CARNTON PLANTATION

We toured the Carnton Plantation and gardens, and found the story of the family very interesting. The mansion was under siege, when Mrs. Carnton recognized an officer who she knew growing up in New Orleans. It saved her house and family, and they used their house as a hospital for all the men. During the battle, four Confederate generals were killed and laid to rest on their porch. Inside, the mansion was full of Dr.s doing surgery in all the rooms. After the immediate surgeries were done, the Dr.s left, and the family cared for hundreds of men. To this day, the floors are full of blood stains. They don't allow pictures inside.

UNION HOSPITAL

We went across the street to St. Paul's Episcopal Church because it was used as a hospital for the Union soldiers. It has beautiful Tiffany windows.

FRANKLIN ARCHIVES AND MUSEUM

We couldn't find the visitor's center, so we went in the museum. I thought I might get tossed out, when I told the lady that "we won" the Civil War. She immediately told me that nobody won! Don thought it was humorous. I couldn't help myself, the devil made me do it! She was very helpful and they have a nice museum.

FRANKLIN, TENNESSEE

We took a little side trip to Franklin, because my great-grandfather was in the battle of Franklin during the Civil War. It's a neat little town with old Victorian houses and many, many restaurants downtown.

We ate a sandwich at this bakery/restaurant-it's a gold mine!

NASHVILLE'S FARMER MARKET

Only one of several buildings had booths open when we went, but we were still able to find some veggies at the farmer's market.

A GLIMPSE OF NASHVILLE,TN

We stayed in Goodlettsville, about 12 miles from downtown Nashville, but this is one thing we saw on the way in. I'm sure you can see that Green Bay was playing TN-if I had realized that, I would have used the zoom for all you Packer fans! Sorry about the results.

Looking at that photo, it looks like our tow car is ahead of us??? Anyway, here's a picture of the Capitol in the middle of the skyscrapers.

This is one small part of the Opryland Hotel-we've been there a couple times, so we didn't go in. This is called "a tease"-you'll have to go see it yourself. It's amazing, especially at Christmas time with 2 million lights inside!

We went to the Cathedral Mass at 6pm on Sunday and the church was full-it holds a thousand people. It's beautiful and so was the music-I guess you could expect that in Nashville.

KUDZU

One thing we've seen in the last couple weeks, is kudzu. If you've never seen it before, it's a vine that is invasive, and it grows and swallows everything in the area. These aren't very good pictures-it's horrible looking when it turns brown. It takes over big trees-it's really freaky. I hope it never gets to Iowa.

It probably wouldn't hurt too much if it swallowed up Book Eddy!