Took a quick trip to Nashville with the Mom to visit my sister and the Frist Center for the Visual Arts. (H/T to Sis for being such a gracious host and tour guide.)

Nashville has a pretty great downtown area. Spent most of our time at the Frist Center. However, they also have fairly large parks [1] downtown; Centennial Park [2], River Front Park, and Bicentennial Park [3]. Yes, parks with grass and trees. Quite cool. Did get around to the Bicentennial Park for a quick visit. It was too hot to spend a lot of time outside. We walked quickly by the wall of history carved in marble, around the fountain with many children at play, up to the very large "patio" area with a marble map of the State of Tennessee embedded into the concrete. We all found it quite fascinating. It had interstates and large highways depicted as well as major and minor cities. Quite unique. Then back down to the Farmers Market [4]. Wow! They have lots of produce and it was reported they are open 6-7 days a week.

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Back to the Frist Center [5]. Quite impressive. They kept a major portion of the old post office building intact, including the marble and wood floors (the ends of 2 x 4s, not typical wood floors), windows, art deco metal work. Note, they reference the Knoxville post office in their historical description. I quizzed one of the Frist Center security guards about the building and he was a plethora of information. He too was impressive. They let me and my Moms in free with my Knoxville Musem of Art membership. Not sure they were supposed to but it was appreciated. Sure wish Knoxville's post office could have been turned into an art center of some sort. This leads, though, to how many cities succeed in creating, re-creating downtowns. Benefactors! Knoxville doesn't really have any whereas Nashville and Chattanooga do. Thank you Dr./Senator Frist. Good job! Of course, Nashville can also thank the country music industry and state government for their nice downtown. Maybe most of Knoxville's potential donors contribute to UTK, instead of the city.

One other thing about Nashville. Due to the music industry, there are similarities to New Orleans in that there are small bands playing to small audiences in many places, including the Farmers Market. Fun!

Technology update:

The Toyota Prious will alert you when your tire pressure is not correct.

Thank you to Krystal for free wi-fi.

I need to heed my GPS lady's alerts to turn around, turn, turn, turn, do a u-turn here! I thought she was trying to direct us to the interstate, on which I did not want to travel. That may have been the case. However, she was apparently also alerting us to the fact we were going east on 70 when we should have been going west. Oh, well. We only went 15-30 minutes out of our way and we got to see more of town.