Tramping in Tennessee

Nashville at last! It's amazing to be in such a famous city for the night. And it was a fun journey getting here!

This morning we woke up in Falmouth, Kentucky at Aunt Doris and Uncle John's house. They were kind enough to let us stay the night and feed us breakfast in the morning. We had a wonderful time visiting family! When we left, we gained a galloping girl; Granny's niece Brenda joined us on our trip and boy were we glad to have her today! 

When we got on the road today, Granny made an executive decision and took us back to show Emily and I where some of our cousins live and the area where she grew up. We saw her elementary school, her church and we couldn't quite see the house and the farm she grew up in, we saw the road that lead to it. That was really cool to see. I wish we could have stayed a bit longer and wondered down the road to see her house but we had to keep going. 

After some twisting, winding roads, we finally got on to a major highway. Almost as soon as we got on, we all decided we were hungry for some lunch. We looked for a Cracker Barrel to settle down in but we found that it was packed to the gills. It's a good thing a Golden Corral was close by! I have never been in a Golden Corral but I've seen commercials on television and I've always wanted to try it out. Today I got my chance. I was really happy with what I got: a nice salad, some mashed potatoes, carrots, broccoli, a bit of fish, a bit of chicken and cottage cheese. It was all great, but it was nothing to me in comparison to the cotton candy and the chocolate  fountain. If Emily and I weren't awake when we went into the restaurant, we sure were when we left! 

After our amazing lunch we went along our merry way. We had a good way to go and the weather was perfect for driving. We saw some beautiful Kentucky hills and some really cool cars on the road (but they were going too fast to get any good pictures of them!). We also saw Oak Ridge, where Granddad worked for a while. That was really cool to see too. 

Driving today was really nice with all the blue skies and sunny weather we had but it seemed like we were on the road for a really long time! It was a relief when we saw the sign that welcomed us to Tennessee. This is a totally new state to Emily and me. We've never traveled this far and we were really excited to be somewhere new. This wasn't the only change we experienced today either; we are now in a completely different time zone than our home state and we are officially on I-40, or Route 66! This will take us all the way to California. No more changing interstates and highways!

From the state boarder it was a little under 150 miles to Nashville. All together we drove about 300 miles, again! When we settled down for the night in our hotel it was a lot later than we anticipated, but at least we are all here in one piece! And we still had some fun with it. We have a lot of baggage between the three of us and we had to get it all up to our hotel room so we thought we would use one of the carts they provide at the door. Well, Emily and I had trouble maneuvering it in the hallways and Granny was making trouble with it when we finally got all our belongings in the room. She thought she would give the youngest traveler a ride to Narnia! Little did the youngest daughter of Eve know that she was getting a ride from the white witch. Don't worry, they didn't crash and we don't owe anybody money; we were just laughing a bit too loud! 

Now we are all calm and settling down for bed. To us it feels like it's after 12 but we are an hour behind what we're used to at home. Those time changes are definitely going to throw Emily and I for a loop. It's another thing we've never experienced before. 

We can't wait to get started tomorrow back on I-40 and continue our trek west with more new states and time changes! 

Galloping off to bed,

Kim

Come on Emily, smile!