Asheville, NC to Nashville, TN
There was a market I wanted to get to this morning but in true Asheville fashion it wasn’t open until 10am which was when we needed to check out of the campground. I didn’t want to test Baloo on the city streets of Asheville so we forged onward to Tennessee. Jason got to talking (shocking) to someone walking by this morning and it turns out they graduated from Vets in Warwick and URI, two of Jason’s alma maters. Doesn’t matter how far we go from RI, we always find people from the area.
Today was an easy driving day overall- only about 4 hours. We could check into our campground outside of Nashville at 3pm (central time) so we were in good shape leaving Asheville before 10am. After a few hours of driving I looked for a hike and found something amazing!
We pulled up to Ozone State Park which seemed very unassuming but hidden within was an amazing waterfall!
The waterfall was absolutely stunning, the best one we’ve seen so far. The scramble to get to the bottom was too much for umm.. the dogs… so I stayed back while Jason descended to see the waterfall from the bottom. Jason said the water was warm and the rock scramble was hard and I made the right choice to stay back. He didn’t have to tell me, I know my limitations! We brought Patch and Bear to the top of the waterfall and let them get wet. They laid right down and cooled off. It’s 93 degrees today and humid as hell. They loved it.
Back on the road, we hit another big storm. Took about 20 minutes to drive through but Jason did great once again. We stuck behind a trailer and that helped. Patch was less than thrilled!
I told Jason that we were right on time to arrive at Cedars of Lebanon State Park which I never should’ve said in hindsight. Jason hit a lull and needed a coffee so we stopped at a rest area. The Dunkin’ Express they have here are quick but there is no almond milk or any plant based milk to be found. I grabbed the almond milk from the fridge to be ready when Jason comes back and as he approaches the car he yells out “You were right! The shit pipe!”
The number 1 thing that goes wrong on RPods is the bracket that hold the black tank pipe up breaks. You’d think this is something that Forest River would address with expediency! Luckily the RPod facebook group had given several warnings about this so we had bought the tools necessary before we left to fix it.
We were able to get it fixed in about 20 minutes. Glad we had planned ahead and had the right hardware with us!
We arrived at the Cedars of Lebanon State Park around 4:00 and were settled in around 4:45pm. We decided that we would cook on the Blackstone Griddle tonight and eat at the campground and then drive through Nashville later on and get a feel for the city. We’ve been here before but never at night.
We waited until around 9:00 and then loaded the pups into the truck to Nashville. We were about 35 minutes outside of the city but we liked the vibe (and space) of this campground so we decided it was okay that it was a little further away.
We drove down Broadway and around town. Grabbed some pictures and listened to the loud music blasting from one bar to the next. This is a sensory overload for sure! Bachelorette and Bachelor parties were everywhere, and there were even kids waiting outside Hard Rock Cafe this late at night. To be honest, this isn’t my scene at all. Definitely not dog friendly either. Jason loves this stuff!
We went to look at one of the vegan restaurants that was nearby but we weren’t able to find it. Crossed that off the list for tomorrow! Headed back to the campground and noticed huh… there are a lot of Airstreams here…..
Vegan On the Rhode 