Nashville & Gatlinburg, TN - Aug/Sept 2014

Well this year we decided to go east again, this time to the wonderful state of Tennessee. We started off in Nashville, the capitol of TN. We didn't take anytime to rest once we got there, we started off with the Nashville Zoo at Grassmere. It was a rather small zoo compared to others we have been to, but much larger than the Central Park Zoo in NYC that we visited last year.

Main Entrance to the Nashville Zoo.

We started at the Grassmere Historic Farm portion of the Zoo first.

The farm house.

A lonely goat.

Some old farm equipment.

They had a little garden area left.

The cemetery a short distance from the farm house.

The first animals we came across was the elephants.

Then some Giraffe's.

Some cool looking frogs...

There was a koi pond/river. Very tranquil watching them swim in groups.

The Hermitage, home to President Andrew Jackson, was the next stop. We were not allowed to take pictures inside the house, but it was worth the visit to see how the lived in the house and to see the original wallpaper and furniture.

The second cemetery of the trip.

The final resting place of President Andrew Jackson.

Through a treed path there was an excavated area showing the footprints of old slave quarters buildings. 

The property was vast and is still used to grow cotton and now soybeans too.

One of the slave quarter buildings which has been preserved. It is amazing the small amount of space they had to live in.

Just on the other side of the Freeway was another two cemeteries. One was the Donelson Family Cemetery. 

The other was a Confederate grave site.

The Hermitage Church was a plain and simple building.

And last but not least at the Hermitage, Tulip Grove, the seat of the original 1,000 acre cotton plantation.

The state capitol of Tennessee is located in Nashville. Come to find out it is the only State Capitol in the USA which has people buried on the grounds. James Knox Polk the 11th president of the United States and William Strickland the Architect of the Tennessee State Capitol and several other famous buildings.

Another interesting fact is the spiral staircase and railings in the former library room were ordered out of a catalog. Everything else was custom made for the capitol.

The House chamber, located in the capitol building.

This is the backside of the capitol, which looks pretty similar to the front.
Tennessee was the 16th state, there are a lot of references to this in the buildings design, hence the eight pillars on the front and back of the Capitol building.

The next day we went on a cruise on the Cumberland River.

It was a nice sunny day and calm waters.

One of the few animals we say on the cruise.

After the cruise we took a stroll through Bicentennial Mall State Park.

"Tennessee, the sixteenth state and the first to emerge from territorial status, was admitted to the Union on June 1, 1796.” (note the 16 stars)

Down at one end of the park were these columns. In the top of the columns were different sized bells hooked up to play music based off of the time of day.

The other end of the park contained a sunken theatre and another view of the Tennessee State Capitol.

The next day we went to Cooter's Garage.

That night we went to the Grand Ole Opry.

One of the green rooms we saw on the back stage tour after the show.

Part of the floor which was saved from the original stage.

Then we were off the Sweetwater, TN. We went by two roadside attractions. The Pink Elephant.

Dammit the Dog.

Story of Dammit the Dog: In the 1950s, there was a stray dog that lived on the Tennessee Tech University campus. A former university president once said "dammit" to the dog in front of a crowd. He covered by saying that was the dog's name. The dog has his own tombstone, next to an operable fire hydrant, on TTU campus, opposite Derryberry Hall.

Lost Sea Adventure is located in Sweetwater, TN. It is the largest underground lake in the United States.

The cave was used for many things over the years including, moonshine production and as a bomb shelter. Today it is just a tourist attraction.

Some of the rations left behind from the caves bomb shelter days.

A picture from the boat on the lake. The picture doesn't show much but it was incredible to see.

Off to Gatlinburg, TN.

Lots of farms and open space.

You can't tow a car like this in California...

Kind of a road side attraction. Lots of wood carvings.

And into the Smokey Mountains we go.

At the cabin there were many caterpillars. They were all over the deck and cars. There was no walking around barefoot at night...

A view of the Smokey Mountains from the cabin.

Some bears in the cabin.

A deer statue outside.

We spent the following day enjoying the cabin and views of the Smokey Mountains. We found a few journal books in the cabin, which were filled with entries from previous vacationers and the owners of the cabin. We noticed that some people had counted the bears in the cabin, but not the rest of the animals.

There were a lot of them:
     Bald Eagles – 3
     Bats – 3
     Bears – 173
     Bees – 3
     Cats – 2
     Chickens – 8
     Cows – 34
     Deer – 7
     Dogs – 120
     Ducks – 72
     Fish – 5
     Geese – 11
     Horses – 500
     Longhorn Steer – 1
     Moose – 3
     Owl – 1
     Raccoon – 1
     Wolves – 12


The following day we went to downtown Gatlinburg and visited the Hollywood Star Cars Museum.

The Beach Boys car.

Ghostbusters

Green Acres

Adams Family

Herbie

Next we were off to the Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum which was “down” the street (a couple miles) so we ended up taking one of the local busses after walking half way there in the Hot Humid weather.

There were thousands of Salt and Pepper shakers in the Museum. The three pictures below only shows a small portion of the ones on display. They were all sorted out by category, which was cool to see how many different designs of shakers have been made to look like the same item.

Next we were off to Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies.

An seahorse at Ripley's Aquarium.

Sawfish Shark

Green Sea Turtle

Jellyfish

Now we were already technically in the Smokey Mountains, but today we went into the Smokey Mountains with a destination of Clingmans Dome, which is in North Carolina, but not by far. The dome itself is probably less than a hundred feet from the border with Tennessee. We stopped at the border of Tennessee and North Carolina to take some pictures of the beautiful mountains and some of the flowers in the area before heading to the top of Clingmans Dome.

Looking south from the State Line.

Looking north from the State Line.

A bee landing on some flowers.

The Jewelweed Flower, stains your fingers and has many uses including being an anti-inflammatory and fungicide. You can even break the stem and use it on mosquito bites to stop the itching and it won’t swell up.

The top of Clingmans Dome has an tower overlook. After the 500 or so foot elevation change and uphill hike to the top, we had to go the extra 60 feet up to see the 360 view of the area. 

This was looking to the west from the top of Clingmans Dome.

And looking to the south. It was an overcast day but we could still see for miles in each direction.

The following day would be our last full day in the Smokey Mountains. We decided to visit Laurel Falls. Supposedly it was just an mile round trip but turned out to be just over a mile one way. It was well worth the hike back to the waterfall.

Looking south from Laurel Falls.

The following day we packed up and headed to the Airport to return home. It was a short two weeks in TN (and a couple hours in NC) but I think we packed in a lot of memories.