Road Trip - day 14 - Thursday

We left Brownsville TN about 9:30. My thought was to find the General
Jackson Showboat and see if they had any sightseeng of a shorter
duration than 4 hours. A 2 plus hour drive into Nashville. First stop
was the Parthenon that a friend had suggested we see.
The Nashville Parthenon is an exact (or as exact as possible) replica of
the Greek Parthenon, and I must admit, my main wonder was, why
Nashville? Of course all that is explained in the museum. The original
structure was wood and plaster and built for an Expostion in 1897. When
the Expostion was over, the Parthenon was not torn down. Over the years
it became a source of pride for residents and eventually, when it
started to deteriorate, a group was formed to rebuild it as a permanent
structure. This one contains a statue of Athena that the original
supposedly contained although I don't think anyone knows exactly what
the original looked like. We got some great shots which we'll post on
our return.
Next we were of to Opryland (I've always assumed that Opry is a play on
the word opera, have I got this right?) which is a huge complex with the
Grand Ol' Opry itself, a hotel and convention center, a large mall, and
the General Jackson Showboat. No life at the Showboat complex, if there
was an afternoon boat, it was long gone and we couldn't wait for the
evening one. We spent the afternoon in the mall and got a good deal on
"bloomers" at the Jockey store. Some chinese food and then off to get as
far as we could for the evening.
We stopped at a rest stop that had lots of info. Gatlinburg intrigued us
as it is home to the Great Smokey Mountains Park as well as Dollywod and
lots of other neat attraction. We considered it but decided to wait,
maybe until fall, as Dollywood was not open yet, and we didn't have a
lot of time if we expect to be home by Saturday night. Looks like you
could make a trip out of this one.
We continued on with our original plan (and suggestion by another
friend) to see the Blue Ridge Parkway and hopefully roll into Harrisburg
to stay with our friends, the Kuntz's. Somewhere near Knoxville we noted
our passing back into EST.
We stopped in Bulls Gap TN to grab dinnner and get a room, and we were
even there in time for Deb to catch American Idol!

Bruce and Deb
http://rosey462.blogspot.com/
notsosilentbruce on AOL IM