Our last couple of days before. . .


After we left Asheville, we decided to go through the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. I've driven around them in the past, but I never (to the best of my knowledge - I don't remember all the routes we took when I was a kid) drove straight through it. It was unbelievable! The above pictures is a mountain stream we found - it was FREEZING but the water was so clean and fresh, we took some of our old empty water bottles and filled them with water from the streams. I loved it!

To celebrate our recent anniversary, Julie and I agreed to wait until our trip to have our "special meal." Once we got to Nashville, we went to Opry Mills Mall - one of the biggest malls I've ever seen. There was a wonderful restaurant there - "The Aquarium." Here's a couple of shots from our anniversary meal last night. It was good food - if you like seafood. I'm not such a fan, but my wife definitely IS! She loved it and that was the point.

Today (Saturday) we went to the Country Music Hall of Fame here in Nashville. We met a wonderful tour guide who took us through the RCA "Historic Studio B - Home of 1,000 hits. Elvis recorded there as did Charlie Pride (a big Texas Ranger fan!), Dolly Parton, Roy Orbison and "Gentleman" Jim Reeves. The piano Julie is seated at is in that studio - Elvis played that piano as did a number of other well known artists.


The picture above here (where my stupid head got cut off by our knuckleheaded photographer!) is us with David Lee, a song writer from Wichita Falls, TX! He's written a number of songs you might know - "Letters from Home", "19-something", "This one's gonna leave a mark", and my favorite of the lot - "Lucky Man." He played his music for a small group of us in the Ford Theater connected to the Hall. We got to meet him (obviously) and re-connected him with his Texas roots!
Tomorrow, we'll go to church at Two Rivers Baptist Church, right up the road from our hotel. Our last day off, we'll head home and be back at work on Tuesday. It's been an outstanding trip, but for the first time, I dreamed of home, our dog, and you, our FBC family. I'm ready to come home.

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