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6:41 am (Central Time) - Thursday - December 20th - Nashville, TN - 47º F, humidity  94%, wind 5 mph out of the northeast......cloudy, rainy today with a forecast high of 50º F.

LIFT OFF!!!

We were up around 6:45 am Wednesday....it's going to take a few days to get used to sleeping in past 7 am again after 8 weeks of getting up at 4 am.    We had little to do to get ready to roll our wheels.....TLE takes care of organizing the interior of the Newell so objects are not likely to become flying projectiles in the case of a panic stop, and I take care of the outside.....put away the mats, the step, dump the tanks, put away the heated hose, the sewer hose, the wheel covers, and then unplug.

We were ready to start the Newell for the first time in 4 weeks, and then reattach the trailer to the hitch.  We were ready to roll by 11:15 am and thus began our 127 mile drive south to Nashville......

.....we waved goodbye to the Campbellsville water tower just to the west of Heartland RV Campground, and then began a wonderful, sunny drive south to Columbia where we entered the Central Time Zone.....have to move all our clocks back 1 hour to be sure we arrive at the airport on time for our December 24th flight home!  Most of the drive was easy driving sitting on cruise control and just steering, but at the Tennessee border we ran into a 3 mile construction zone where the 3 lane Interstate 65 was compressed to just one lane.....

.....it took us about 30 minutes to go just 3 miles, but we finally reached the end of the construction zone, and then made use of a Rest Area at the end of the construction zone to take a break, and make a call to Sunset Isle in Cedar Key, FL to see if they had any availability for a few days after we get back from SoCal.  I got voicemail, so left a message.  About 20 minutes later a lady from Sunset Isle returned my call and TLE took the call.  10 minutes later we had secured a site (the same one we had 6 years ago), which also happened to be the only site they had available for the time frame we had requested.....PERFECT!  A few minutes after reentering the Interstate we entered Tennessee.....

.....and within another 20 minutes we had arrived at the Elks Lodge where we will park the Newell for 9 days....we will be here 5 of those days, and in SoCal the other 4.  Upon our return on the 28th we will then beat a path south to Cedar key arriving there 12/29 for 6 days.  

Once we had parked, and plugged in the Newell we changed clothes and drove into Nashville for a late lunch, and then a run by the Antique Archeology store.  We are big fans of American Pickers, and I have always wanted to visit one of their stores.  TLE selected Tennessee Brew Works for our late lunch and we were there by 3 pm.

 Baja Fish Tacos, and the Cheese plate with two Porters (Imperial for TLE, and Session for me)

The ambiance, service, brews and food were well worth the 4.5 star rating they have on Yelp on 823 reviews, and TripAdvisor on 140 reviews.  We lingered over a second brew, and then headed over to Antique Archeology arriving about 4:30 pm just as the sun was setting.....

 
....they are located in the quite old Marathon Automobile (1914) building which stretches for a least a block in each direction.  There are numerous interesting tenants in the nicely restored building, but my attention was completely focused on the Antique Archeology store.....

...I love how they do not restore things...sometimes they will replace the neon as on the sign below, but the rest of the sign is still as it was found with decades of patina left intact....very, very cool....

....I remember watching the episode where they 'picked' the Von Dutch motorcycle in the picture above....it was built by the very famous pinstriper named Von Dutch (nickname for Kenny Howard)....he installed a VW engine in a Harley Davidson XA frame.....it is not for sale.  Mike Wolfe had heard stories about this motorcycle and eventually came across it and was able to purchase it for quite a sizable price ($21,000)....very cool to be able to see it in person.....

 TLE took this cool picture of me from outside the store while I was examining the Von Dutch XAVW

....we were home by 5:30 enjoying the fact that we did not have to get up at 4 am Thursday morning.....we are free.....free at last!  What a cool first day of our 'Post Amazon' life!

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