Monday, November 22, 2010

Opryland Hotel from a Different Perspective

In my former life as a worker bee vs. my present life as a retiree I spent a lot of time traveling and living in hotels.  I like to tell people that I have visited nearly every major city in the U.S. and now I am getting to see some of the places that I flew over.

One venue I was at fairly often is a modest hotel in Tennessee called Opryland Hotel.  It is probably the only hotel in which I have ever found myself lost.  It you have been to Opryland Hotel, you can commiserate with me.

Today Sandy and I and Gary Omel and Sandy Starlin took a day trip to Nashville just to see this spectacular destination.  This time I could look at it through the  eyes of a visitor rather than through the eyes of someone who was managing a portion of a very large meeting.
Flooded Opryland Hotel
You might remember that parts of central Tennessee experienced severe flooding in May of this year.  Opryland Hotel was flooded with up to 10 feet of water in parts of the property.
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But after $285,000,000 in repairs and renovations, the hotel is even better than before the Cumberland River spilled over its banks.
The hotel has extensive indoor landscaping that rivals any green house or conservatory in the country.  The plantings, trees, orchids, waterfalls and Christmas poinsettias make it a feast for the eyes.  Here is some of what we saw.
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Stay tuned

4 comments:

  1. They were still working on the hotel when we were there. It really is beautiful.

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  2. We also missed it when we were there just a few weeks ago, but it looked like they were getting close to opening it.

    We will check it out next time.

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  3. My last full-time job was working for Gaylord at their Corporate office up on the hill past the mall. It was so sad to hear about the flooding, but so nice to see the photos you posted to see how nice it looks again. Gaylord also owns the Palms (Kissimmee), Texan (Dallas), and the newest one on the Potomac in Washington DC.

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