Loretta Lynn's Ranch

June 6, 2012

Day 5

Heading for Loretta Lynn’s Ranch today and we can zig and zag from one exit to the next at 65 mph on route 40 or we can dip and dive over mountains. That’s a no brainer for me – I’ll take the dip and dive any day even though it did require about 10 miles of inner city Nashville which is still no problem for me I really love riding through the city streets some times. Old Hickory Parkway, 2nd Ave.; Charlotte Ave and Charlotte Parkway which turned into TN 70 just outside of Nashville West and we are past the lights and the traffic and begin the dipping and diving on a great 2 lane highway with uncut shoulders with QueenAnn’s Lace, Buttercups, Bachelor Buttons and Lilies waving in the breeze and little to no traffic. Traveling through little communities with little more than a name and a Dollar General.  Loretta Lynn’s Ranch was well worth the 85 mile trip to get there! I asked the girl in the gift shop where I purchased tickets to do it all; we toured the model of Butcher Holler; the replica of a coal mine like her father worked in; toured the Plantation home she and Mooney purchased in 1966 and where they raised their 6 children. In 1988 after the children had all grown and left home they built a smaller house right next door and simply left the mansion just as it was with all their furniture and everything in it. The ranch is 3500 acres which our tour guide says Mooney worked like any other rancher in Nashville; all their children attended public school and I was just impressed with how average the house looked. Leaving the ranch we headed back over TN 70 heading for Nashville with a stop at Carl’s Bar B Que in White Bluff for an early dinner.

Our tour guide dated one of the daughters and was friends with Mooney

What can I say?  Andy being Andy

Great food where the locals eat in a little out of the way community