17 April ‘09 Friday
Following a quick breakfast, we drove over to tour the Gaylord Opryland Resort. Our campground is just a mile down the road, but with all the walking we did the last couple of days and the walking we will be doing tonight, we decided to drive to the resort. Boy it was a good thing too… Once inside of the resort we knew that we just had to take in every inch of this magnificent building, and it was a couple of inches too.
Following a quick breakfast, we drove over to tour the Gaylord Opryland Resort. Our campground is just a mile down the road, but with all the walking we did the last couple of days and the walking we will be doing tonight, we decided to drive to the resort. Boy it was a good thing too… Once inside of the resort we knew that we just had to take in every inch of this magnificent building, and it was a couple of inches too.
Fact is, it covers over four acres and most of the four acres is covered in glass. The roof spreads out over some of the most beautiful gardens we have ever seen. Flowers of every imaginable type,
flowering trees and not flowering trees, palm trees of all shape and size, and the waterfalls...
AMAZING!!! Even tho we had just finished our coffee at home, we had to have another to sit, relax, and enjoy the sights and sounds of the resort. I must say this too, it is a good thing that they have “you are here” maps everywhere…we could have gotten lost many times. After a couple of hours at the resort, we headed back out to the car. With the Ole Opry House just next door, we wanted to scope out our best option for parking for tonight’s performance. Also right across the large parking area is the shopping mall I mentioned a couple of days ago. Well with the opportunity to look things over, we struck a plan. We would go over to the Opry House at 5:30 for our 7:pm performance, find a great parking spot, walk over the mall, have a slow relaxing dinner at one of their nice restaurants, and then walk across the street, pass our tickets to the young lady, stroll down the aisle to our seat, sit back and enjoy the show. The Grand Ole Opry stage show is still a live radio program, and it has commercials… We weren’t aware of this until one of our neighbor campers told us after going to the show the night before. I must admit, it does kind of break into the flow of things a little, but it still allows a good time. For the 2 hour show we had 4 host (or is it host’s, or hosttest…?) The first host was Mike Snider and the guests were Jeannie Seely, and Dean Brody. Dean Brody was appearing for the first time at the Ole Opry and was quite a hit. He introduced himself as being from Vancouver, BC. Louise and I thought he was pretty damn good too. The second host was “Little” Jimmy Dickens
with Bobby Osborne and The Rocky Top X-Press, and Darius Rucker. Darius Rucker was the best contemporary entertainer we had all night, and I could listen to one of his CD’s anytime. Then last but not least, we had Rick Skaggs as the host and Jimmy C. Newman and The Whites. We didn’t mind the “commercials” and the entertainment was very good. Are we glad we did it? Yes, would we do it again…I think so.