Wordless Wednesday

 

 

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Happy Groundhog Day!

According to legend, if he sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter weather. If he does not see his shadow, there will be an early spring.

I don't know about you, but I'm hoping for an early spring!

 

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Storm Damage

Well we are feeling pretty lucky about how we came through the storms Wednesday night (well, actually about 3:00am Thursday). The radar was ugly and they have now confirmed 13 tornadoes.

 

 

The Mount Juliet one is about 4 miles from us. This is one of the buildings that was damaged. There were a couple of people on the building at the time, but they were able to take cover and were okay.

This is just a short way from the other building. This is a Dollar General at the intersection of Lebanon Road and Mt. Juliet Road. That section of town was badly hit.

I'm not sure exactly where this one is, but you can see the size of the trees that were ripped apart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have to say, the winds were the worst we've ever heard. They started with that freight train quakity and then started swirling. The house was making noises I've never heard! They said there were 105 mile winds in downtown Nashville. I have since noticed that one if the flagpoles at the federal building downtown has been uprooted. that's some strong wind!!

We were watching the news, and the radar now has the ability to show not only where there is probably a tornado on the ground, but it shows where there's a 'debris field' - which is debris floating, or being carried by the wind. So they can pinpoint the areas that are in immediate danger. While the winds were so bad here, they were talking about this cell being just east of the Mt. Juliet radar station. The radar station is about a mile or so east of us, so we knew there were bad things happening around us. It's always so much worse at night. There's a certain amount of comfort in being able to see what's happening around you.

Fortunately we had no damage. It sure is a reminder that we need to make sure the storm shelter is ready for use.

 

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Model T

We're watching a documentary on Henry Ford - I didn't know his son was named Edsel. Interesting to see the evolution of the motor vehicle, and how people's perception of it has changed.

Henry Ford's creation of their assembly line forever changed the way the people worked. He was much more of a technical thinker than emotional. In order to reduce employee turnover, he paid his employees well and he created a profit sharing plan. Truly a visionary. I bet he would have loved the computer age!

 

We've come a long way!

 

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Happy Monday!

Mr. Rogers calls them helpers, Dan Heath calls them bright spots, I always say 'If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem'.

However you say it - helper, bright spot, solution - strive to be one of them.

 

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Cheekwood in January

Yesterday was too nice to stay inside, so we decided to go to Cheekwood, which is a local botanical garden. It was originally built as the home of one of the family members of the Maxwell House coffee brand (maybe that's one of the reasons we enjoy it there). It's a beautiful estate and they have numerous gardens and lots of different exhibits throughout the year.

One of my favorite things is this stone. It's something I would bet a lot of people don't see, but it's there's, in the middle of one of the walkways.

There is a Japanese garden. Not much color, but there are some great garden accents.

There's also a train track through one of the gardens with two trains. One is Thomas, the other is the Southern Railroad.

They have all sorts of neat buildings and bridges all around.

We spent a couple of hours walking through the garden paths. It was a great way to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon.

 

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Savannah Georgia

What a great city! We spent a couple of days there after Thanksgiving. We stopped at the Visitor's Center when we first got to the city, and them found our hotel. we stayed at the Hilton DeSoto. They say the 11th floor is haunted - luckily we weren't on 11!!

The historic district is about 3 miles square, and this hotel was right in the middle of it. We left the car parked the whole time we were there.

From our room we could see The Old Savannah Theater

And this house that I think, maybe, could have been the Munster's house.

We asked the concierge where we should go for dinner and he suggested either Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room or The Pink House. Mrs. Wilkes if family style southern fare, which is plentiful in Nashville so we didn't feel like we needed to to there, and we weren't really dressed for The Pink House, so we ended up at B&D Burgers - great burgers and cold beer.

The next day we took the sightseeing trolley. It's an on/off trolley - we made one full loop on the trolley and then spent the rest of the day getting off at different spots and exploring the city. We went to Forsyth Park and saw this fountain

And saw some beautiful architecture

We went down to the waterfront for a while, too. Lots of shops and restaurants down there. Cobblestone streets, old buildings, nice place to wander around.

We decided to stay closer to the hotel for dinner the second night. We had seen the Sixpence Pub while we were walking around, so we decided to go there. Great atmosphere, great food - all within walking distance.

Would I go back. Again? Absolutely!!

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