Nashville niceties :).

Finally the post I've been meaning to write. So I'm not really going to delay the whole thing with more chit-chat (which is what I seem to be doing now :-p), but get on with it..

This time though July 4th fell on a Saturday, but Sri had a holiday on Friday on the account of the same. But since we had just then moved and knew that we'd be busy, we hadn't really planned anything for the long weekend. So the trip was a spur of the moment thing. We didn't really want to spend the whole weekend away as we had things to setup and so the plan was to leave on Friday July the 3rd and come back on July 4th night. Nashville, Tennessee is about 3 hours drive away, so we thought it'd be pretty okay.




And it was :). We left Lexington after lunch and reached Nashville by evening (it was Snugli's nap-time, so we were able to make it without even stopping :-D). We had been to Nashville before on our trip to Destin, Florida. But we were in a hurry to get to Florida, so I think we just stopped for dinner and rest there, that was it. Sri's friends suggested a couple of things we could see there, the first place being the Sri Ganesha temple of Nashville.




It was beautiful. The Ganesha idol was impressive and really bhakthi-inspiring :)). We spent quite sometime enjoying the indoors as well as the outdoors. Well, photography was not allowed inside, so you know what that means ;-).




They even had a small ratha (chariot) :)). Reminded me of the Udupi rathas that I like so much :).




Snugli had a wonderful time running around in the campus :). Then we left and had dinner at, wait for it, Woodlands!! It was vegetarian and the food was fabulous. Oh man, it had been such a long time since I had had good gobi manchurian here (we have one Indian restaurant that makes it here in Lexington, but it just doesn't cut it :-p). We had a meal of chaat, manchurian and noodles (thats my favourite kind of junk food :-D) and it was so so satisfying :)).

On July 4th morning, we headed to Opryland. Opryland hotel is a indoor resort and there is no entry fee (they loot you enough when you buy other goodies/food :-D). Its also attached to Opry mills, a huggggge factory outlet which actually had a Gibson guitar outlet!! The first one I've seen here in the US. Anyways, the hotel is the largest non-casino hotel in the world! It has 5 sections, with different themes, big number of different types of lodgings and different temperature settings! It was pretty impressive :). The first section we saw was the Delta.




Delta has a small river and an "island" connected to the "mainland" by bridges. They even had a boat ride on the river!! They had waterfalls, fountains, various types of vegetation (all real plants in real soil), ducks and fishes! It was fabulous for a man-made environment :).




See what I mean? We took the so-called boat ride and enjoyed the view :). It was a different thing that Snugli simply wanted to be "in" the water :-D. The ride even came with a guide who informed of the hugggggggge numbers of plants and animals they had! We were also told that the temperature was maintained according to the comfort of the vegetation ;-) :)). Can you believe that? Later we walked around and saw the waterfalls :)..







From there we moved onto the Cascades section which had waterfalls of various sizes and this one was the largest in the entire hotel!




Cascades was more humid (again catering to the plants :-D) and we moved on, first to the Garden conservatory, which had lots of varieties of plants and which is supposedly "the" place for weddings ;-).




Then onto Magnolia where they had discos and swimming pools (they even had a Godiva chocolates boutique where I spent some of our hard-earned money without much persuasion :-D) and later to the Convention center which had very large ballrooms :). Then we returned to Delta and had lunch at a buffet place called the Waterfront marketplace. As vegetarians, we got to eat mostly salads and breads, but they had a heavenly dessert buffet and I must have tried some 6 desserts (I know I know, greedy me :-D). That made the whole thing totally worth it ;-). I had cooked Snugli's lunch and packed it early in the morning, so there was no problem there.

After that, we saw a bit of the Opry mills outlet and then drove onto Louisville where we had planned to see the 4th of July fireworks. It looked like it was going to rain but it held till about 10 PM when the rain and the fireworks started :-p. Anyways, the rain soon stopped and we were able to enjoy the firework show :). It was the first set of fireworks Snugli actually was awake to see and that made it extra special :).

And that was it, we drove back and were at home within midnight and were also able to enjoy the Sunday as we had planned. Just when I keep thinking that we have seen enough of East coast as such, we keep finding places like this :). Lets hope we have many others like this :)). Also, wouldn't really mind going to Opryland and actually staying in lodgings sometime ;-).