Day 1 - Conway to Knoxville, TN

Road trips always take me back to my childhood.  Our family took yearly treks (usually in our 80s Ford conversion van) during the summer all over the country.  Looking back, that's truly one of the best gifts my parents ever gave me as I still remember and treasure our journeys.  I was thrilled when the Hansen family agreed to let me help plan and be on a summer road trip in 2017!

Today was Day 1 and it started quite early as we rolled out of Conway at 7:15 am.  Interstate 40 between Little Rock and Memphis is fairly non-descript except for the large amount of semi trucks that haul goods to and fro daily.  We arrived in Memphis by about 9:30 and soon saw the Pyramid off to our left and downtown to the right.  Seeing the Mud Island Amphitheater always reminds me of our family trip to Disney World in 1985.  We stopped in a Memphis and the Pointer Sisters happened to be performing at Mud Island that night.   Mom and Dad bought tickets for the four of us and I got to experience my first true concert!

 

After a brief Starbucks stop near Bartlett, we set our sights on Nashville which welcomed our arrival for lunch.  Caroline found a Honeybaked Ham Store that also served meals and it hit the spot.  Our next stop was Nashville's Parthenon in Centennial Park.  This full-sized replica of the original Parthenon in Athens was built in 1897 for Tennessee's Centennial Exposition.  The building wasn't meant to last much longer than the Exposition, but Nashville decided to keep it and renovate the exterior with concrete in the 1920s.  By 1931, the interior was completed and replicas of the Elgin Marbles (see my blog entries from the British Museum) were installed.  In 1982, Alan LeQuire was commissioned to recreate the statue of Athena Parthenos; she was unveiled in 1990.  And in 2002,
she was guilded in gold leaf to represent how he original statue looked in Ancient Greece.  I really enjoyed this stop.  The park was beautiful and the building itself was just a cool thing to find in the middle of town.  After our self-guided tour, we loaded up the car for the final leg of our trek today.

Traffic in Nashville is nothing, if not challenging.  After poking our way out of town, we then ran into a rainstorm that essentially moved along with us for 2 hours.  Lots and lots of rain, so much so that talking in the car was useless as you couldn't hear anyone.  As we entered the Knoxville area, it finally let up a bit.  The evening plans called for Jason and Franklin to go to the Tennessee Smokies ballgame.  The Smokies are the AA Cubs farm team, so of course, excitement was high.  As the boys did that, Caroline, the girls, and I found dinner at The Diner down in Sevierville.  The Diner is similar to Arkansas' Purple Cow, but it felt more local and was in a building that resembled a shiny silver diner of old.  After a great meal, we drove back up to Kodak (where our hotel and the stadium was) to pick up the fellas.  The hotel beds were calling our name and we all turned in.  Tomorrow, we hit the Smoky Mountains!