A Tourist-View of Nashville, TN

I feel like a BAAAD blogger....
Cuz life is kind of busy all the time.

It only took me about 5 hours to finish this post, what with all the interruptions and such.

BUT....as promised....here's my little tourist-view of Nashville:

We arrived Monday evening, Apr. 6th and promptly went to our hotel. We were staying across the street from the mission home so of course we had to drive real slow to see if we could see any young men in white shirts and ties roaming around......(we did it again on Tues. morning)

Of course there were none.

It was pouring rain.

The weather is very interesting in Tennessee.

When we woke up Tues morning-it was snowing.

Now for a little desert girl, this is very exciting so the first order of business was to text everyone on my list that it was snowing........for maybe 30 minutes.

Then we decided to drive around and found our way to Hermitage.

Hermitage is the home of President Andrew Jackson.

Don't know who Pres. Andrew Jackson is?

Let me remind you:

Ahh, now you remember!

He was quite the character, I'm told.

So here's a view of his plantation:

Here is his tomb-along with his beloved wife:

And his wife's garden, which of course I found very interesting.....

(pssst... I guess there was a huge scandal their whole married life because it seems that when Mr. Jackson married his wife-ahem-she wasn't legally divorced)

What I fail to mention here is that it was FREEZING COLD! (remember the snow?)

Of course-you probably can't see it-but this is the Grand Ol Opry House. We drove by and said "howdee."

After that visit and just driving around town (Tennessee is BEAUTIFUL), we met up with our boy for the first time in two years at the temple.

The next day we picked him up and he was officially ours again.

Grand tour of the mission office.

Freeway view of downtown Nashville, TN. It's a really interesting skyline.

One of the sites we visited (which I had ever heard of) was a replica of the Parthenon that was constructed for the Nashville centennial celebration (in 1897-or thereabouts). Nashville is reaaallly old. They decided after about 50 years that it needed to be rebuilt since the original was made of plaster. So here it is in all its rebuilt glory:

Does this photo give an idea of how huge this place is? (my man on the left and my boy on the right-awww-missionary companions-where's your white shirt TL???)

Ok-this was kinda creepy. It's a giant statue of Athena with Nike in her hand. To give a perspective-Nike is SIX FEET TALL! When I first walked into this area, I didn't even notice the statue at first, I was looking at some sculptures, so when I turned around and saw it-I freaked out. I guess I am not very cultured.......

We drove through the prestigious Vanderbuilt University, across the street from the park where the Parthenon stands. (and a big thanks to the guy who was honking at us from behind while I took this photo).

And of course since Nashville is Music City USA, how could we miss a chat with the guys and their BFF....

Elvis, baby.

Back to the crazy weather again.

Tues morning it was snowing, and freezing all day.

Wednesday it was warm, Thursday was warm.

Early Friday morning at 3 am, I awoke to screaming wind, crashing rain and hail, and flashing lightening and pounding thunder. It scared the liver out of me! I thought-oh great-we are flying in this weather in a few hours. I had visions of tornados flying around outside. But as soon as it started....it was over....when I got home, I found out that there had been tornados just a few miles south of where we had been visiting....in the afternoon.

I told Steve that even the thunder sounds different in Nashville.

He says, "it's because it has a southern accent, mom."

Ok-y'all.