our journey, part six: newton~nashville~home!

when we left newton we drove through the night to get to chattanooga to meet my brother, scott, his wife martha, and their two boys, jay and andrew (and one more on the way!). we met them at the chattanooga aquarium; it was very cool.

(this time i discovered the "aquarium" setting in time...)

it was great to see you, scott and martha! thanks so much!

the really cool thing is that on this trip, hazel and june got to see every one of their cousins, every one of their aunts and uncles, all four of their grandparents, and their only living great-grandmother.

from chattanooga, we went to nashville. glenn has always wanted to go there and we had a blast!

we went to the country music hall of fame. it was cool.

okay. i know this is weird and kind of gross, but hank williams shot these squirrels and then took them to a taxidermist and had them made into a band...

downtown nashville was great! glenn actually stayed out until 2:30 in the morning, honky tonkin'...

we were total tourists. we even did the carriage ride through downtown bit.

we stopped at what is allegedly the only freshwater pearl farm of its kind in the united states in tennessee. it was awesome, and i got some beautiful pearls to use in my upcoming ocean-inspired pieces!

our next stop was memphis. and it was seriously so hot and humid that we didn't leave our ($59 hotwire special hyatt) hotel room, except to venture to the lukewarm pool. nope, we did not go to graceland. remember how excited i was about all of the moisture in the air in contrast to my own dry climate? well, i had my share, that's for sure.

i cannot express how incredible the girls were on this trip! of course there were times when we thought we were crazy and wondered how we would make it for a month without a portable dvd player, but they were truly amazing.

we tried to stop as often as possible at parks and such, but they definitely had to spend very MANY hours in the car. they were great!

and glenn, glenn was the best. he took care of all of us and did most of the driving and was just all around fantastic. it was so wonderful to have so much time with him because he will be gone all next week for a conference and the week after that he is back to work full-time. with his new position, he is going to be very busy and we may not see him much.

and old rusty here was very very happy to get back to dolores. according to mapquest, we drove 5106.96 miles. it is so very very great to be home! and my shop is so amazing! i will share photos with you tomorrow.