It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood...

Oops, wrong television show....this one doesn't have a catchy theme song, just a catchy motto - Make it Right! If you have ever watched it, you know who I am talking about...Mike Holmes of Holmes on Homes (HGTV).

We found out a couple of weeks ago that Mike was going to be in Nashville to kick off his magazine hitting the US market. We both love the show and figured, why not! So we loaded up Sadie and her crate and headed to Nashville.

Stu wanted to take a different route down to I-40, about the same distance and time as the usual route we take. It turned out to be a gorgeous, twisty, mountainous road that we WILL ride on the motorcyles!! This road would have been part of what we would have driven the other day in the fog...boy, we were glad we didn't go any further that day.

We arrived at Books-a-Million shortly after 1pm. Stu took Sadie out for a potty run while I went inside to get in line. While long, it wasn't as long as it could have been. We did hear that 30 minutes earlier it was much longer. We chatted with others in line as well as workers for the tour. (We got several nice recycled tote bags, magnetic clips, a pen and other stuff.) We got a real kick out of a mimi-Mike, right down to the Sharpie tattoo of Make It Right on his arm!

Before we knew it the clock had rolled around to almost 2pm, the end of the tour stop. We chatted with the gentleman controlling the flow of folks in to talk to Mike. We told him we had driven 90 minutes to see Mike...he said no problem. Turns out he was the Publisher for the magazine...we never did get his name. Stu called him VIP since that was on his hang tag.

We got our photo taken with Mike, chatted with him for a minute while he signed our copy of the magazine and then headed to the cashier where Stu had stashed a new lapdesk that I found on sale, 50% off. Yippee!!

We stopped and posed for a couple of outside photos and headed back to the truck and our ever patient pup.

We spent about 30 minutes playing with her in the grassy area. Stu had brought the training lead along and it was perfect for playing fetch.

Right around the corner was a Costco and a Petsmart. We needed a few things so Stu did the Costco run and Sadie and I headed into Petsmart. We picked up exciting things like more tennis balls, some training clickers, collapsing water/food bowls for the motorcycle and some food. I looked at the sweaters and jackets but at $25-30, I'll stick to the $9 Wally World version.

Heading east through Nashville, we hit a little traffic but nothing serious. We made it to our next stop on time...Cracker Barrel in Lebanon. We were meeting some online friends who had hosted a campground gathering back in October. We had planned to attend but life got in the way (Stu's knees) and we had to cancel.

We spent the next 2+ hours chatting with Lisa and Tony from Carthage area. What fun folks...we were kept laughing until we finally parted and headed home. We finally arrived home around 8:30 and settled in for the night. Great day!!

Tomorrow we load up the bikes, pack up the rig and hitch up the truck for our trip to Campobello, SC where we will be attending a factory tour and model home show at Blue Ridge Log Cabins.

Sometime Sunday we will arrive at Arthur and Irene's new home in Greeneville, TN. They are long time friends of Stu and the camping club back in Maryland. They retired from Massachusetts and move to Greeneville...oh, and they ride Harleys. The weather Sunday and Monday is supposed to be gorgeous so guess what we'll be doing...LOL!

We'll be back home by Tuesday, just in time to go out to dinner with some of my good friends from Sparta, TN - Tom and Karen.

Life is good!

Till next time - keep on rollin',
Donna and St