Nashville, Ft. Campbell and Other Stuff

Friday, June 15, 2012

This is the first of five trips planned this summer....

Sometime in May Tommy and booked our flights to go see Kyle up in Tennessee. He is stationed in Fort Campbell, KY. He is part of the 5th group, Special Forces, Airborne Unit. (There are other titles that go along with his placement but to be honest, they are way too many for me to remember, lol).

After booking our flights, I realized that we landed in Knoxville, TN. Knoxville, TN is 4.5 hours away from Ft. Campbell. OOOppppsss! Needless to say, Tommy was not very happy with me. (Especially because I slept most of the drive, after filling my belly with greasy food from The Waffle House.)

Kyle's Apartment

We headed for Paducah, KY first. Jim and Cathy, Tommy's brother, lives there. We spent 2 nights with them and got to play with their grandchildren. Eastyn is going to be 3 very soon and James is 1.5 yrs. Great ages to play with them. Eastyn and James are Tommy and I's great niece and nephew. (Is it supposed to be ME and Tommy's?)


Cathy, as usual, cooked awesome, county style, comfort food, meals for us each day. Tommy and Jim went 4 wheeling in the Land Between Lakes. Cathy and I went shopping and out for lunch downtown. We had a great time with them but it was time to move on and go see Kyle.

Fort Campbell was a little over and hour drive from Paducah. Once on base, we checked into our hotel which was old barracks transformed into hotel rooms. They were nice, clean and inexpensive. Kyle met us at our room and took us back to where he lives.

His barracks are very nice! Small but nice. There are only two buildings on base that house the Special Forces. The 101st Airborne is based there along with a very small group of Air Force Personnel. The Air Force is there mainly to fly the planes for the Airborne group.

Kyle was a great host. He took us to restaurants that were not filled with young partying kids and the food was really good. The first place was called 'Old Chicago". Excellent, excellent pizza. Just like Chicago.

Saturday morning the Budweiser Clydesdale's were on base for a parade. We got to watch them dress and hook up the horses to the wagon before parading around. We met 'Brewer", the dalmatian and were very much impressed how very big, and beautiful these horses are.

We also witnessed the ceremony at 6:00pm of taking down the American Flag. "Reveille" is the name of the tune played on the trumpet during the descention. It was interesting to watch and we had timed it perfectly. Here is the link to watch what we caught on video.

  We played pool several times while there and made a full day of exploring Nashville. Nashville is a very cool town. On every corner, every mall stage, every stop light, everywhere you look, there is some young person with a guitar playing and singing their hearts out in hope of being discovered. Some are very talented. Others, not so much! The bands and the talents inside the bars and restaurants downtown are incredible.

Brewer

We did not know it but it was CMA's Music Festival that weekend. It was on the water and the weather was perfect. We watched some bands and then headed into the bars. I wish we had more time to explore but after eating lunch Kyle became sick to his stomach so we headed back. But not before going the Grand Ole Opry House --- and an outlet mall for Coach!

 

this is Dick

Tommy and I spent the evening in our hotel room and relaxed while Kyle went home to recover. The next morning we met up and had breakfast together. Kyle was feeling better and after leaving us he headed back down to Nashville to meet up with a girl he had met the day before while we were there. AH...to be young and carefree.....

We arrived home late, almost midnight, and again I messed up. We landed in Ft. Lauderdale which is and hour drive from home. OOPPSSSS, again! LOL

Overall, we had a wonderful, short, visit with both Jim and Cathy, and of course Kyle. Next is a trip to the Keys for the 4th of July.

 

open Mic at the Mall

Thanks for reading!