Smokey Mountains

We stopped in at the Sugarlands Visitors Center at the entrance of the Smokey Mountains that housed a museum, theater and a wonderful display that included this beautiful quilt done by a lady from the nearby town of Sevierville, TN. It was an amazing piece of work with excellent stitches.
Several pics of the mountains....the gorgeous Smokey Mountains....the day we were there is was cloudy, in fact, the higher we got, the cloudier it got until we were in a down pour.







Could not help but take a few pics of the wild flowers we saw on our journey in the mountains.




While we are here in Sevierville, down the road from Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, we plan to do a little shopping. More later from your Happy Travelers.

Nashville, TN

We took a tour of Nashville which is a beautiful city with lots of wonderful buildings. I think we will come back in the Spring or Fall. There are lots of businesses, universities, and, of course, lot of music production companies.


Our tour driver made quite a joke of this sculpture. He said it was supposed to be something dancing or something about ballet but to him, it looked like a broken roller coaster.
We got to go to the Ryman Auditorium which started its life as a church. When the Grand Ole Opry had performances there, people actually brought in their chicken dinners, ate and watched the entertainment.


A couple of views of the State Capital Building, pretty impressive!

This lovely building is a copy of the Parthenon (sp?) because Nashville has the name of the Athens of the South. It definitely has lovely old and new buildings and lots of parks and trees.
Our tour ended at a "beer joint" named Legends. A young man, Craig Curtis, sang for us. He is one of the thousands of people who come to Nashville to make it "BIG". We wish him luck.


This is a picture as we were driving to Sevierville, TN, near Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. It is hot, hot, hot. More later from your very hot but very Happy Travelers.

Dear Friends

Last year, when we were in Mesa, Arizona, we met these charming folks, Louise and David. Louise and I have been e-mailing periodically during the year and when we found out we would be near their home, I sent an e-mail and got an immediate invitation to come visit. Not only did we have a lovely time just talking, they took us out for a delightful lunch as well as a bit of sightseeing of their area. God is very good to put wonderful people in our path and David and Louise are a couple of His true treasures.
Louise was kind enough to share some of her mother's handiwork with me. Folks, she was an excellent quilter with a good eye for colors. All her quilts were hand quilted with even stitches. The backside of the quilt was just as lovely as the front. My pictures do not do justice to her work but I can tell you it made my heart skip a beat to see such wonderful work. Louise said that growing up, she played under the quilting frame. Sometimes it resided in the living room, sometimes in the dining room but it was always there. Unfortunately, her mother did not label all her work. Such a shame and a lesson to all of us on the importance of that one little step for history's sake. Louise has 4 granddaughters. I hope they will appreciate their great-grandmother's handiwork.






Tomorrow, we headout to Nashville. More later from your Happy Travelers who are both filled with good food and fond memories.

Tennessee-Shiloh-Mud Island

As we drove into Tennessee, we stopped at the Welcome Center, which was really a nice one with the most helpful lady who gave us a truck load of information. They even had a room with a fireplace and rockers and a beautiful pie safe.



There must have been a car show going on in the area. This is one of the fine specium that stopped when we did.
This is the Visitors Center at Shiloh National Park where one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War was fought.
One of the many lovely oak trees on the lawn of the Visitors Center.
This is a recreation of the original Shiloh Church.
The new Shiloh Church (Methodist)-- took them nearly 30 years to complete this building because of the lack of funds.
An interesting fact, these are the graves of the Union soldiers. All the soldiers were buried in mass graves. The Union came back and reburied their dead in this cemetry. The Southern soldiers remained in the mass graves.
We came into Memphis on a Friday morning to visit Mud Island. You park and take a monorail over to the island. It has a place for concerts and a large museum dedicated to the Mississippi, paddle boats and such. These are a few pics of the sky line and buildings in the area.


This bridge over the Mississippi connects Memphis with Arkansas.
This is a replica of the Mightly Mississippi. Children actually wade in the water. Made me miss my little people.

A couple of guys associated with Memphis and the Mississippi---Elvis and Mark Twain.

Tuesday, we head out to Nashville. Monday we visit with dear friends in Jackson, TN that we met last year while we were both visiting Arizona. More later from your very hot, but very Happy Travelers.