV Park and get showered just before Carol came by. We all went to Shipley’s for a great burger and then a ride to a State Park nearby overlooking the Ohio River with Carol’s daughter, Bea. They live very close to the river, and an evening on the back porch overlooking the river is very relaxing…telling stories and gabbing. Carol returned us to our camper at 930 pm…getting some sleep after our weekend is very much in order. The view of the river and the bridge to Kentucky is a very relaxing thing to look at in the morning…bright sunny skies. It is nice compared to Friday’s gloom.

Tuesday morning, time to go back to Cages Bend and some more time in Nashvegas. 4 hours and we are back…but someone is in our spot. Barb went to the office and after about 45 minutes we get it straightened out. We stay in a different site over-night and we drove into town for another night on Broadway…4 new honky-tonks and different bands…what a cool place.

Wednesday, we are again moving the camper to a different site, this time for 3 nights. Shortly after we get re-located, we are off again, this time in the car with Memphis our destination and a Foo Fighters concert at the FedEx Forum. We get there about 4 check into a hotel 2 miles away and shower, get dressed and are ready for a night on the town in downtown Memphis…new adventure. About 530, we drive to the FedEx Forum, thinking the show is going to start at 7pm like it says on the tickets. They open the doors at 6 and we started looking for our seats, locate them and go down to the souvenir stands & get something to eat. Promptly at 730, Gary Clark, Jr came on stage and played for ½ hour, followed by another ½ hour to reset the stage for the Foo Fighters, ticket says 7, show starts at 830…go figure. It is worth the wait…2.5 hours of rock…20 songs, no encore. Dave doesn’t play that game…play 20 songs and let’s go home. So in my first 64+ years we see Foo Fighters zero times except on TV and in 85 days see them twice…we must be living right. After the show, we drove towards Beale St and found a parking place (not easy) and walked the 3 blocks of the world famous night life. It is sort of disappointing, the place smells (mostly stale beer) and smoking is allowed everywhere. We had a beer at BB Kings and listened to the band for a few minutes and headed back to the car. Time to get some rest. We mutually decided that spending a night on Beale Street wasn’t going to be that cool so we decided to not spend a second night. We got some sleep, packed up in the morning and made an attempt to check out, only to find a front desk person who was very uncooperative. We did what we could and went sightseeing. First stop was Sun Records, had to make an appointment. Then we went to Gibson Guitar and the only tour was when we had made the appointment at Sun Records…strike 3. So we went to find Bardog, came highly recommended by a friend, for lunch. We had the lunch specials, and walked through part of downtown. We drove down to the riverfront and then stopped at our appointment at Sun Records. It was a bit disappointing but there is a lot of memorabilia inside. After that, we decided to head back to the camper. We stopped at the hotel to see if the manager had resolved the issue, only to find out the manager had decided not to give us a refund. So we headed back while I got on the phone with Customer Care. This didn’t get resolved until an hour ago, so it has been a hassle. We arrived back at the camper about 8…glad to be off the road. It is quite a ride to Memphis from Nashvegas. Today, we are just relaxing and getting some things caught up, including this blog.

About 5 pm, we drove into Nashville and took in an Oktoberfest in the Germantown area of Nashville. Lots of vendors, with food, refreshments and lots of stuff for sale. There was also a ‘Battle of the Bands’ stage and a couple of other stages for various acts. A band we know from our cruising was supposed to be the last act at 9pm, so we anticipated hearing them play and then even go downtown for a couple of hours. Well, as is usual, the promoters weren’t very prompt on the timing of changing the bands, so it was running late. 9 became 1030 and at 1040 the promoters decided the curfew time had arrived and promptly informed Preacher Stone to get off the stage. So, we never did hear them after spending over 4 hours waiting. We decided to head back to the camper and call it a night…pretty disappointing. We have thoroughly enjoyed our time in Nashvegas and will be returning. It has developed into a fun town.

The next morning, we packed up and made the trek from Cages Bend to Whispering Hills campground in Georgetown, Kentucky, about 4 hours NE. We arrived, got set up and got ready for a Blackberry Smoke concert in Covington, KY, a suburb of Cincinnati, OH, an hour north by car. We drove the hour and when we arrived at the venue, the line to get in was already a block long. It being a general admission event, this meant it was going to be a long night, with no seats and too many folks packed into too small of an area. We finally got in, but my back was already in spasms. There were 2 bands to open, both of which were pretty good, but it was stretching our time in the sardine can a lot. Smoke finally came on about 930 after a 7 pm door opening time. You couldn’t move for all the people. We love Blackberry Smoke, but it was time to get out of there. We made our escape about 1015 and started home. We will see them plenty on the cruises we have coming up in Feb & March. We got home about 1130 and got some sleep. We were both glad we went, but will probably not do too many general admission concerts in the future. Hate to admit it, but some of this will be left to a younger crowd going forward.

Yesterday morning, we packed up again and made a 40 mile trip south on I-75 to Fort Boonesborough State Park just north of Richmond, KY. A 40 mile trip took us 90 minutes because of traffic and 6 knucklehead tree trimmers who had I-75 down to 1 lane…ugh! When we arrived, we discovered that the campground is a favorite for Halloween decorations and some of the folks go all out. Reminds us of Fort Wilderness at Disney. There is also a huge car show going on next door, so we set up the camper and drove next door and walked around for an hour or so looking at lots of cool cars from the 50s-70's, bringing back lots of memories of some of the cars we owned back in the late 60s & 70's. We came back to the camper and BBQ’d a steak on the grill and watched some football and had a nice dinner…nice end to a busy week. Tomorrow, we will move on to our next stop, West Virginia. Stay tuned.

Steve & Barb Larson