Day 10 - Nashville, TN to Gatlinburg, TN

Up and at 'em and back into Franklin to see a few things we missed yesterday.  Janell has subscribed us to an app called "Roadside America".  It looks at your GPS position or your intended route and shows you things that might be of interest.  Well, she was interested in a rusty workmanlike guy with some junk in his trunk.  And while that is a fitting description of me, this guy was "Rusty Mechanism" a 25' tall statue made out of rusty industrial leftovers.

Down the road was another "four year later" photo op, this time on a cannon in the town square.  It was a bit harder for them to all fit on it this time around.

Next, we set out in search of Percy Jackson -- at the Parthenon in Centennial Park in Nashville.  (For all of you purists, we acknowledge that this is of course the location of a scene in the movie that took the place of the scene in the St. Louis Arch in the book.)  Anyway, we picnicked out front of the structure, dining on ready made meals from Trader Joe's (why are we harping for Whole Foods?  We need one of these!)

Once we got in and started looking at the museum, I finally got the answer to the question probably most people wonder:  "Why in the heck is there a Parthenon replica in Nashville?"  (If you aren't asking this, you should.)  Well, apparently Nashville had long been known as the "Athens of the South" because of its number of well thought of universities.  (Vanderbilt, Fisk, et al)  When the City decided to host a World's Fair type celebration, the Parthenon was thought to be a great choice for the Art Exhibit.  Well, you probably know the rest:  Because it was supposed to be temporary, it was built out of plaster.  When they decided they liked it, they had to rebuild it from scratch because of all the decay.  Then Percy Jackson came and fought the Hydras, flew up in some shoes with wings on them, and took the jewel from the Athena statue.  BTW, the Goddess of Victory, Nike, who is in Athena's hand on the pic below is actually 6' 4" tall -- just to give you and idea of the scale of the statue.  And the Gryphon that Tyner is standing in front looks remarkably like Scooby Doo with wings.

Back on the road and behind schedule, we took a quick detour to see the campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.  I've always wanted to see Neyland Stadium on the banks of the Tennessee River.  Looking forward to going inside when OU visits there in 2015.  (Greg B., have you reserved our boat yet?)  

Approaching our destination, we let the kids try some unique southern cooking:  Krystal.  They were a bit hesitant at first, but quickly realized the need for comparison to a White Castle on our way home through Illinois.

Roadside America reared its head again at the final stage of our journey.  The City of Sevierville (just outside Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge) is the hometown of Dolly Parton.  There stands a statue of her in front of the courthouse that you are supposed to rub for good luck.  The web site was not specific as to where...