Anniversary Trip

Awaiting our house tour of the Hermitage mansion. 

In anticipation of our twentieth anniversary, Sherry and I took a long weekend to explore the Nashville area. We visited quite a few historical spots. Here are some indicative photos from each.

The dining room at the Hermitage.

Andrew Jackson's Hermitage is the fourteenth presidential home Sherry and I have visited. It's also one of the best ones that we've seen. I put it up there with the two Roosevelt homes. Other visitors were there, which made it seem more lively, but it wasn't crowded in the way Mount Vernon and Monticello can be. The interpretation of the site was particularly good. They were honest. They addressed challenging aspects of his past. And they had great material. Andrew Jackson is a great, complicated story. There's personal drama. There's political drama.

Oh, and please notice how similar the general's paint scheme is to our own dining room.

Nashville's Parthenon.

Not too much to say about this spot. It's a mock up of the actual Parthenon, erected as a temporary structure for Nashville's late nineteenth-century exposition. Made permanent. Now part of the Nashville urban park landscape.

Me with the General Lee.

Is a trip to Cooter's Garage history or culture. Commerce, really. Cooter's garage is more of a memorabilia shop than it is a museum. But there is a General Lee there. And Daisy's "Dixie." And a police cruiser. And a museum of pop culture artifacts including several toys that Matt and I once had.

Near the visitor's center.

National Park sites are among our favorite things to see. Mammoth Cave was a ninety-minute drive form the hotel. We got there just in time for the extended historical tour. The Mammoth Cave complex is far more extensive than I realized. Our guide did a great job making the cave come alive with stories. A lot of folks were at Mammoth Cave, just as there were a lot of folks in Nashville, but they were obviously from a different demographic. We were wise to have reserved our tour spot ahead of time. This site, by the way, has been on my to-do list for some time. It didn't disappoint.

A former jail in Franklin, KY.

We had some time to wander Franklin, KY before a bourbon distillery tour. There's a historic jail there that we begged our way in to look at. It's hard to believe that at one time this prison held thirty-one inmates.

First Methodist Church, Franklin, KY.

Strange spot on a history post, right? Sherry and I visited the Johnny Cash Museum on Nashville. I had some misgivings that it was a tourist spot rather than a museum, and perhaps it was, but I actually learned a lot about the artist. And I appreciated having an hour or so to get immersed in his life and work. The next day we stumbled on this marker in Franklin. Franklin lies right on the border between Tennessee and Kentucky. Its location made it a destination for many when the laws of the two states diverged. Weddings in the twentieth century. Duels in the nineteenth. I don't know what the twenty-first will hold for the border.

Near the head of Natchez Trace. 

A failed attempt to eat dinner at Loveless Diner made it possible to see this gem. Natchez Trace is a parkway that winds for more than 400 miles through the deep south. It's something I hope to drive someday from stem to stern. That will have to wait a few years, though. One particular view in the first ten miles, though, was particularly gorgeous. About a mile beyond the sign you see above, there is an elegant double-arched bridge. Getting down off the parkway to see the bridge is wonderful. But the view from atop the bridge, looking up and down a green Tennessee Valley, is even finer.