Wednesday, July 2, 2008

6.24-25.08 Tennessee

Another beautiful drive to Nashville where we met my mom at her office. She happened to be doing work in Nashville that week, so we got to spend some time with her, and she let us stay in her hotel room at the Millennium Maxwell House Hotel. Yes, they do serve their famous coffee. We thought maybe, just maybe, Maxwell House coffee would be exceptionally good at the Millennium Maxwell House, but don’t be fooled, it tastes just the same. Nonetheless, it was a sweet hotel.

Mom took us to Monell’s for dinner, southern cooking in a historic house in the Germantown district of Nashville. We sat at a large wooden table with two other couples and a single man and passed around the fried chicken, pot roast, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn pudding, turnip greens, spinach lasagna casserole, sweet pickle salad, watermelon corn bread and biscuits in a family-style fashion. Of course we had sweet tea too. Caleb and I agree that our favorite was the corn pudding.


That night we also walked around the Vanderbilt campus where my dad’s cousin Leonard Bradley teaches political science. Our walk was inspired by Diana’s raves about the UC Berkley campus. Vanderbilt had lots of beautiful trees.

Mom wanted to show us the Nashville country music scene, so we went to her favorite place called Tootsies. Little did we know Cher would be there later that evening, but we just missed her! The streets of Nashville are crazy. Live music behind almost every door.


Dad’s cousin Leonard picked us up in the morning and treated us to a tour of the Bryan family roots in Lebanon and Watertown, south of Nashville. Leonard pointed out significant landmarks to our family and told us lots of stories about my Papa and Mama Bryan, great grandpa Bryan, and up to my great, great Grandpa Baker.

There is so much I could write about, but these are just a few of the places that we saw:


Great Papa Bryan’s farm. Great Papa grew up on a subsistence farm. They grew all of their food, spun their own cloth, and even made their own nails.


The Bryan cemetery (I even found a Mary Bryan, just a little wierd).

Watertown. Named after my great great great (great?) grandfather, Sheela Waters, the first resident of Watertown. Caleb is convinced that Chad should move to Watertown and become king.