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| Photo- Some really neat old buildings in the Old City part of downtown Knoxville, TN. |
I wandered over to the Market Square area of Knoxville
next. There was a plaque that explained
that the Market Square started out in the 1940’s as an area for farmers would
pull up the back of their trucks and sell goods out of the back of their
trucks. It now has a series of
restaurants with patios and other business around the edges of the square. There was a large tented area in the center
that is currently being used as an ice skating rink. I could imagine on any other day than Sunday
it would have been a place of activity.
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| Photos- Market Square area of Knoxville. |
I wandered south through Market Square and across the street
into Krutch Park which was a lovely city park area with large sculptures on
display and some of them were even available for purchase. I walked south some more on a main city road
through the area, turned a corner and there was a HUGE sculpture coming out of
the sidewalk. I will say there was a
great deal of artwork in the downtown area which was rather nice. I walked by a theater in the downtown area
that had lines waiting to buy tickets. I
also walked by a café that had outdoor seating behind a clear vinyl hanging barrier
that was different. It was like looking
at people through a shower curtain.
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| Photo- Krutch Park a city park south of Market Square in Knoxville. |
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| Photo- A VERY large sculpture in Knoxville's downtown area. |
Next I drove over to the World’s Fair Park but there wasn’t much going on because of the weather other than one runner getting soaked in the rain. I admired the tall tower with the sphere a little closer but the rain clouds were dropping and I couldn’t see much. I decided I would go ahead and drive on to Nashville which was my next stop.
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| Photo- World's Fair Park in downtown Knoxville, TN. |
About 10 miles out of Knoxville, I was white knuckle driving
through thick fog where I could barely see the car tail lights of the car that
was maybe 20 ft. in front of me. I
slowed down to 50mph but didn’t want to slow down too much for fear of getting
rear ended. This went on for almost 20
miles where there were patches of thick fog and then patches where it was very hazy. The whole time it was still rainy too. The radio station faded from an alternative
rock to a twangy country station (which I HATE) and I just let it go because I
was concentrating on driving.
Finally, the clouds picked up off the road way but it was
still raining pretty good. I decided I
needed a break and I turned into a truck stop.
I filled up the still half-filled tank and cleaned out the front
passenger side seat of garbage. A little
while later, I was back driving on the interstate through rain but no fog. As I got closer to Nashville, TN the rainy
weather started to clear up but a cross wind had started to blow hard out of
the north. As I passed a truck, I had to
be ready for a gust of wind to hit the car.
As I got even closer to Nashville, the traffic picked up.
I took the exit to head over towards the Opryland area where
my hotel was near. On one exit there was
a long line of cars almost ½ mile long.
It was the exit before the one I needed to take and it looked like there
was a huge shopping mall off of it. I
think last minute Christmas shopping was in full swing! The next exit was pretty busy too but not
quite as much. It still took about 8
minutes to get off the interstate. Thankfully,
I managed to get into the right lane to make a turn I needed to. I took a quick right after going left over
the overpass and then I was on an almost empty road to the hotel. Yeah!
I got checked in and settled into the hotel. It would soon be dark and I went down to the
front desk. There was information about
a free shuttle service over to the Gaylord’s Opry Grand Hotel which I guess is
a HUGE resort hotel. In fact, the guy at
the desk said that you could easily fit 10 of this hotel which had 150 rooms
into that place. He went on to tell me
that there were restaurants, shopping, shows and Christmas lights too. I signed up for a shuttle time and went
upstairs to get cleaned up.
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| Photo- In side the large Gaylord Resort. |
It was like a three block drive in the shuttle to the
Gaylord Resort but then it was about a block and a half drive around to a
loading-drop off zone in the back. The
busy mall was adjacent to the back of the Gaylord Resort and there were people
walking back and forth between both locations.
The guy in the hotel shuttle van gave out the hotel business cards for
us to call when we needed to head back to the hotel. I walked into the Gaylord Resort through a
foyer area, down a hall, and into a HUGE atrium area. It was packed full of people and there was a
map of the layout. I looked at it and
discovered there were three floors of restaurants and shops in the atrium
area. There were four ballroom areas and
it looked like there were about 10 floors of hotel rooms on the outside
areas. It was HUGE!
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| Photo- The Giant Panda that kids can visit and have their picture taken with. |
I proceeded to wonder around. There were Christmas lights on trees, draped
from the ceiling in some areas, balloons with lights, and towers of poinsettias. I walked by displays where there were
characters of Shrek and the Panda where kids could visit and get their pictures
taken with them. There were restaurants
both high end and middle range serving all types of food. There were all kinds of stores. It was very much like a shopping mall within
a hotel area. It was rather confusing
and I ended up backtracking to a map to figure out where I was quite
often. I ended up having dinner at a
Jack Daniels Restaurant and watching the football game from near the bar. I opted for just a bowl of chili and corn
bread. The steaks sounded good but they
only had a 12oz. portion which was more than I could handle. I was able to see out to the “mall” area
through some barrels and also did some people watching. There was a great deal of families with young
kids wandering around.
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| Photo- Outside in front of the Gaylord Opryland Resort. |
After dinner, I wandered out front of the Resort and there
was a row of carriages lined up for people to take rides in. There also was a great deal of the landscaping
with trees that were filled with Christmas lights. It reminded me a bit of the Temple Square in
Salt Lake only quite a bit more down scale but it was a nice display. There was a manger area and a very large tree
with huge light holly formations at the bottom of it. There were sitting areas and a little fire
pit area where people could stand and warm their hands. It was a fun festive air. I walked around and just enjoyed. But soon I was ready to head back to the
hotel for the night. I called the hotel
and caught the next shuttle.
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