Today, we started the day in Nashville, TN by meeting Mom’s family member Cousin V. By pure coincidence, she happened to be in the same city as us. Since she needed to leave early, we arose out of bed and went directly to breakfast without packing up the car.
We met at a restaurant on Vanderbilt Universitie’s campus called Pancake Pantry. When we arrived, Cousin V was not yet available, so the restaurant refused to seat us. We got put into the dunce corner to wait for the rest of our party. At this time it was not yet crowded, so it was ok. By the time we left we understood why they refused to seat us as there was a huge line. The food was good. Tween and Seven Eleven were full and ready for our first stop.
This morning, we had made arrangements to visit Cheekwood Estates. We rushed back to the hotel and headed for our 9:00 am pre-ticketed entry. When we arrived they had parking lot attendants directing traffic. They looked at the car in front of us and waived them through. They looked at us and told us to park in the overflow lot. I swear I was not glaring at them or anything, and yet they still had identified us as trouble makers!
After we exited the vehicle, we hiked to the entry booth. Luckily, they found our name on the list and let us in. I guess we looked bad enough to park far away, but good enough to let in.
The first stop was a walk to the main estate house, which they recommended doing first because we only had 1 hour to get in before our entry would expire. The approach to the estate called for a picture of the young-ins:
The inside of the house reminded me of our home except it had actual fancy stuff inside, fountains, grand rooms, a view of the city, and wall decorations. Yup, just like our home! Did I mention it also had a chandelier with interesting geometric patterns? After further thought, it looked just like what our home will look like once we win the lottery:
After touring the mansion, we moved on to the gardens. It was clear that if you have enough money, building a large house is not enough. You also must find other things to build, such as lego statues. We admired the many statues that had been built:
Along the way, we also got to the see a lot of wildlife and other areas of the grounds. The turtles were so still that we thought that even the living ones were made of bronze.
After Cheekwood, we headed to the Parthenon in Nashville. This replica of the real famous one in Greece was used to film one of the Percy Jackson movies. Before we had left Oregon, we had seen the movie. Seven Eleven was just hoping we would NOT see the Hydra from the movie.
It is rather big 
The ceiling looks nice! 
Inside there was lots of art 
Athena is very large 
These are likely enemies that Athena crushed 
Look at Athena’s butt and shield 
Athena’s foot is BIG! 
Athena’s hand is BIGGER! 
After the Parthenon, we headed to lunch. We needed to be at our evening destination at a set time, so grabbed Thai food to go. As we began driving, we checked where the time zone change occurred to ensure our ticket time was interpreted correctly. Unfortunately, as we researched where the time zone changed it was not clear if the destination was in Eastern or Central time. We all ranted about the poor time zone planning. Why put it in the middle of TN? There was no need based on the map. Why not make TN, KY, and AL all in the Eastern Time Zone?:
The next stop was the Lost Sea Adventure Caves. We called to see what time zone and found out it was Eastern time. We looked at the car clock. It said we would arrive at 4:01 pm, which meant we would arrive at 5:01 pm. Our tour was at 5 pm! As we raced down the highway, once again trying to make it on time, we eventually gave up. The time was slowly ticking up instead of down. I did a quick calculation and we would need to average 83 MPH to get there on time. We knew when we got close that it would not be possible. Did they have tours once an hour? Would we need to wait until 6 pm? If we did that, Tween the I get Hangry and Seven Eleven I get Hangrier would not make it. I called and explained the situation. Luckily, they could fit us in the 5:30 tour!
As we continued, some of us took the opportunity to catch up on some much needed sleep:
When we arrived, we had 15 minutes to prepare. I grabbed the camera gear and we all used the restrooms. When we checked in I was told “no bags in the cave”. Back to the car I went to ditch the camera bag and change my photography plan. Down into submarine we went. Cave? Oh yes, it was a cave, not a Yellow Submarine!
Our Hollywood voice actor did take a moment to give us a safety talk. This guide looked like he was in high school, but had a voice that was so deep I thought we might have been given an AI powered robot. Fortunately, he never malfunctioned and we did not get stuck in the cave.
The cave was hard to photograph, but it was large and interesting:
Just in case you need a phone 
As we descended farther into the cave, we arrived at what we came for… the lake at the bottom of the cave! Yes, an actual lake in a cave.
We all got on a boat and took a trip to see the sea monsters in the cave. Turns out, there were only fish, so we survived the boat the trip. I jotted this place down in my book of places to remember for when the apocalypse happens. After a year of Covid we had all learned to look for places like this, where we could survive if needed. It had water and emergency food!
We hiked the 7-8 stories back up to the entrance and headed to dinner at a nice Italian place that Mom had found. Neither Tween nor Seven Eleven complained. I guess all that hiking in Arches had made this seem simple:
After dinner, we headed to what we thought would be our nicest hotel of the trip, a Hyatt in downtown Knoxville. However, when we arrived at the Hyatt, they had no parking and nowhere to unload. They directed us to the free city parking that was connected to the area via a skybridge. We had to roll our luggage through the street to the Hotel. We were also on a busy street that was lively. We quickly decided it was not worth it, even though we did once again have a suite.
This was another successful day. Tomorrow would be our last day of the trip!