We’re safe and sound in Virginia after driving just over 550 miles today. We were both feeling great today after our day of rest in Nashville and made it a little farther than originally planned, stopping for the night in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

The scenery today driving through Tennessee and Virginia was beautiful, breathtaking even. Right now, autumn is in full swing in the Tennessee hills and the trees are every shade of yellow, red and orange. The colours are even more striking than we are used to seeing in Canada, as here there are very few evergreen trees – nearly every tree has changed colour for the season. As we drove along, the leaves were steadily falling from the trees and drifting into the highway creating whirlwind leaf effects, not unlike driving through a snowstorm except much more colourful! As we moved further north, we passed many small farm towns, which were quite beautiful in their rustic charm.

Here are a few photos taken on our drive Northeast today, I hope they help you appreciate the beautiful scenery:

Downtown Nashville. The historic Ryman Auditorium is the brick a-framed building center-left.

Country Music Hall of Fame. The windows are like the black keys on a piano.

Union Station. A 100+ year old restored train station - now a hotel.

Nashville Music City

Downtown Nashville at Dusk

Hard Rock Cafe Nashville. Notice the acoustic guitar.

Jack's BBQ, where we had a fantastic southern meal

Cowgirl D

Inside the Ryman Auditorium, looking across the balcony. The building is more than 100 years old and a national historic site. The Grand Old Opry started in this building but now only broadcasts from here in the winter months, when tourism slows down so it was a great time to visit and see the show in the historic building.

Inside the Ryman Auditorium. We were seated near the front of the balcony - GREAT seats!!

Onstage at the Grand Ole Opry

Jimmy Dickens. 88 years old, quick with the music and the jokes!

Diamond Rio

Randy Owens (from the band Alabama)

Marty Stuart

Vince Gill performing his new song "Heaven"

View more photos from Tennessee, Nashville and the Grand Old Opry

We have arrived once again safe and sound at our planned destination – Nashville, Tennessee. Despite having a shorter route planned today, our drive took longer than expected due to very heavy rain and traffic through most of Tennessee. We also took a detour off the freeway in Memphis, hoping to at least drive by and get a photo of Elvis’s home in Graceland. Turns out that isn’t possible – Elvis’s home is set well back from the road and well blocked by both a large Elvis “tourist trap” museum/gift shop and a large strategically placed wall of high trees. I guess lots of people wanted to take a free look at Elvis’ home! We did at least get to see the Heartbreak Hotel in Graceland and a few other Elvis-themed sights in the area.

The detour into Memphis cost us a considerable amount of time; Memphis seems to be a very large maze of freeway interchanges and getting around is a quite a process. It took us 40 minutes just to find a coffee! We arrived in Nashville after dark and immediately headed for something to eat. We found a great southern buffet restaurant called Ryans. I remember visiting this restaurant as a teenager during one of my last trips to Florida with my family and was thrilled to see it again (and yes mom the bread rolls are as good as you remember – sorry I can’t bring them home!). The food was great and we left very happy and full. Upon arriving at our hotel, we were quite amused to find out that we had actually already checked in around 4:30pm this afternoon, which was quite interesting because at that time we were probably still in Memphis looking for coffee!! The clerk didn’t actually clarify how that was possible, but as there was now someone staying in our reserved room, we were given a room upgrade to a suite on the top floor of the hotel! It is quite comfortable, with a separate living room, bedroom and bath, and a mini kitchenette. Now we’d really like to know how to check in early again at the next hotel!

After 3-4 days of very steady driving and a week on the road we have to admit we’re getting tired. Nashville intrigued us and so we have decided rather than hit the road again tomorrow, we’re going to take a day off from driving and see the sights in Nashville. Thankfully we had a 1 day buffer built into our schedule so we should still be able to get to Newfoundland without being ‘late’. We were even lucky enough to be able to keep our nice hotel room for another night. We’re not entirely sure what we are going to do or see tomorrow, but we’re sure it will be fun and a nice break before we get back on the road. We’ll certainly fill you in when we can!

Here is our estimated map for today:

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