The End.

We're back in Tyler, awaiting our wonderful friends who have agreed to retrieve us from the airport on this hot and humid day. It was a great trip, and we have so many memories from the 1710 miles we put on our rental car.

We started yesterday early - I guess we wanted to fit in as much as we could - visiting the Parthenon (a Nashville art museum), Vanderbilt University and the Opryland Hotel, all before going to church at Two Rivers Baptist. Following worship, we returned to the Opry Mills Mall for Darin to find a souvenir Tennesee Titans shirt. Then, we headed back to the Country Music Hall of Fame for a banjo demonstration, which we didn't get to see, because we misread the flyer - it ended at 2 PM - we thought it began at 2. Ooops. So, we made our way to Ryman Auditorium where we saw Minnie Pearl's hat and stood at the stage as though we were about to be "discovered." (Notice, we're home, no discovery.)

We bought a cowgirl hat for me (pictures later) and enjoyed the best BBQ and hamburgers Nashville has to offer at the Wildhorse Saloon, then headed back to the hotel to pack up and rest up for the trip home today.

We did have a lot of fun at the ticket counter this morning. We had two suitcases we knew were wavering at the 50 lb. margin (you have to pay extra for bags over that weight). Sure enough, one of them was 47.5 lbs, the other was 53.5 lbs. A game ensued as we shifted items from one bag to the other, trying to balance the weights to 50 lbs or less. As you may have guessed, if you like to do mental math, we had one extra pound. So, we found a bag of toiletries to cram into the duffle bag and several t-shirts to shove into the golf bag! We had another passenger cheering and an employee laughing as we managed to bring it all into balance. Glad we could make an impression before we left.

P.S. Where, O where, are you tonight?
Why did you leave me here all alone?
I searched the world over and thought I found true love.
You met another and pfft, you were gone.

I forgot to mention one of my other favorite parts of the visit to the Country Music Hall of Fame: Hee Haw! We got to stand next to (part of) the cornfield from the show and see clips from the many years it aired. Grandpa Jones spectacles, suspenders and vintage Civil War boots were there, too (he was my favorite character). Sa-lute!