JAMES POLK SLEPT HERE (Mark)

Last month we went to Nashville, Tennessee, and choose to stay in town rather than take our trailer. 

This historical marker was just outside the building we stayed in, built over the historic site.  So I can claim to have slept three stories over where a president had slept.

We were staying about two and a half blocks from the Capital Building, so I had some nice areas to walk around and explore if Cheri was involved in other things. 

The Capital Building and a number of other government buildings and museums in the area are undergoing construction, lots of construction!  The whole area, built on a hill overlooking the city, currently feels like a construction zone.  I had wanted to go to several museums, but they were closed for the construction.

This exact copy of the Liberty Bell is much easier to see than the original in Philadelphia.

And you can see construction scaffolding in the background at the Capital.  The grounds are very scenic to walk around, and you do get some nice vistas down on the city.

[Cheri here:  If we had been blogging in oh say, 2004, we would have told you about the individual tour that we had through the Capitol building then, due to the legislature being out of town and the docent having nothing better to do!]

The columns you can just see off to the left, behind tree limbs, are from some of the City Hall and other government buildings.

The Skyline of Nashville looking north from the Capital Building is interesting, a real mixture of history, mixed in with newer buildings.  On the left side of this view you can see the Farmers Market building and the Tennessee State Museum, which we visited later.

Looking to the south and west the skyline is a little more modern:

Walking downhill this sign caught my eye:

Definitely a little grittier scene compared to the marble buildings of the Capital.

And a few scenes from along the alley:

I was walking in the morning, so nothing was open, lots of deliveries being made and sidewalks being washed.

I took time on the return from my walk to take a picture of this ivy climbing up the back of the building we were staying in: