Red Bay is a very small town on the border of Mississippi and is the home of Tiffin, the manufacturer of our RV. We are here for some normal service on our RV and we scheduled the stop a full year ago. Sadly we had to spend the week-end here with not much to do. It was a long week-end!
While in town, we went on another tour of the plant. They had gone from 13 units a day to 3 units a day because of the economy but have recently increased back to 6 units a day. That's a good sign! This unit is having the roof set all in one piece.
Once again, we spent some time with our good friends, Jim & Sue Quillen. We enjoy our time on their acreage with them. Here Janie & Sue cut some occra.
Then they moved on to some great peanuts. With 13 acres, they have room for all sorts of vegtables in their garden.
All of that leads to wonderful dinners with great friends. Another fantastic visit with friends!
Hurricane Mills is a real town that has been around since the mid-1800s. When Loretta Lynn bought her ranch she didn't realize she was also buying the whole town (just a couple of buildings).
She lived in the house that was on the land when she bought it. She lived there for 22 years, until she built a new house behind the old one where she still lives today.
This old house was built in the mid-1800s. It was Loretta's home until she opened it to tourists in 1988. They also have a replica of her original home when she was a youngster in Kentucky. You know...Coal Miner's Daughter!
There is also an 18,000 square foot museum of Loretta's career. There are many costumes, records, letters, hand written songs, etc. They also have a number of vehicles including a tour bus and Loretta's favorite Cadillac. It's an enjoyable couple of hours if you are ever driving I40 in Tennessee.
Sitting next to the Grand Ole Opry is the Opryland Hotel. It is an absolutely huge hotel featuring an covered interior landscaped area. There are three distinctly different areas and it's like walking in the park with water and foliage everywhere.
Everywhere you turn there is a water fall and there is usually a restaurant somewhere near so you can enjoy the falls while you eat.
There is even a river that you can take a boat ride on around the whole area. It's truly a spectacular hotel!
A trip to Nashville wouldn't be complete without a trip to the Grand Ole Opry. They have shows 3 days a week. When you watch the show, you are watching a radio show being preformed. The show is on the air as you watch. The show is actually part of the history of our country. 
One of the acts was the Bellamy Brothers, who brought some special guests with them. The Bacon brothers! Mike and Kevin Bacon (Yep, the movie star, Kevin and his older brother). They were very good.
The biggest star of the evening was Gretchen Wilson. She has had a number of hit songs. She's very pretty and she sings very well. The evening was simply great!!
On the afternoon we were at the Country Music Hall Of Fame they were taping a Crook & Chase TV show, which we got to go see at no extra charge. Their show is interviews of various country stars. The show is on the RFD network, which is new.
Today there were two guests interviewed and preforming. The first guest was a new country singer named Chris Young. He has a current country hit called "Black Dress" which he sang. Janie decided "He's cute"! I couldn't tell because of the hat!
The second guest was none other than Wynona, who sang three songs. She is one of our favorites and she was terrific. The room was so small it was like having her preform in our living room. What a great afternoon of entertainment!
The Country Music Hall Of Fame is a fantastic experience and is right downtown. We spent the entire day going through the various rooms of displays on three levels. 
They had a terrific temporary exhibit on Brenda Lee. It covered her whold career up to date. It took us an hour just to go through this one room.
There were four walls of gold & platnium records like this one. I think they must have every country award displayed. It's fun to read the labels and try to remember the artist and the songs.
Nashville is such a neat city. Our first night in town we had dinner downtown and then headed to the honky tonk bars. There is a section of about four blocks that are jammed with country bars with live music day & night.
Many country singers have been discovered in these bars and are now some of the biggest country stars. They play in these bars for nothing but tips, in hopes of being discovered.
At night the whole area looks like a mini Las Vegas but it's missing the gambling. We had a great time walking around and listening to the various artist.
Mammoth Cave is one of the seven natural wonders of the world and is located about 80 milse south of Louisville, Ky. There are over 350 miles of cave that have been mapped and they think there are at least double that which haven't been mapped yet.
This is the original opening to the cave, which has been open to tourist since the late 1800's. They have several other manmade openings so all the tours aren't so long of a walk. The constant temperature in the cave is 54 degrees year round.
There are many stalagtites (down from ceiling) and stalagmites (up from floor) to be seen on any of many tour choices. The tours are all walking tours and are up and down stairways and paths. Even thought if's cool in the cave, it's easy to work up a sweat during your tour.
I was born in Louisville and still have some nephews there so it's always a nice stop to see relatives and bring back old memories. We were lucky this year that we hit town during the State Fair. We spent a day at the fair and had a blast. Janie had never been to a State Fair before and thought it was great. It's a huge fair! 
They have a Six Flags that is on the fair grounds so it makes for a really big deal. 
Louisville is also the home to the Louisville Slugger baseball bats (they have a nice museum at the factory) and Mohammad Ali (who also has a museum of his career).
We spent the morning at the Columbus Zoo. This is the home of Jack Hanna who used to bring animals to the Johnny Carson show, and is supposed to be one of the most renowned zoos in the country. We found it very nice and enjoyable. 
The displays are all in natural settings, which makes viewing nice and I'm sure it's easier on the animals. They have the oldest living gorilla that was born in captivity....55 years old. After the zoo, we hit the road and drove to Springfield, Ohio.
We didn't actually travel far today because we stopped in Cleveland and spent most of the day at the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. It's a very interesting place to visit and we enjoyed it very much. It's a shame they don't allow cameras at all. 
There are displays that show artists from all phases of Rock & Roll from the 50's to today. Not only are there costumes & instruments of various artists but they explain the evolution of Rock & Roll through the years.
Loudonville is a nice little city in central Ohio. We stayed in a campground called Wally World (Chevy Chase, eat your heart out). Actually, "Wally" is the name of the road the campground is on. This is a huge camping area of the state because of the Mohican State Park and Mohican river.
The campground is located on the Mohican river and we spent a few hours going 8 miles down the river in kyaks. No white water, just a nice current. Very enjoyable afternoon!
This area is in a 4 county region that has the largest population of Amish in the country. I was surprised to hear that because I thought that would be the Lancaster, PA area. We visited a working farm and toured the home, barn and schoolhouse to see how the Amish live. It was very interesting.
The home furnishings were very basic and close to antique in style. The Amish don't believe in anything that is fancy. Their entire home is extremely plain but they keep it very clean. Most of the time men are in the fields and the women are in the kitchen. They can ride or drive a tractor or car but they cannot own one. A thin difference.
Conneaut (Con-knee-ought) is a neat little town on Lake Erie in northern Ohio. They have a very nice RV park so we decided to spend a couple of days seeing the area. The town has a very neat little railroad museum in town for no charge. It was cool to see an old steam engine again! 
The main reason we decided to spend time in Buffalo is because we heard they had the "Body Worlds" exihibition here and we wanted to see it. All I can say is, WOW! This exhibit shows you things about the body that only doctors have seen and they do it in a very interesting, non-horrific maner. It is truly amazing what an intricate machine the body really is. It's a shame some of us try so hard to destroy it! Seriously, if this exhibit comes anywhere close to you, take the time to go see it. You'll be glad you did.
We're staying at the Elks Lodge in Lancaster, NY, which is a suburb of Buffalo. It's a very nice lodge and we met some nice guys who gave us some ideas of things to do while we're here. 
We drove by the "Home of the Buffalo Wing" (big deal!). Actually we just saw this sign while we were driving down the street in a neighborhood that wasn't very nice.
We took the day off yesterday and played golf at a very nice course. Janie shot a 39 on the front and 44 on the back. I didn't do much worse but she beat me (Oh No!). 
