"johnny's gone for a soldier"

hello faithful readers!

we somehow missed a day, hope you didn't miss us too much.

so tonight we are in franklin, TN. this place is amazing. in fact tennessee is definitely the most beautiful state overall that we have visited. rolling hills, horses, old houses, beautiful historic downtowns, friendly people, good 'home' cookin' etc. franklin is particularly beautiful. i guess this is where some of the music artists live (it's just south of nashville).

yesterday evening we drove here from near atlanta, arriving at about 9:30pm. we went from hotel to hotel (5 or 6) of them and none had rooms available. strange. we finally found a very nice marriott residence inn that had rooms and were willing to lower their rate to what we could afford. i asked why there was a lack of hotel rooms in the area. i guess this is where a lot of the people effected by the flooding in nashville are staying. not just residents but also all the FEMA, insurance adjusters etc. so they have pretty much taken over down here. it has created a real feel of community in the hotel though. it's sad that many/most of these people had no flood insurance (they weren't in a flood plain) so they have to pick up the bill. sad.

so to back up a bit....yesterday we went to atlanta, GA. nice city. reminded andrew and me of vancouver BC. very clean, a lot of glass and parks.

we visited the WORLD OF COCA~COLA. yes, the 'disneyland' of soda!

the lobby area had all these huge coke bottles that have been painted from all over the world. yes, coke is the universal language!

various rooms had tons of coke memorabilia. not just new stuff but a lot of really cool old stuff.

this is the guy that created the original recipe (they bronzed him).

jenn gave him a little help!

here's one for tom!

a touch screen to try to copy the coke logo.

jimmy did a stellar job!

little bottling demo.

the tasting room. sodas from all over the world and we could taste them all!!

tom was pretty excited about it!

yummy!

yum yum!!

oh wait....

not so good...

kinda bad....

kinda REALLY BAD!!

the offender: BEVERLY! if ever in italy stay away from BEVERLY!!

it tastes kinda like stomach acid and grapefruit peel....uck!

jenn over did it a bit. to quote her, "i think i am going to hurl".

jimmy is pretty excited about the 4D movie!

back on the road, outta georgia and into TENNESSEE!

after our hotel hunt and a nice nights sleep we went to two civil war historic sites. we have pictures of the first, the carnton plantation, but it was pouring rain at the next, the carter house, so we left our camera in the car. when i say 'pouring rain' that's exactly what i mean. it is as if someone is pouring a bucket of water over your head!!

these are pictures of the carnton plantation where a horrific battle took place on november 30, 1864. the battle only lasted 5 hours but there were 9,500 casualties (2,000 dead, 6,500 wounded and 1,000 missing). our tour guides gave very graphic descriptive stories of what happened that day. it was like hell on earth. the carnton plantation house was used as a hospital. it was filled with 600-700 casualties. many dead were laid out on the porch and amputated limbs piled up as they were removed from the injured. there are stains remaining on the floor boards where the surgeons stood applying their trade. you can even make out the shape of the doctor's feet where he stood and blood dripped all around outlining them. if you get a chance, look up the battle at frankin, it's a very interesting story and is a battle that is easy to understand if you are new to civil war history (like we are).

front porch where the 5 dead generals (confederate) were laid out.

carnton plantation house

trying to lock jenn in the smoke house.

jenn heading down to the slave quarters.

after the battle was over and the troops moved on to nashville there were 1,000's of dead lying in make shift graves all over the area. the federal government moved the union soldiers to national cemeteries. the owner of the carnton plantation donated 2 acres and the dead confederates were buried here. one third of the dead were unidentified.

****************************************************************

it's amazing where the Lord takes us as we poke around town. 'we' were all starving and quite grumpy and 'one' of us was driving while 'others' griped about the route that 'one' of us was taking looking for a place to eat. so.... on a back road we stumbled onto this amazing restaurant. it only opened last december. it is in the old jail. really cool and super good food!

that's all for tonight. tomorrow we are going to a local church and then on to nashville. thanks for reading and don't forget to leave a comment. we look for them several times and day and cry when there aren't any :0( and please visit the link to what's happening back at the farm...kelly and dana are very entertaining!

see you on the road!

lauren