Last Day with The Freer Family

Freer Family at Parthenon

I've had a lot of fun showing the Freer Family around Nashville this week and today was the last day. They head for Memphis in the morning. We started off today driving through some neighborhoods including Donelson and The Gulch before heading for The Parthenon. Then some more neighborhoods and lunch at Monell's family style restaurant in Germantown. They said that was the highlight of the day as we visited with many people at our table. One of the men paid for their lunch and I made a new friend from Atlanta.

Then we did Bicentennial Mall, Farmers' Market, and some places downtown missed earlier before taking their laundry to my house to do while we visited and relaxed at home. Then dinner was a lot of fun at McNamara's Irish Pub in Donelson with great food and a terrific music show! They said the food was more like Australian food than anywhere they've eaten in the U.S. so far. Plus the singer sang "Waltzing Matilda" which is one of the favorite songs in Australia! Small world!  I'm so glad I got to be their Nashville Guide this week!

Elvis Wedding

Wednesday night was a lot of fun as I got to be the photographer for the wedding of the son of a friend at church. They got married at the Rhinestone Chapel with Elvis (a singing Elvis impersonator). It was a lot of fun and I will post more photos on my Pbase.com Gallery soon.

Country Music Day

Giant guitar pick on Lower Broadway

David, Jackson, & Sue Freer from Australia

My new friends I'm showing around this week

Here in front of Opry House

The new look of Opry Stage (no barn background)

The Virginia Boys singing here

We spend the morning mostly on the Studio B Tour which was much better than I expected! The young girl leading it was great and I learned a lot. Lunch at Jack's BBQ and a walk around "The District" before a tour of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Then we drive to Opry Mills for a bite of dinner (tea for them) and on to the Grand Ole Opry which started out pretty weak but ended with a tribute to George Jones by one of his song writers. It was great! 

Tomorrow they do their own thing, probably General Jackson Showboat and downtown Honky-Tonkin' and dinner. I'll be serving as the photographer at a wedding with Elvis in the Rhinestone Chapel on Music Row.  :-) 

Thursday I take them to Parthenon, Bicentennial Mall Park, Farmers' Market, Antique Archaeology and maybe Puckett's Grocery for lunch. Then for dinner we will enjoy Irish food and music at McNamara's Pub in Donelson. 

They leave for Memphis Friday morning. I'll miss them! They are fun!

Aussie Visitors

Tonight David & Sue plus 15 yr old son Jackson arrived and I took them on a long walk from their Music Valley Road hotel to the Opryland Hotel, seeing all four hotel lobbies and sights. Then we walked back to Caney Fork Fish Camp for dinner where they all three had catfish for the first time and enjoyed it, particularly after seeing the live catfish in the tank. It was as well as the visiting, but the big surprise was them ordering Smores for desert and getting to roast their own marshmallows over a little fire pot and putting them on the chocolate bar between two graham crackers. The loved it and had never heard of such a thing!

Tomorrow we return his rent car then do the country music thing: hall of fame, district, music row, maybe Ryman tour or Studio B tour, then top it off with the Grand Ole Opry tomorrow night. Off to bed late tonight after midnight.

A Great Day!

I took Alice Yeager to church today which I hope helps her get adjusted to living out here at McKendree Village. At church I enjoyed the people coming through Door 3, deep discussion in our Sunday school Joshua Class, another wonderful worship service and message from Revelations. aAfter lunch with Alice here at McKendree I biked the Stones River Greenway to the dam with several interesting photos. I'm sharing two here plus the barn photo I took on my way back from dinner in Mt. Juliet at a new to me restaurant, Los Compadres. A happy and relaxed day!

Kayakers on Stones River

 

Dam Reflections

 

Barn in Mt. Juliet

 

 



Biked 10 Miles Today!

Today I biked the other direction from Lebanon Road to Shelby Bottoms, 5 miles on the greenway and then back. Each direction I crossed the Stones River twice and the Cumberland River once. It was beautiful with wildflowers everywhere and I forgot my pocket camera. Shame on me! This was my first time to bike this segment. The next big challenge will be to bike the greenway all the way downtown. I used to do it from Bicentennial Mall State Park to Shelby Bottoms, so now I put them all together and have lunch at Farmers' Market before returning. Some day! It would be about 30 miles round trip.

Seek Adventure with Eyes Open!

Cathedral Plaza, Campeche, Mexico, Jan-2013, by Charlie Doggett

"We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open."

                                                                                                                           --  Jawaharal Nehru

I got this quote from this week's image from Dewitt Jones
http://www.celebratewhatsright.com/images

You can get on his email list for a weekly inspirational photo and quotation. They are all good! And I think my photos are usually pretty good too!   :-)