On Sunday, April 8th (Easter), we checked out of Corinth around 10:30 a.m. and headed for our next destination, Nashville, TN, a distance of about 188 miles.

From the Corinth  campground, we headed west on 278 which is a decent road with a small but comfortable shoulder – there are also truck lanes on many of the uphills. After driving for a distance of 35 miles, we picked up Interstate 65 heading north.

On the AAA map, once over the Tennessee border, Interstate 65 has “dots” which typically indicate that it is a scenic drive.  And it actually was a very pretty drive! That’s the Tennessee River in the photo on the right.

We decided to stop for lunch at a Pilot near Decatur, AL at exit 334 where there was a Subway and a Wendy’s but it was so crowded with trucks, there was no place to park.  We ended up finding a parking lot behind a Hardee’s across the street so we had lunch there.

Rob had a 1/3 pound Thickburger and I had their new Southwest Patty Melt which had a 1/3 pound Thickburger with grilled onions, Monterrey jack cheese, jalapenos with spicy Santa Fe sauce on a grilled sourdough bread (really good). Both were $2.99 – not a bad deal!

Once we were in the Nashville area, we exited onto Interstate 440 west (not a great road), then picked up Interstate 40 for 7 miles before exiting at 221B, turning right on Old Hickory Boulevard, then left on Bell Road, right on New Hope Road and left on Stewarts Ferry Pike. Driving these roads was a little nerve wracking – they were twisty 2 lane roads with shoulders comprised of deep gullies (this seems typical for the back roads in AL and TN).  But finally we arrived around 2:45 p.m.!

Seven Points is another Army Corps of Engineers Campsite, located about 10 miles east of Nashville and offers 59 sites on the J. Percy Priest Lake created by the J. Percy Priest Dam.  The cost was $20/night but with the Senior Pass, our cost was $10/night.  What a deal!

On the recreation.gov website, we had reserved site #8 for April 8th, 9th and 10th, departing on the 11th – but we really didn’t know what it would be like.  Despite the fact that it wasn’t located right on the lake, we loved the site – it was huge, heavily wooded and had lots of privacy.  This was one of the best sites we have encountered so far and was probably as big and comfortable as a moderate homes backyard!

One side of the site bordered the campground road but we could barely see it because of all the trees.  Site 10 on the other side was a good distance away and angled such that we had privacy on that side as well.  We had so much privacy it almost was not necessary to draw the shades at night!

Each site here at Seven Points has a long driveway, water and electric hookups (no sewer), a huge concrete picnic table, a fire pit with a grill, several hooks on the trees for hanging lanterns or whatever and a large wooden table which could be used as a stand for a grill or for cleaning fish.

After we got settled in, we took a walk around the campground.  Lots of great sites in addition to our site #8.

Before we left, we drove around and marked down our favorites which were #8, #18, #23, #31, #35, #37, #39 and #41.  All of the others were nice as well but might not offer as much privacy.  Be aware that there are several sites located right on the water that have one driveway which splits into 2 sites (#15 & #17, #19 & #21, and #27 & #29) which are relatively close together.  Fine if you are traveling with another coach but this type of layout is less desirable in our view. Next time we visit here our first preference will be site #35 (fairly private and on the lake) and if it’s not available we’ll try to get #8 again.

In addition to the campsites, there is a dumpster, a dump station, a restroom, a very clean shower and laundry house, a boat ramp with a large parking lot, a small sandy beach, two large group picnic shelters and a small playground.  There are signs stating that swimming was only allowed between the floats but the water was so low that the floats were sitting in the sand! Probably not an issue since it is pretty cool here still.

That night we grilled a steak which we ate outside on the picnic table and then mellowed out by the campfire.

While at Seven Points we had delicious breakfast at the Loveless Cafe, took a drive on the Natchez Trace Parkway, explored historic Franklin and went to The Hermitage but those will be covered in separate posts.

On Wednesday morning, we moved to the Nashville Country RV Park in Goodlettsville which is north of Nashville.  We absolutely loved Seven Points and highly recommend it but after three days of “Navy Showers” we wanted to move to a place with a sewer hookup. Yes there were clean restroom/showers, but we just prefer our own! Plus we had clothes to wash and the dishwasher was getting full of dirty dishes. Eventually we will figure out a way to deal with this situation (probably a towable tank).

In regard to facilities, water pressure was good. OTA TV reception was good enough to get all the primary networks. Verizon 3G was good and Sprint 3G was very good. Sprint 4G was also available but weak (it was strong in downtown Nashville).

There is no campground WiFi here, but our Sprint phones are “rooted” and in addition to the Verizon MiFi can operate as WiFi hotspots for all the equipment on board (Tivo, Roku, BlueRay Player, WebCam, Rob’s Laptop, my laptop, etc.) Since our Sprint plan is unlimited, this is the way to go for streaming content over the Roku or Tivo. We also have a Pepwave WiFi repeater and a Cradlepoint router which Rob will get into in another post.

Now, in regard to campground AC power, initially it was great, 125v on both legs of the 50A. However, on the second day, in the early afternoon we heard the Progressive EMS (that Rob had installed before we left home this year) take the power offline – you hear a loud “clunk” as the relay cuts out. I mentioned this to Rob and in the space of about 5 minutes it cut out, then restored power 2 more times – the outages were brief, only a few seconds.

The EMS display indicates any existing error conditions AND ALSO indicates previous errors – in this case the errors were code PE2 or “Previous Open Neutral”. Of all the power problems you can have, open neutral is by far the worst.

On a 50A line, if the neutral (ground) opens that puts 240v across all your appliances and outlets! Very bad! Fortunately our Progressive EMS will (and did) detect this situation and cut off the power (it can also detect several other problem conditions). Honestly though, even if we did not have the EMS, the duration of the errors were so short they probably would have gone unnoticed and would not have done any damage.

Why did this happen? We don’t know, but were suspicious because and electrician was working on the adjacent site – that site was without power for the entire previous day. However, the problem never occurred again after that, so I can’t say that Seven points has systemic power issues – just beware.

One more thing, the dump station is in a loop near the entrance and is a little tight for a big rig, but doable. Be aware that you need to enter the driveway closest to the entrance to put the sewer fitting on the correct side. When exiting the campground it is more natural (and easier) to enter from the campground side of the loop – I did and the dump station ended up on the wrong side. Since we only had a short drive to the next stop we decided to move on instead of going thru the hassle of turning around. Update 4/6/2016: The above info is incorrect, there is a dump cap on both sides of the road, only the rinse water spigot will be on the “wrong” side if you enter from within the campground, but it is equipped with a long hose.