Cedars Of Lebanon

I drove up the Music Highway yesterday morning, into Music City. I always hope that a big city I first encounter will be different than other big cities I’ve been to. Unfortunately, Nashville has the same issues every other place has: traffic jams, lots of people, etc… It’s Saturday so there was no way I was going to venture into downtown. Maybe tomorrow morning?

Steph’s son-in-law Michael loaned me his GPS for this little trip and I’ve had charging issues with it. My truck is old so it has an old cigarette lighter and the GPS cord expects something newer I guess. I finally got it charged up and I told it where I wanted to go!

Cedars of Lebanon State Park, 328 Cedar Forest Road, Lebanon, TN and damned if it didn’t take me right here. It’s a nice State Park and for $20 I get a space, and nice neighbors. It was raining heavy when I arrived but I still managed to break Park Rule #1 (no alcohol) and walked over to meet Wayne and Karen, who were also breaking Park Rule #1.

These two are my age and they’ve been hanging out here for a few days. They sold their mobile home and have been living out of their van with their 5 month old pit bull named Blue. Nice people! Karen even let me use her cell phone to touch base with Steph.

The conversation drifted to their daughter Megan, who died last year from a massive stroke at the age of 23. (Yea, I know…) We had quite the discussion about how doctors use every part of an organ donors parts, even down to your tiny veins for children. Very sad about Megan, they said she was really nice.

I went back to the truck to work on this post and when I re-surfaced they invited me over for a hamburger. I brought over my radio playing jazz and we hung out for the evening. I now have two new friends!

I’m currently hunkered down in my truck cave writing this, still playing jazz from my portable radio, typing these words by my little light here in the cave, and I feel totally secure. There are families camped here with kids riding their bikes around. Nice!

Wayne has invited me over for coffee and breakfast in the morning and then, since they’re leaving tomorrow, I’m going to follow them out of here to my next destination: Franklin, TN. I was heading to downtown Nashville tomorrow but after hearing their stories of dereliction, addiction and gangs I’ve decided to take their advice and go explore a civil war graveyard in Franklin :-)

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