Once the idling diesel trucks had departed, and the onslaught of evening shoppers had retreated, silence fell over the Walmart parking lot.
After a quiet night, I took Chloe out for her morning pee. Looking around, I noticed there weren’t any other RV’s in the lot. Hmmm…this is unusual on such a busy transport corridor.
A Walmart worker, with blue jacket full of badges and ID tags, saw me and walked with purpose in my direction. All he said was “Sorry Sir, no RV overnight camping allowed”, pointed to the back of a sign, gave me a stern look then walked away.
I walked over to look at the front of the sign and noticed it said…NO OVERNIGHT RV PARKING. Oops, we must have missed it when we pulled in and set up for the night.
We quickly packed up, then joined the heavy commuter and transport truck traffic all heading to Nashville.
When we arrived, as usual, towns or cities with high tourist traffic have very limited RV parking. We drove around and around looking for parking while pulling the trailer through heavy traffic in narrow streets…Im getting quite skilled at navigating tight spots. We tried just out of the downtown and found a free shady parking lot at the Nissan Stadium.
We left Chloe in the cool trailer and took a short walk over a pedestrian bridge that put us at the start of Honky Tonk Highway
What an awesome experience walking past all the bars and restaurants…each with a live band belting out country rock and traditional country music while in the heart of Nashville.
We walked the strip, people watching, and stopped for a few beers and some entertainment in HonkyTonk Central.
After an afternoon of good entertainment, we walked back to the rig, then left downtown. Our route took us south with other heavy rush hour commuter traffic. I have faith in our Garmin GPS and followed her instruction. In multi lane heavy traffic, I have found it most convenient to positioning myself in the centre lane to avoid the off or on ramps, and allow faster traffic to pass me on the left. I got frustrated at the people who squeezed into the gap I left for stopping with a 7000lb trailer.
We eventually left the crazy traffic behind us and made good southerly progress. A small brown roadside historic information sign flashed past that said something about taking exit 14 to Jack Daniels Distillery. GASP!!!
Susan opened Google Maps and got directions to Jack Daniels. Her phone said “in 500 meters, take exit 14”
Oh my goodness, that was cutting it close. We nearly missed a visit to Jack Daniels. Wouldn’t that be terrible. We took the exit and changed the truck Garmin route to Fayetteville.
It was late in the day and this time, we checked with Walmart Management and confirmed it was okay to boondock for the night. We were ready for day 101 on the road and a visit to the Jack Daniels Distillery in the morning. Woohoo.