Together again:)

My good friend, Diana, came to visit for several days (she is the one I went to Ireland with in December) and we packed a lot of fun into those days!!!

Diana and I on the front porch.

Diana by huge Osage Orange tree

First appearance at the Opry

The first night we toured Franklin with a stop at Cici's!   A must do in Franklin.  Diana is a history buff so Friday morning we went to the Carnton Plantation and did the tour.  It is really interesting - the house was used as a hospital after the Battle of Franklin during the Civil War.  After we toured the house, we walked around the grounds and visited the cemetery.   Friday night we went to the Grand Ole Opry and saw a great show.  Nashville was celebrating country music with the annual Fan Fest Celebration so we saw lots of great performers.  Included in the list were the teenagers who just won on American Idol as the youngest all the way to 90 year old Little Jimmy Dickens.  In between were some old favorites like Mel Tillis, Charlie Pride, Roy Clarke (all in their 70s) and Billy Ray Cyrus and Josh Turner.  We came home and googled all these performers to see how old they were:)

At the Opry!

With Jack Daniels!

Saturday morning we headed south to the Jack Daniels Distillery.  When we were in Ireland we toured the Jameson's Distillery so it seemed only fair!  Funny, the county where the distillery is located voted to go "dry" after the distillery was built so no tasting allowed!  You can buy bottles in the gift shop so we did:)  After the tour, we went into town and ate lunch and checked out a few shops.

Sunday morning we drove to Huntsville, AL to visit Janet and Nick.  We all went to lunch at the Brickhouse and then to see the progress on the new house!  Wow!  Amazing how much work they had done in one week.  It is really coming along and looks great.

Sunday night we headed over to the Natchez Trace and the Loveless Cafe for dinner.  Can't come see me without a visit to the Loveless:)  We shared photo taking duties with a couple from Phoenix (Ken and Connie)  while we waited.  We ended up sitting next to them in the restaurant.  After seeing their peach cobbler, we shared one, too!

She made me do it!!!

Monday morning we headed to downtown Nashville to see the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Ryman Theater.  We had saved this for Monday to avoid all the crowds (and parking issues) during FanFest.  Great idea!  Parking was a breeze and things weren't too crowded.   We spent most of the day there and came home and collapsed:)