Wandering around 35 acres of woodlands, lawns on a hot day with temperature climbing into mid 90 degrees, is a perfect afternoon. Thanks to my cousin's wife, who researched and pulled out the details for the same, we (the family) clambered into two cars, and drove over.

We spent sometime in the Museum, which in itself houses some really cool artistic works, from painting to photography of decayed flowers and from basket woven monstrosity to adventures of Spudnik, it was a fantastic display of art and science in creative harmony.

After a quick bite at the museum cafe, we headed out to wander in the woodlands. The sculptures were fantastic. Here are some that I really loved.

Gates to where?	35 acres and a pond too!
I don't think this was a sculpture, but looked to me like one.	Somebody forget their top hat?
Dead-men walking... (my favorite, love the pine cones)	Oh! Tunes!

The plan was to take trip downtown Nashville. I had tickets to the shuttle from the hotel to downtown and also the trolley tours that would take me around downtown Nashville. But I was in no shape to do that. With the heat exposure of the previous day, I was too sick to move out of my bed, forget going into sightseeing or hobnobbing with people.

So, I stayed put in the hotel room, ordering room service (expensive, but nice!) and watching movies (very nice) and sleeping (great!).

Besides I was suffering from a sensory overload with all the planning, traveling, and blah blah.... So, it was great to relax, do nothing and we are done.

Saturday, was the seven-hour-guided trip to Lynchburg (Pop. 361), home of the Jack Daniels distillery. It is the oldest registered distillery in the country. On the way, I ask myself, do I like whisky? Like everything in Nashville, TN, the answer is 'not really', but the lure of visiting to a) check it off 'the list' and b) I like how alcohol (any alcohol) is made. 

Some of the quirks of this town:
1. The population listed as 361 for this town. Does it mean that every time a child is born, somebody has to leave town? Dunno the reason, and no one in town knew. Or they did know, and mentioned it to me in their thick southern accent and I did not understand.
2. This is the home of Jack Daniels... the whisky of this country... and it is a dry town! So, no sampling.... argh! What the devil! Apparently, the town had to appeal to the state and federal courts to allow the distillery to sell one 750 ml bottle per customer!
3. For a tiny town, it has more BBQ restaurants and souvenir shops in the square than it has actual houses.

The tour was great. It was indeed fun to see the process. In short:
1. Charcoal, is what makes Jack Daniels what it is, whisky of this country. Wood is stacked and carefully burnt for 3-4 hours to form charcoal. The wood stacks are called 'ricks' and so the building where it is made is called 'Rickyard'. This is where a group photo was taken and is posted on Jack Daniels website. Charcoal is then ground to form small nuggets.

2. Spring water is used to make the brew and it comes from limestone cave springs. There are several on the premises. This is iron free, pure water. The grain (corn, barley and rye) comes mostly from Texas. Together it forms the 'Mash'. When the mash is created, some of it is held back to mix with the next batch to maintain some consistency from one batch to another. This mash that is held back is sour, hence the name of Jack Daniels is also 'Sour Mash Whisky'

3. The Mash is cooked and fermented in copper cauldrons. This looks like goo! and smells even worse. The 'goo' is then distilled into clear liquid. This liquid is sent to the Charcoal Mellowing. This a huge barrel roughly six feet diameter and 10-12 feet tall, full of charcoal (made in step 1), and small water pipes dripping the clear spirit at the top. The liquid has to make it way down 10-12 feet of charcoal. This mellows the spirit. The spirit is then whisked away into barrels made of white oak. Interestingly, the barrels are one-time use only and then shipped to Canada, Ireland and other places for scotch aging. At the end, of course is the bottling and shipping.

For lunch I headed into the town square, and was completely overwhelmed with the thousands of bikers in town. We had managed to place ourselves right in the middle of a biker rally. It was frightening. The only time bikers I know are in the movies, and they were somehow always (atleast the ones I have seen) depicted as rowdy, mean, terrifying, brawling menaces. So, it was very scared me, wandering in this middle of nowhere town. For once, I was happy that this was a dry town! Yeah! At the very least no one was drunk. I wandered around trying to get some courage to step into a restaurant to get some lunch. I finally did! This restaurant is really informal with long tables and you pretty much sat anywhere and shared table with others around. The only place open was between a family and four bikers. Yikes! But my stomach got better of me, and I sat down. Within seconds a menu materialized and I buried my head in it. I could not decide what to order, so when the hostess came back to ask, I asked her to suggest something. Somehow, my conversation attracted the entire tables' attention. Perhaps it was my accent or perhaps they wanted to suggest. Within seconds, whole table was suggesting what I should eat, asking from where I was, and commenting that east coast does not make any sensible BBQ. I settled on BBQ chicken, red beans and rice (YUM!). Somehow, additional food items appeared in front of me, the folks at the table wanted me to sample almost everything on the menu. An hour tater, I was still at the table, not eating anymore, but chatting with everyone, as if we were old friends. I think each one of us were amused at the others accents. At least I was with the thick southern accent and they were pretty much tickled silly hearing me speak.

After spending annoying amount of money in Jack Daniels glassware and Whisky (Let me know, if you are a whisky fan, you can have the alcohol, as long as I get the bottle back), we headed back to Nashville. It was almost 4pm in the afternoon, and I was beginning to get sick! Not from food or 'foreign' water, not with anything else other than heat. It was blistering 96+ deg F. I went through half of my sunscreen (spf 30) bottle, but that does squat for heat itself. I fair well between 50-75 deg weather. Below 50, I am okay, but as soon as that gauge starts to edge towards 80 deg, I hide under available shade. If I don't, I am heading for disasters. I barely made it to my room and there was nothing else to do but, crawl under the sheets of comfortable 65 deg room and passed out. One would think I am drunk!

Wednesday, June 14th to Monday, June 18th, I was in Nashville, TN. The first 48 hours from the time I landed (around Wednesday noon time) till Friday noonish, I was working. But after that was all play time in the Music City of America. The next few days blog are really written on Sunday, but thought it was more meaningful if it is posted on the day it happened.

Friday afternoon, after seeing the team off, I wandered to the Mall next to the Gaylord Opryland. For one thing, I needed the exercise and for another, I had nothing planned and for yet another, it was too blazing hot to be outdoors. So, with an ice cream cone in hand, I wandered around aimlessly in the Mall. It is weird, when I have nothing planned to buy; that's when I find everything that I need, at the price I am willing to pay. Additionally, when I have limited space in bag to pack, that is also when I find some of the best deals, too irresistible to pass off. So, my solution was to pretty much 'weigh' everything I had as I shopped. I shopped at Dress Barn, Naturalizer shoes, Harry & David, Apple Barn, and odds & ends stores. At the start of my trip I had one rolling upright bag (22 lbs) and one laptop briefcase. By the time I was done; the weight in the rolling upright had crept to 44 lbs! And along with my laptop, a large brown bag with all the collectible glassware from Jack Daniels and Nashville, roughly at 10-11 lbs. I must be insane!

Y'all, I find myself in Nashville, TN (once again...). My previous trip, couple of months ago, was dedicated completely to work. I flew in, worked, and flew out and that was it. This time it will be different. I plan to stay couple more days and explore downtown Nashville and also go to Lynchburg... home of Jack Daniels.

I am writing this in my 'down-time'. So, must be short. But will add some pictures/words for this trip later.

But one thing I can write before signing off. I am ready to be home for a good while. I have been traveling this year. I have been to Nashville twice, once to New York and once to Spain, and tones of local travel. And I am so ready to store the bags for a while and sit back, relax and watch my yard bloom and play with kitties.

Lately been watching House, M.D.

A while back, I remember seeing the advertisements for the same and also remember me saying: 'hmmm I must see that, it looks interesting'. Something about it felt very appealing at the time. Unfortunately, like all TV shows, I cannot remember when they are on (I don't even try), and then there are the interruptions and further on there are 'incidents'. The 'incidents' I was referring to was the 'Lost' fiasco. I call it a fiasco; because, I was seriously interested in this, and religiously made time to tune in to watch it. But then one night the Red Sox game pushed the show into the wee hours of the night and I was too darn exhausted to watch it and that was the end of it. Couple of friends from work, did try and entice me to watch it, but I was annoyed enough, that I decided to wait for the DVD release. NOTE: I still have not seen season II onwards. Now, I am interested, but not motivated to watch it, so it is relegated down to something to get done, by the time I am 50 and not something to get done by the time I am 35. So, I avoid the potential of 'incidents' and watch reruns, which is perfectly fine by me.

The weird thing is that, it takes only one person to be passionate about something and me to overhear tid-bits and I am interested. But I don't have anyone in my life like that (er... right now), so, I don't bother too much about TV shows. If I have the time, and am flipping channels, I will stop and watch anything that takes my fancy.

Back to watching House, I think he is fantastic! I would hate to work for someone like that, but would love him to death. Something about this brilliant, bitter, antisocial and sarcastic character is extremely attractive. Hugh Laurie is amazing at it. I might have to get the DVD for the season 1 and see if I really like it, or hmmm, to the 'millions' of readers of this blog, anyone have it? May I borrow it?

Psst: I love this show, but, I am not going to keep awake till 11PM on Friday to watch this show!

{Edit: 6/11/2007}: Good lord! This weekend, all I did (apart from the usual, clean, shop, cook, plant) was sit in front of the idiot box (connected via my computer... another idiot box), and watch Season 1 AND Season 2 (50%) of House. Oh dear! This is bad, but it felt sooooo goooood! I think I like James too! Hmmmm.... well... mostly his Australian accent!

Visiting my sister and her family in Yonkers, New York is always a treat. I get to eat the yummiest of the food, take long afternoon naps and enjoy a beautiful home and garden.

Thursday, I drove down to New York. Despite the high gas prices, it always seems to work out to take the car. I usually start off, thinking, I need one bag of clothes and that is it. Soon enough one bag has led to one box of wine and champagne, another box of pressure washer, my pillow, another bag of goodies for the kids and sister, and some more clothes, that I might just need, perhaps a cooler to put fish in (there is a great fresh fish store near my sisters place). By and by, there is no other option but to take the car. I really do like to drive and my car needs the workout. My car mechanic mentioned to me, that I should drive my car more often. My 9 year old car has less than 35000 miles on it. It is not my fault, really, every time I moved residences, the office moves within public transport distance, so there is no need to take the car, when I can be 'chauffeured' to work. Anyways, I digress (as usual), the short of the long, is that I drove down to my sisters place.
On the way, at Southbury, I stopped and shopped! I always do. I don't know what the attraction is, but I seem to always find something really cool and nice and on sale. This time was no exception; one of my favorite dresses (the one I have been keeping an eye out for!) was on sale! I snapped it up and I was on the road again happy as can be. The rest of the journey was uneventful. On and off, some rain clouds decided to pester with some drops, but nothing too major.

The next day was a hot, humid, and sunny day to be out and about town. But the whole family was out for my sister’s graduation ceremony from City College of New York. It was a great fanfare and could have been better, had it not been sweltering heat. Poor little kids (one 3 yrs and the other 7 yrs old), were hot and miserable. Thankfully the whole thing was not too long, but like all these things, there are loads of speeches. Somehow, Presidents and Valedictorians love to hear themselves speak. By and by they were done and we made a beeline to comfort of home.

This weekend was also, the 7 yr old’s birthday, well, he turned 7 years. So we had a bit of celebrations and some cake and Spanish Cava and more of ice-cream and I am 4 lbs heavier. Along with all the celebrations, we also got some yard work done. The pressure washer was put to good use to clean up the concrete patio, which went from dull gray to bright gray.

Whilst all this was going on in New York, back home, my landscaper finished the planting 101. Yeah! The yard looks lovely, with the few plants and cedar mulch. It looks so different from where we started. Pictures coming soon!

It was a great weekend with family and friends. I did miss a BBQ, which I would loved to attend, but cannot have everything.