4/10/2012
Since 2008 we’ve gone through five cars, two GPSs (the original is sleeping with the fishes), and three kids have joined us on our travels. Hard to believe but we are now ready to celebrate our Schultzian centennial. Almost 10% of our way to being allowed to die, Laura and I decided to celebrate our “100th anniversary” in a special way. Thinking of this trip as an anniversary, we did the unthinkable. For the first time ever we left the kids at home – overnight! Before you call Macaulay Culkin on us, we left them with my mom – aka Nana.
We tried to sneak out early in the morning, but Daniel and Philip caught us. They knew something was up. There was no turning back, so we hopped in the car and started down I-71 – it’s now familiar billboards declaring “Hell is Real” beside “Lion’s Den Adult Stores” all the way into Kentucky to Tennessee. As we entered the central time zone I wanted Laura to accelerate to 88 miles per hour, but she wouldn’t. We called home on the way to check on the kids. Philip had renamed Nana – she is now “Nana Momma.” We are easily replaced.
After a six hour drive we reached Franklin, a swanky town about 20 minutes from Nashville. The center of town is marked by a roundabout with the statue of a Civil War soldier standing guard in the middle. He’s no one in particular, which after seeing statue after statue of Stonewall Jackson it’s nice to see the regular soldier given his due.
As I said, the town is pretty fancy, but just before we got to the nice part we hit Dotson’s – Patricia’s recommended eating spot. We were a little apprehensive. From the outside it looked a little worse for wear. In fact, for a moment we thought maybe it had shut down. A “Help Wanted” sign hung in the window. All this turned out to be a good thing. You can’t be a hole in the wall without looking a little bit like a hole in the wall.
We went inside and were seated by that waitress that’s in every movie about roadside southern diners. Eat your food or get punched in the face. And the food really was good. We both went with the “one meat – three vegetables” arrangement, which we read was a traditional southern thing. Laura had barbecue chicken and I had pulled pork – both amazing. Turnip greens and sweet potatoes were the best of the veggies. No credit cards allowed, but they had an ATM machine. Laura thought this was weird.
After dinner we walked through town, spending most of it in the antique shop district – to Laura’s glee they had an entire district. Historic buildings abound. There’s an old Masonic Temple now completely surrounded by a Catholic Church. There’s got to be a story there. Before we left we stopped into the local art gallery where some artist had painted huge, close-up portraits of people’s cows. There’s something for everyone in Franklin, apparently.
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