Day 6 & 7 -- Brentwood & Franklin, Tenn.

After traveling 2,600 miles, we rested. Tuesday was a nice relaxing day at the home of Aunt Jami and Uncle John. The little kids pretty much spent the whole sultry, stifling day in the kiddie pool and I lounged around the house reading "1776." Julie got a nap and in the evening we all headed down to the park a couple blocks away. What a fun day.

On Wednesday, I took Anna, Claire, Evie, MerriGrace, Madeline and Ezra (I don't get too far without my sidekick Ezra) and headed to historic Franklin. The downtown dates to 1799 and is cute, quaint and everything else you look for in a downtown. Of course, like any self-respecting Southern locality, Franklin has the obligatory monument to the Confederate men of the area who gave their lives in the War of Northern Aggression that occurred from 1861-65. We took some photos and wandered around the streets and ended up at Puckett's Grocery & Restaurant in the heart of downtown Franklin. I highly recommend Puckett's, which is known locally as a "Meat & Three." For you non-Southerners, this is where you get a main dish and up to three side dishes. At Puckett's for lunch on Wednesday, the choices included turnip greens, squash casserole, macaroni & cheese, potato salad, mashed potatoes and other delights such as green beans. I ordered the pulled pork, as you see in this excellent photo taken by Anna, and had a side of mashed potatoes. Yes, I passed on the turnip greens. My bad. But the pulled pork seasoned with "Louisiana Hot Sauce" was extremely satisfying. Claire and Evie split an order of fried chicken with potato salad, which they said was very tasty.

Waiter Dave provided excellent service and we got to talking and we relayed how we had traveled across this enormous country and had another day's travel left to get home to Virginia. We told him our itinerary and come to find out Waiter Dave is moving to Denver in two months. So he said he would be doing our drive in reverse. "But I've heard Kansas is kind of long," he said. I laughed. I told him I thought he'd find Kansas right pleasant and pointed him to my blog to help acquaint him with what a wonderful state Kansas is for tourists. My guess is that he'll probably get to Kansas, find out there's so much to see and do that he'll just forget about heading all the way to Denver and stop right there to plant roots in Topeka. Or Salina. Or maybe in La Crosse. In Kansas, the options are virtually endless. Well, I'm feeling an outbreak of a nap coming on so I'll bid adios. I've gotta rest up for the 695-mile jaunt from Brentwood to Gloucester tomorrow.