LOOKING BACK AT 2024 - PART 2

 

MIDDLE & EAST TENNESSEE

MAY 30 - JUNE 2, 2024

April and May were busy months for me as I stayed busy getting ready for my Nieces High School Graduation. I didn’t want to travel over Memorial Day weekend, so I waited until after the holiday to hit the road for another little weekend trip.

This time I headed down to Franklin Tennessee where I visited the graves of a number of Country Music Stars that are buried in the Franklin Area. Williamson Memorial Park is the final resting place of several Grand Ole Opry stars including of Longtime Grand Ole Opry Announcer Grant Turner, Brothers Sam and Kirk McGee, and Skeeter Davis.

Anytime I come to Franklin, I have to stop by Mount Hope Cemetery and visit the grave of Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon, who is better known as Cousin Minnie Pearl.

While in Franklin I made the 30-mile drive down to Columbia Tennessee where I spent the day visiting the Home of President James K. Polk and visiting the National Confederate Museum.

I enjoyed a personal tour of the only surviving home of President James K. Polk. I was the only visitor and enjoyed the informal nature of the tour.

Just outside of Columbia is the National Confederate Museum. It’s a very interesting museum that has a large number of unique artifacts relating to the Confederacy, including a number of battle flags.

The Museum is also the Final resting place of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. General

Forest was originally buried in Forrest Park in downtown Memphis Tennessee, But in 2020 the body of the General and his wife were disinterred from their Memphis grave and taken to a secure location while a permanent gravesite could be located and prepared. On September 18, 2021 General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife Ann were reinterred on the Grounds of the National Confederate Museum at Elms Springs.

Back in Franklin, I had planned on spending the evening and the next day in downtown Nashville. But heavy rain and severe storms were forecast throughout most of Middle Tennessee. So, the next morning I decided to cut my visit to Nashville short and head back east and try and get in front of the weather.

I was for the Most part successful as by the time I arrived at Buc-ees in Cookeville, Tennessee the weather had cleared up enough that I was able to make my way up to the Historic Brushy Mountain Prison.

This was a really interesting place as I spent a little more than two hours taking the self-guided tour of the old prison that once housed James Earl Ray, the Man convicted of kill Martin Luther King, Jr.

I spent the night in Oak Ridge Tennessee before driving home and ending a short but enjoyable weekend trip.

ZOO FUN

JUNE 24-26, 2024

In June, My Niece, Jalynn, her Friend Gracie and I headed down to the Greensboro Area of North Carolina for a little three-day two night vacation. This was a really short but great trip right in our backyard.

On the way down we stopped at the Greensboro Science Center. None of us knew what to expect so our expectations were low. To say we were amazed would be an understatement.  The Science Center is so much more than “science.” It is part science center, part aquarium and part zoo. We had only planned to spend a couple of hours here but ended up spending most of the afternoon.

We spent the night in Asheboro, North and was up early the next morning and arrived at the North Carolina Zoo just a few minutes after it opened. This is a very large natural habitat zoo. When I say it requires a lot of walking, I am not joking.

Being that we were there in Late June the Temperature was in the 90’s which added to the challenge. We spent about 4 hours there and by the time we finished my Fitbit indicated that we had walked over 6-miles.

The girls spent the rest of the afternoon at the hotel pool and I spent it nursing my old knees in my cool hotel room. After a good night’s sleep, we drove home the next day.