Travels and Adventures.

The day was Thursday, October Seventh, Two-Thousand-Ten, the time 6:50 AM. The occasion was an Educational Adventure/Field Trip on Steroids, planned and sponsored by our friend Mr. Reiche. The destination was Franklin Tennessee. The other actors in this drama ;) were as follows: Mr. Bryson, Neighbor and seasoned driver, as well as bearing the dubious title, adult; his son, also neighbor and Josiah's fellow enthusiast of all things pertaining to farms; his daughter, neighbor as afore mentioned, dear friend of your beloved authoress, and fellow accomplice in food preparations with said authoress; and his other Daughter, (neighbor;) little friend of all the rest of the group, lover of Mountains (through which we traveled) and the youngest member of the party. The rest of the group was made up of the uninteresting people, known to you as Faith, Josiah, and Christianna. The following dialogue and pictures will highlight our travel to Franklin, as well as the first day of our stop there.

After traveling what seemed like forever in our "dear"home state of Michigan, we finally saw this sign, which kindly welcomed us into the flat State of Ohio.


Despite the many hours spent simply sitting, we all managed to retain our smiles (most of the time) as we listened to music, sang, drew and played games.


The huge Ohio river flashed into view that morning, beautifully blue in the sunshine. As soon as we crossed it, we found ourselves in...


Kentucky!!!! Kentucky is absolutely gorgeous, and because of their lack of rain the trees were just as colorful as ours!


We stopped at the beautiful Kentucky welcome center for a refreshing lunch and break before resignedly piling back into our van, Ginger, to continue our journey.


As we drove still deeper southwards, the mountains rose up to greet us on all side, their austere rocky faces looming around us, and filling us with majestic wonder.


A couple hours after crossing into the central time zone, we entered the state of our destination, Tennessee.


The skyline of Nashville rose through the settling dusk, as we meandered our way around it and soon were met with the undesirable sight of the brake lights of the vehicles in front of us.


After what seemed like hours of slow go and breaking we caught sight of the sign we had all been waiting for, "Franklin, Exit Only."

We arrived in Franklin just as the sun was setting and enjoyed a leisurely lunch on the lawn of the town square.

We then headed back to our hotel, for a goods night sleep in anticipation of the morrow.

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The next day found us up bright and early as we headed out to the historical sight of Winstead Hill.

This was the sight of the Confederate army campsite at the battle of Franklin. It was quite a somber thought as we scrambled over the hill, and read the numerous plaques that had been set up.


It was a beautiful day, warm and sunny, but a bit bright when you are squinting into the sun, trying to smile for the camera;).


This is the panoramic view from the hill. The summit of the hill was actually a good climb higher, but the growth of trees and shrubs made seeing the country side impossible.


The next historical location that we visited, was the Carter house. One of the hot places during the fighting.


Nothing showed this better than the back of houses on the property. They were pock marked with bullet holes.


The cemetery at Carnton plantation, was the next place we visited, and we were awed and slightly depressed by the rows and rows of gravestone. Quite a few of them had the inscription, Unknown.


The hundreds of gravestones reminded us of the brevity of life, and of the Sovereignty of our majestic God.


The cemetery marked nearly the last historic site to be visited that day. So we made our way to the park for a calm picnic lunch. But while we were sitting there relaxing, the sound of a train smote our ears, and suddenly almost all of us found ourselves sprinting across the bridge towards town.


We made it just in time to see the noisy monster hurl its way past us and around the bend.


The thrilling encounter over, we ate our lunch, then made our way towards the river on our way to Fort Granger. But we were met by this daunting sign;)


Despite the warning, a few of us braved the unsupervised water, and found it quite calm and overwhelmingly cold and refreshing. Some of us would have like to stay there forever but we pulled ourselves away and began the walk to Fort Granger, and eventually into town.


Our hopeful destination for the afternoon was the many antique shops, as well as the older and historical buildings around Franklin. Feeling like veritable hobos, we made our way across the river on a train bridge, to reach town.


There was so many neat and interesting things in the antiques shops, on of which was this quaint Rooster Couch. (no we didn't bring it home:)


We visited the wall in front of the Presbyterian church, known as the waiting wall, where during WW2 the men and boys waited to be taken off.


The rest of the day was spent walking town looking at all the beautiful architecture, houses and interesting signs.


Including this sign;)
It was a very enjoyable day, but we were all happy to get back to our motel, and flop down to sleep. The next day: Visiting the Gentry Farm.

~Chs