Nashville - Part One

This year, Hubby turned 60.  Ever since we started dating, we've tried to plan vacations for each other for our birthdays. Since this was such a special birthday for him, it called for a special vacation.   Hubby's dream has always been to go to Nashville  - so away we went!

We were absolutely positive that neither of our cars would make it the three thousand miles we had planned.  Thankfully, working for AAA has its perks, and renting a car with a travel agent discount is one of them.   We got to drive this sweet little mama all the way to Nashville and back:

She's a 2015 Hyundai Elantra - we named her Eloise.  And she was a very good girl.  She got us safely there and back, and we only had to feed her about half of what I budgeted for gas.  We love her, but we figured the rental car place would be mad if we didn't give her back.

We left bright and early on Saturday morning, and our first day was driving only.  We did stop at one of our favorite places for breakfast - Rein's Deli in Vernon, CT.

(We got better at the selfies after awhile)

The weather was crummy, but we didn't really care since we were in the car anyway.

I've never gotten a dry picture of the Tappan Zee Bridge

Our plan was to drive down Skyline Drive and Blue Ridge Parkway. It took us the whole first day to get to Hagerstown, MD, which is close to the entrance of Skyline Drive.  We stayed in a Best Western there.....another perk from AAA.  I get "points" when I book Best Westerns for customers, as well as more points when I do their online training courses.  We stayed at 3 Best Westerns this trip, and they were all free for me!

From Hagerstown we drove for 2 hours down Skyline Drive.  It is 105 miles long, and has 70 scenic overlooks!!   We took literally hundreds of photos....here are a few:

As you can see, the weather was spectacularly beautiful!   At first we thought we'd stop at every overlook, but there were just too many!

We saw dozens of deer - there wasn't a day on Skyline Drive or Blue Ridge Parkway that we didn't see deer!

Since we were spending so much time driving, I asked that we get out and do some sort of hike or walk each day.  Our hike the first day was actually part of the Appalachian Trail!

I don't know if you can read the marker, but it says Appalachian Trail

I also did a bit of rock climbing:

Tomorrow:  Luray Caverns!