Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Trip to TN - Day 4

July 2nd
Today we split up into two groups.  Some went to downtown Nashville seeking some famous record store while Chris, Makenna, myself, and my Aunt Laura went to The Hermitage http://www.thehermitage.com/jackson-family/ - home and plantation of President Andrew Jackson.  Again, no pictures could be taken inside, but the history was neat to hear.  We actually also got headphones and a recorder that we pressed numbers into to hear history as we walked the grounds.  It reminded me of all the trips in England and Europe that we did as we would get these same devices.

This was the slave cabin to Andrew Jackson's head slave "Alfred"

Aunt Laura put it in our heads that this would be a great tree to climb and Makenna was all for it!

She kept wanting to go higher.  When it was time to get down, then she realized going so high wasn't the best idea.When we left there we met up with the family at Centennial Park where the "Parthenon" is located.
A blurb about it from the website:  "Originally built in 1897, the Parthenon stands proudly as the centerpiece of Centennial Park, Nashville's premier urban park. The re-creation of the 42-foot statue Athena is the focus of the Parthenon just as it was in ancient Greece. It was built for Tennessee's Centennial Exposition to celebrate 100 years of Tennessee's statehood.

 
The building and the Athena statue are both full-scale replicas of the Athenian originals. The Parthenon also serves as the city of Nashville's art museum. The focus of the Parthenon's permanent collection is a group of 63 paintings by 19th and 20th century American artists."

Here's the huge statue of Athena:  (and I have no idea who that family is but they wouldn't leave.  Every time I tried to take a picture, they went right back to that spot to get another one, so I gave up and took one of them too).
After this it was off to find another place to eat.  We found "Montana's Bar and Grill" (I think that's what it was called,) after quite a hike on another hot sticky day.  I actually had a Bison burger and it was good.  It did taste like a hamburger, but I think my taste buds had my mind thinking it was "just okay" since I knew it was Bison. 

As we were walking to this place to eat I heard as clear as day, the sounds of a U2 song playing.  I was like "Wow, I wonder who's playing that U2 song so well?"  Come to find out, it was U2!  They were doing a sound check for a show that night at Vanderbilt Stadium for their 360 Tour.  I was shocked and saddened.  Of course, all the young kids professed not to know who U2 was, which was just blasphemy to me.  The waiter at the restaurant said that it's been sold out for 9 months.  If I had my way and it wasn't so dang hot, I would've just stayed at the park until after the concert and listened to them.  But Chris and I had already agreed to be "kid-sitters" for the night as the rest of the family went to the Grand Ole Opry for a show.

So after trudging our way back up to the car, we went back to the hotel, got stuck in traffic on the way, and it was more pool time.  Then the "adults" went off to the Grand Ole Opry and the kids, Chris, and I ordered Chinese.  We had put Makenna down for a nap as she desperately needed it but then she didn't want to wake up for dinner.

We got her up for about 10 minutes where she ate a couple spoon fulls of rice and then went back to bed.  Which was good because we had to get an early start to head back.

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