Today, we got up and went to Starbucks for breakfast. We were sitting there enjoying the coffee when we started discussing my blog. Susie gave me a lot of ribbing about my writing. Just as I was eating the foam from my latte with a spoon, she said, “Yes, I’ll introduce myself like this…Hi, I’m Susie and I’m damaged”, and about that time I spit the foam a over the place (no on purpose) and we laughed with great gusto.
We left the coffee house and found our way to the Natchez Trace Parkway. This is a two lane road that is uninterrupted by on and off ramps or anything else. We drove about an hour and two and only saw about 10 cars. It is a fabulous always curving road (gentle curves, I might add) the weaves through the hills of Tennessee. On the radio, we found a great rock station and listened to the Rolling Stones, Dire Straits, Dylan. And we stopped a lot. We pulled over to the grass side of the road and would take pictures. Often times, we stood in the middle of the road for pictures. No problemo. No one was there. And the road was in perfect condition. How do they manage that? Anyway, the road ends up in Mississippi on the gulf. Would be a fun drive to go all the way. Oh, well, we didn’t have that kind of time, so we drove a while and turned around and ended up in Franklin again.
We visited a house that was used after the battle of Franklin as a hospital for confederate soldiers. Four of their generals died there. We had a much more in control tour guide. He showed us the blood stains on the floors throughout the house. The home was well restored and the tour very interesting. At the end, we ended up on the front porch and discovered that two of the people on the tour were from Sacramento. When the tour guide discovered we were all from CA, he asked us who the first gov of CA was. I said it was a Mexican whose name I couldn’t remember. No one else had a guess. Well, we were told that it was Mr. Burnett. About that time, Susie said that she was going to guess that the first governor was Jerry Brown. And then a southern woman said, “Too bad it wasn’t Jerry Brown because he would be dead now”. Uhm.
We then went into Franklin because we were starving. Well, I wanted southern food. And guess what Susie wanted? Tacos and burritos. Say what? She is definitely in a rut. No beating around the bush. She was kind enough to sit at the table with me in Puckett’s Grocery and Deli.
I ordered pulled pork, cole slaw, squash casserole, hot sauce and iced tea. I would have enjoyed it more but Susie forgot to secure our seats on Southwest for our return home. She had her reser number. I didn’t have mine. So, between bites, I was trying to get my number. First I searched my emails. Then I decided to call. Then I got a really dense Southwest employee. First she told me there was no flight from nashville to Phoenix and on to San Jose. So I referred her to my cousin’s reser number to prove that there was such a flight. I had to repeat the reser number at least 3 times. This only confused the lady. Finally, she finally emailed me the reser number because she couldn’t verify the last four digits of my credit card. We think she was looking at Susie’s reser. And all this was happening as I was eating pulled pork, cole slaw and squash casserole.
The waiter brought the check and it was wrong….they didn’t charge me enough. So, of course, Susie was starving to death as it was about 3 p.m. So she went out- side to the car. In the meantime, I spotted chocolate chip cookies, tee shirts and a good place for a picture. That took time. Poor Susie. As soon as I jumped in the car, she was off like a flash to Oscar’s. I’m pretty sure we broke the speed limit racing to that joint.
Susie ate her Mexican food and we left for the civil war house. When we arrived, we walked to the place to pay for admission when Susie noticed that she had a big glob off refried beans in the middle of her blouse. She accused me to not tell her!! She was mortified as she scooped it up and ate it!!! Too funny. Then as I went to pay for my ticket, I realized that I didn’t have my credit card. Eeekkkk. Left it at Puckett’s. Long of short of it is that I did get it back. Phew.
Here’s a picture of the confederate hospital place. Susie on the back porch were four confederate generals lay dying after the battle of Franklin.
And the front of the house.
We went home and had home made soup for dinner. After dinner we read old family letters and looked at old pictures. The highlight of the trip!!! Saw a portrait picture of my grandmother on my father’s side. We never knew her because she died of pernicious anemia before they figured out that it was a vitamin B deficiency. And we read letters from her to her children (our parents) when she was being hospitalized. And I had never seen anything more than a snapshot before. So this was a very big deal.
Then we packed up to leave.
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