Tour de South Part 3: Tennessee

As I mentioned in the last post, we arrived in Tennessee late Wednesday, April 9. We spent 2.5 relaxing, not-long-enough days with Ben and Jenny (and Tyler and Tucker, of course!) Ben took Thursday off work to hang out with us. On Thursday, Brian and Ben took our new car to get it's brakes fixed, and while the dealership was working on that, we went for a caravaning driving tour of parts of Nashville, including the Nashville Temple. 

I was surprised how small it is. The stake center next door looks bigger, but it is still beautiful. 

 At this point in the trip, she still liked holding a hand while walking around. By the time we went home, she was over holding anyone's hand while she was walking.

After the driving tour, and after picking up the car, we ate dinner at a fabulous Mexican Restaurant.

 And then we checked out Winstead Hill, a Civil War site for the Battle of Franklin.

 And Michael would not take a nice picture for me.

 This hill overlooks Franklin. Side note: It was interesting to read the signs describing the battle. They talked about the Confederate's great cause. I'd never heard it described that way.

 On Friday, we had another relaxing morning with Jenny and the kids. Ben went into work, but Tyler skipped school to play with Michael!

 Michael and Tyler played more alongside each other than with each other. They are both just used to playing by themselves! Jenny and I were laughing about it.

 But Rachel and Tucker had fun together--well, as much as a couple of toddlers can, anyway. Tucker is the cousin that is closest in age to Rachel on both sides of the family. I hope they get to be good friends.

On Friday afternoon, Brian, Rachel,  and I headed into Nashville with Rachel. The plan was to see a little bit of downtown Nashville, and then meet Ben at his work so he could take Rachel home with him so we could go to the Grand Ole Opry. Along the way, we saw this RIDICULOUS statue alongside the road. It was one from a website about random roadside attractions that Greg had told us about a few days before. In fact, this was a statue that we had read about while still in Georgia, and there it was on the way to Nashville. So we had to turn around and try to go find it. This is as close as we got:

 But when we drove by again, I took a picture out the window:

 It's a statue of the first leader of the Klu Klux Klan. And he looks like he is wearing a dress. Apparently, it has caused a lot of controversy, but the owner of the land is absolutely adamant about it staying where it is. This one's for you Greg!

We drove down Broadway with our windows down so that we could hear all the live music playing, but parking seemed like it would be a mess, so we didn't walk the streets at all. But, we did go to the Parthenon

 After the Parthenon, we met up with Ben, handed Rachel over to him, and headed out to find the Opry. We ate dinner in the mall across the street and then headed to the show.

 The Opry was a lot of fun. We saw John Conlee, Jesse McReynolds, The Whites (who sing "Keep on the Sunny Side" in the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou?), Elizabeth Cook, Balsam Range, Jim Ed Brown, Carlene Carter (daughter of June Carter Cash), Sundy Best, Jeannie Seely, Mark Wills, and BJ Thomas. My regret about our Nashville excursion is that we didn't try harder to make it over the Opryland Hotel.

Saturday morning, there was a little more relaxing,

 I took some family pictures for Ben and Jenny (which meant I got to see more of Downtown Franklin)

And then Brian and I packed up all our stuff. After getting everything loaded, we headed out to watch Tyler play a little flag football, took a picture with the whole crew, 

 And said goodbye to Jenny, Tucker and Tyler. Then, we went to this AMAZING hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant with Ben, and went  to see the Carnton Plantation

 and Cemetery (we didn't do a tour of the house since we were already running late)

We bid farewell to Ben, got in the car, and headed South, wishing, once again, that we had more time to spend with these fabulous people. Thanks for having us, Ben and Jenny! We can't wait to see you again. Miss you tons already!