I had a down day. It was really nice. Well...I did a little tourist thing and then downed. First I had to move from my Quiet House north of Nashville (Madison to be exact) to my Curry House south of Nashville (Brentwood to be exact).
On my way I saw a real Piggly Wiggly! I didn't know those were actual places. I just thought they were a made up name from the movies set in Po-Dunk towns! Here it is!
My touristy thing was to visit former President Andrew Jackson's (7th Pres) mansion called The Hermitage. I spent the entire day wondering what Hermitage meant and am just now looking it up. "The dwelling of a hermit; especially when small and remote". Well...ok Andrew, if that's what you want. Remote...yes...small...no!!! It was 500 acres of farmland! Maybe that wasn't a lot back then, IDK.
The Hermitage had a museum, the mansion, the enslaved persons quarters, a garden, cotton field, stable, cafe, gift shop and a ton of land. It was beautiful. Come to find out Andrew was an orphan at age and rose to become a lawyer, a General, and then President! He had is faults (like being on the side of keeping slavery thinking it was the best way to do business successfully), but he also was known as a man of the people and fought to build and keep democracy as it exists today. Here are some photos of my 4 hour self-guided tour.
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| Road to the mansion, hidden by a tree-lined path. He made the front entrance far from the road so people could have a good first impression once they actually got to the door. He split the driveway into two so carriages would stop "rushing" up to the front door when they came. "Rushing" meant a whooping 5mph! |
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| Behind all the trees...this is the mansion. Actually, this is the backside, but it looked almost identical as the front. |
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| Some of the grounds. The who structures in the back were his home before he build the mansion. Apparently it was very affluent for the times. Once he moved to the mansion these buildings were passed down to "the enslaved persons". That's what the docents kept saying. No one likes the word slave. It's icky. |
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| This is Rachel Jackson's garden; Andrew's wife. She spent most of her time here in the garden because she didn't like the political stuff. Apparently, they housed almost 20 guests a night as a regular thing. Officials, passing town people, whomever. They slept three to a bed and if room ran out then people would be on pads on the floors and in the halls! What a trip. The tour of inside the mansion was pretty amazing. |
To wrap up my day and night, I checked into my new Airbnb that smells like curry. I have the entire upstairs to myself and spent the rest of my night reading after I returned from doing laundry at the laundry mat. Apparently the kitchen and laundry did not come as an "amenity" with the stay. I think that's a little weird. I had to ask the owner for a fork and I felt awkward being near the "off limits" kitchen. Oh well...they can't all be winners. The bed rocks and I napped earlier.
Good night everyone! I'm not sure what tomorrow will bring. I'm thinking of going to downtown Franklin which is supposed to be really, really cute. Maybe I'll try to find a pool for swimming. I miss swimming so much!
If I dream of curry I'm going to crack up!
XO,
Kel
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