Nashville Part 2

After a busy first day of exploring downtown Nashville, we had a quieter second day enjoying family time. Mark loves football, so he started his morning at his cousins', Bob and Merilee's, grandson's game. Colton is a first grader, and he is the quarterback in the picture below. He is also a head taller than most of his receivers.

Almost as action-packed, Mark got to watch the OSU football game this afternoon. Traveling in the east this fall, we haven't seen the Oklahoma teams on our over-the-air television this season, so that was a treat for him. After the OSU win, we headed to Franklin, Tennessee for their Pumpkinfest.

A group of talented carvers were making some jack-o-lanterns with personality for the festival. Denisa couldn't help but notice that it looked like this artist was carving a self-portrait pumpkin.

We could see that in addition to orange pumpkins, green gourds can also be carved.

There was a crowded line of vendor tents that lined Franklin's Main street for the festival. Franklin hosts eight different festivals each year, so this little city is very practiced at organizing events.

Our favorite vendor was one that we haven't seen before. This guy builds "canjos" using various cans and one string. There are frets along the neck, and he and his young son were showing how many tunes a canjo can produce.

With all the vendors, it was hard to find pumpkin things at this pumpkin festival. But we did spot this giant pumpkin display built in the intersection. Our third-generation cousins stopped to pose for a pumpkin festival picture.

We listened to a little music before we headed out for our evening activity. Mark snapped this picture of our group, enjoying their favorite purchases of the day.

Then we headed to Columbia, where we had reservations at the Puckett Grocery Store. Contrary to the name of the business, instead of selling groceries, they sell entertainment and meals. There are several Puckett's, known for their good food and live music. We had researched the musicians at each, and had chosen a brother duet performing at the Puckett's in Columbia. So we were disappointed when the brothers cancelled their appearance, but we still enjoyed the good home-cooking at the restaurant. We didn't take any pictures because it was dark outside, but we can confirm that Columbia is a cute little town.

The next morning, we met Bob and Merilee for church. Then we made the trip to Nashville, where we enjoyed the picnic feast that Merilee had packed.

We were enjoying the beautiful weather in the park, while we looked over the Greek Parthenon in front of us? What?!? Did this picnic move to Greece?

No, we are sitting in Centennial Park in Nashville, home to a full-scale model of the Greek Parthenon. It was built in 1897, when this city hosted Tennessee's Centennial Expo. Originally made of wood and plaster, it was scheduled to be demolished at the end of the expo. But Nashville fell in love with the ornate building, and let it stand until it was in disrepair in 1921. The city liked being called the "Athens of the South" so much, the Parthenon was rebuilt of permanent materials in 1931. It is true to size, and you can barely see Mark and Denisa standing on the corner, dwarfed by those big columns.

How big are those columns? Well, when three adults stretch their arms as far as possible, they still can't reach all the way around the base. We know because we tried.

The sun was lighting up the other entrance, as you can see Denisa standing by the third column.

When we looked at the details, we could see that they had taken great pains to make this copy as accurate as possible.

Fueled by our picnic lunch and a snowcone, we decided to take a little stroll around the area. Just across the four-lane road is Vanderbilt University, and we love to explore college campuses. We saw that the gym was open, so we went inside to check out the Division I gym.

That was the highlight of the Vanderbilt campus, which seemed to be a mixture of mis-matched buildings. So we headed on to another Nashville institution--Belmont University. A private college that is known for its music programs, it has graduated many famous musicians.

They even have their own mansion on campus. Belmont Mansion wasn't open today, but we wouldn't have paid the $12 fee for the tour of this 1853 summer house. We were fine with just hanging out on the front porch on this beautiful blue sky day.

We don't usually gush about how beautiful a college campus is, but there is some major money going into the building campaign at Belmont University. It looks like some very successful alumni are being generous.

At this point we are several miles from our car, and it's time to turn this urban hike back toward our starting point. With temperatures in the 80's we are glad to turn down a shaded street. This might look like a normal residential street, but it's actually Nashville's famous Music Row. This is the street known as "the heart of Nashville's music business." Beginning in 1955, it is the home of recording studios, publishing houses, and music labels.

Today we are entertained by banners along Music Row that congratulate performers and song-writers for hit songs.

There was a row of banners in front of the Warner Music office, but a set of four flags caught our eye. It seems that Oklahoma (and the governor) is saluting John Esposito. We didn't recognize that name until we googled and found that Mr. Esposito is the new Chairman and CEO of Warner Music.

We were also entertained by the street art in this section of Nashville.

Guitars aren't the only instruments on the streets of Nashville. Denisa made herself at home on the piano bench with Owen Bradley, a legendary country music producer.

The statue was so detailed that she could even read the notes on the sheet music from the hits--"Sweet Dreams" and "Crazy."

This over-sized whisk certainly doesn't match the theme of the other street art, but that doesn't keep us from posing for a picture with it. We are over six miles into this hike around Nashville, and we're all wondering why we didn't bring some water. Who knew this little stroll would turn into a major urban hike? We are used to walking these distances most days, and we are so impressed that Bob and Merilee are leading us on this hike home.

After all that hiking, we deserved pizza for dinner! But the perfect finish to our time here was also watching the movie, "A Walk in the Woods." All summer we have been wanting to see this comedy about a couple of old guys hiking the Appalachian Trail. It was hard to find, but our hosts treated us with a private showing over pizza and popcorn. We had so much fun spending this time in Tennessee with Bob and Merilee!