#TBT: Nashville Still Isn’t the Same Without Opryland [VIDEO]

My nephew and I have something in common--besides a bloodline, of course--and that something is that we are no fans of roller coasters.

In fact, he takes it one step further by not liking any ride that features a DROP of any kind. And I'm specifically talking about rides like Frightful Falls at Holiday World or the Flume Zoom at long-defunct Opryland. In fact, the latter is where my sister and learned of his distaste for such attractions.

Upon discovering an old PICTURE of my sister and a friend of hers from an old 1970s-era trip to Opryland, I remembered that it was 30 years ago this summer that I was there for the final time.

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We took my nephew and, as we had always done when we got there, we took a left after entering the park and made a beeline for the aforementioned Flume Zoom. (We always called it the Log Flume.)

Well, when we got to the point where the car drops and creates the giant splash, Jake threw a fit. And that's putting it mildly. In fact, he wanted to immediately go back home.

Well, we didn't. But we also let him dictate the day. He wasn't going to ride anything he didn't want to ride. So we split up.

And that wasn't too bad. I don't like roller coasters, so my sister did the Wabash Cannonball and the Screamin' Delta Demon solo. We EACH took a turn on the Old Mill Scream, which I felt was double the height of the Flume Zoom.

But the main thing is, we all still ended up having a great time.

And, to this day, I don't talk to ANYONE who remembers Opryland who doesn't miss it as much as I do. How much run, right?

Thankfully, Holiday World is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from here and though it differs in MANY ways from Opryland, I always get those Opryland vibes when I'm there. I guess that's because Opryland was the first theme park of its kind I visited. (I'd been to Disney World, but that really IS a different type of park--and, to point out the obvious, not NEARLY as close.)

I got so deep into nostalgia about what was once, in my opinion, Nashville's crown jewel, that I went looking for old videos on YouTube and I hit the jackpot. Check this out:

Now TELL me you didn't just take a very pleasant stroll down memory lane. I know I did, and I've already watched it three times.

Nashville is too big a metropolitan area and too big an attractive destination for tourists not to have had some kind of theme park for the last 24 years. Opryland closed in December of 1997.

Today, if you're around the Grand Ole Opry or Opry Mills, you still might be able to see remnants of the Grizzly River Rampage, unless they've removed it for some reason. I've seen it fairly recently, and it still brought back memories for no more than what it was.

Alas, I guess we'll always have YouTube.