Battle of Franklin 145 years later

It is the 145th Anniversary of the Battle of Franklin. This past Saturday we attended the Blue and Gray Days at Carnton Plantation in Franklin. They had a small reenactment and a luminary lighting.

This post will be about the luminaries. There were 10,000 of them, for all the casualties of this horrific battle in 1864. We arrived at Carnton at about 1:30pm. Sunset came around 5pm. As the sky grew darker, the sight of so many lights was stunning. I stood across the Confederate Cemetery from them, and I couldn't help think about the lights that were taken away so many years ago, and lay under the ground here before me.

I hope these photos can give some sense of the amazing sight of so many candles.

Just when you think

you are out of the woods. And JUST when we had finished paying off the broken wrist that my daughter managed back in April-she breaks it again. Yes, on a lovely early November trip to the Smokies, on a beautiful day that I will get to spend with my mother and my husband. Daughter is going with my sister and nephew to a Boy Scouts cavern trip, and before they even leave the parking lot, she falls while racing around and breaks it again. There goes the weekend. And the Christmas money.


We have had a bit of time to visit some local places lately, and some local events, and I will be posting about those in the next few days.

Things have been crazy

I was pretty upset for awhile after July 4, as can be seen in the post below.

The rest of the summer was a mixed bag.

Our air conditioner went out, it was rough for a few days. And then my daughter and I were told to go spend a few weeks with my mom in Sevierville. I felt bad for my husband having to stay at home in the heat-but at least he wasn't home all day in it like we would have been.

So we spent a couple of weeks near the Smokies. I got out to visit quite a few places that I had been wanting to see for a long time. John Sevier's home, Sam Houston's schoolhouse, several cemeteries and other historical places. And I got to spend time with family.

I'd like to say I will post photos, but I won't lie-I've been playing a LOT of World of Warcraft lately and I just can't seem to bring myself to work on my website-as much as part of me REALLY wants to get it done. C'est le vie. :(

And now school has started, and the kiddo has already brought home a cold that she shook off in one weekend-but has stuck with me for just over a week now.

And the car has so many things wrong with it that I fear driving it around during the day-and the AC on the truck doesn't work. So I sit at home...and play.

Well, at least we were lucky enough to get out for a Titans game(hubby's boss gave him the tickets), and I got to take loads of photos at that.

Sigh.

Memorial at LP Field

Fitting that today is July 9th. We went to the memorial for Steve McNair at the Titans playing field, LP Field, today. We went early to avoid the crowds. And I couldn't bring myself to go to the actual funeral home and viewing. I wanted to remember Steve where he made us happy.

There was a photo board, notebooks to sign, and a video playing on the jumbotron. I don't recall much of what I wrote on the notebook, I could barely see what I was writing, I just couldn't stop crying.

I took a few photos. Just a few. It was a beautiful Columbia Blue sky. I remember as a kid, back in Houston we always said that God was an Oilers fan, that was why the sky was Columbia Blue. I thought about that today.
This poster was just outside the gates. Someone had placed some candles near the base of the pillar.
The photos of Steve.
Flower arrangements and mementos.
Video of Steve's life on the jumbotron.
Steve's name on the "Ring of Honor".

Thanks for the memories Steve.

Remembering a Titan

There are times when life is shown to be bigger than a game. Yesterday was one of those days.

I live near Nashville. I moved to Tennessee the same year that the Oilers moved from Houston to Tennessee. If I'd gotten a dollar for every time someone asked me "are you following the Oilers?", well it probably would have paid for the U-haul truck. But no, I was following my mom and just starting over in my life. But the Oilers had recently given me a reason to be happy that I was moving to the same place that they were. It was Steve McNair. He really hadn't played very much by the time I left late in 1996(he was drafted in 1995), but we knew he was going to be good.

And good he was. Even great at times. He was everything I loved about football and he was what I expect out of people. He loved life. He gave back. He never complained. He never wanted the credit for the good but always took credit for the bad. He played no matter what. His heart was as big as Nashville and his smile was as wide as Tennessee. Yes, I cursed him when he defected to our hated rivals in his final years, but I still loved him.

Yes, I met him once. We went to one training camp practice day back in 1999. It was a very hot August day, but Steve, out of all of those that came over to the fans, stayed and signed for everyone that was there. I still have that card. And the two jerseys(Oilers and Titans), the bobblehead, the action figures. And I was excited to know that after retiring, he was coming back to Nashville to live. And I am shocked that it is over so soon.

So many people I find lately who think it is all about them at all times. I mean, the jerks who obviously don't care about anyone but themself and continue to shoot fireworks until late in the night-do they think everyone else in the neighborhood cannot hear them? But they don't care about anyone else. And the people in game who think their fun is more important than MY fun. Really? Would you block off all of the other checkout lanes in the grocery store so everyone else can't check out because you think it's funny? No, whether it is the internet or being in a vehicle, people just think they can get away with whatever they want to do, regardless of the consequences-because usually there are no consequences. And for some reason, so many people in this world have gotten in their heads that it really doesn't matter how what they are doing affects other people, so they will just do what they want. It's all me, me, me. Sometimes I feel like I am the only person left with a conscience.

Sorry for that ramble, but Steve was not one of those people. And with all of the celebrity deaths in the past week, I am saddened by this one the most. Because Steve wasn't really a "celebrity", regardless of how many people knew who he was and the stage he played on. Steve was Superman and Clark Kent at the same time. Steve was a true hero when most sports figures really should not be.

I'm going to miss you Steve. I still can't believe this has happened. I had hoped to wake up this morning to find it all a bad dream. But it wasn't. And I will be sad for a long time.

The Unlucky photographer

That's me.

I've been perusing quite a lot of Flickr lately. I've noticed that many of the best photos(or at least from the photographers I like the most), get the best shots with the right light. Whether it be bright, sunny, no clouds in the sky days, or the perfect light of sunrise or sunset. And I hear that some won't even post photos from days that was cloudy.

And then there's me. I wish I was a photographer I guess. I have taken thousands and thousands of photos since I bought that first Pentax back in 1984. But me, I have got to be the worst or unluckiest at getting shots.

I can't buy sunny days to save my life. If there is a great day to be out taking photos, well that's a day that I can't get out to take some for whatever reason. And if I can get out, by the time I get to what I want to photograph, the clouds have shown up and ruined the day.

The things I want to photograph always seem to:
Face north when it's winter
Face east in the evening and west in the morning
Look terrible without foliage and I find them in the winter or I find them in the summer and you can't see them at all because of all of the foliage
Or of course, nobody feels good and we don't feel like stopping at every single place just to take a photo, so I take it from the car and it's 1.blurry 2.cut off half 3.crooked 4.shows all the dirt on the windows or parts of the frame.

Sigh. I can't win. Makes me wonder if I should even keep taking photos. But I know I want to because I just love doing it. Even if I am the only person(as it always appears) that likes looking at my photos. They are a record of what I've seen. My memory can't always recall all of these things. Plus they help record things that will be gone(are gone now) before they are gone.

I just wish I had better luck actually getting the photos taken. :(

YaY Penguins!!

Pittsburgh Penguins are Stanley Cup Champions! Hooray! I've been a Pens fan for a long time, my third fave team behind the Preds and Bruins, so I was a happy camper last night! I think I'll be wearing my old Jagr jersey around all summer. :)

Almost as important, the Wings lost. I can't fricken stand them. And their lovely fans sitting up in the stands booing the whole time after the game. Nice. Losers. I will always root for the Lions and Tigers, the Wings can rot for all I care.

My website

isn't working for some reason. The service page says there are no problems, but the pages won't come up. I hate when it does this. So I log out of Warcraft to work on adding some pages and it's not working. Does that mean I should go back to playing Warcraft?? I guess so. Or spend hours reading other blogs and staring at photos on Flickr. I'm always worried that I screwed something up to make it not work. But it should be fine-I can log into my account, everything is up-to-date, it doesn't list any outages and says 'no problems reported', I can log into my ftp(not sure if I can upload anything though), but that page just takes forever to load and then only shows a white page. :(

Or I could search Google maps and street view trying to figure out where this house is located. I think it is near Springfield, TN, as the photos around in the original photos folder show the Robertson County Courthouse right before this-but I have looked all around Google maps in that area and cannot find it!
Windmill House somewhere near Sprinfield, Robertson County, Tennessee


update: went to the library, come back and now the website works just fine. Just a kink for awhile I suppose. Sigh.

Road trip

It's the little things that make me happy. Really, all I need is my husband and daughter in the car headed someplace I've never been(or even someplace I've haven't been since I got my new camera). After sitting in our den for a week, missing my kid at camp, feeling like I've never felt before, we got out Saturday to get some Vitamin D from that big shiny thing in the sky.

Our trip took us down I-24 towards Chattanooga. We exited in Manchester and picked up State Route 41 South. This is the Dixie Highway and was the north/south route prior to the Interstate coming through. Along this little stretch, near the small towns of Hillsboro and Pelham, I got photos of 2 "See Rock City" barns. The road then climbed up onto the Cumberland Plateau and we were in Monteagle. We drove east a bit, but then backtracked towards Monteagle and points west.

Just past Monteagle is a town called Sewanee. Located here is the University of the South. We stopped and walked around and took tons of photos of one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. The gothic architecture, the towers, the stained glass windows, it was amazing. And then we got hungry. There isn't much in Sewanee(not that we could find anyway), so we headed down the road. The road meanders down the mountains towards the west. The first town you come to is Cowan. They have a nice little Railroad Museum(we didn't have time to go in, but we stopped and I got several photos of the train and downtown area). But no fast food here either. Finally, a few more miles down the road we come to Winchester, county seat of Franklin County, and a Burger King(which thrilled the kid, she got Pokemon cards).

Unforunately after that hubby's back started to ache and my stomach started to ache, so we headed up towards Tullahoma to catch I-24 home. And I spent the rest of the day on the couch in pain watching D-Day shows on the History Channel.

Hopefully will post some photos soon.

Lonely, I'm so lonely

My baby is at camp this week. I've never really been away from her for this long. Oh sure she spent a week with Grandma when she was about 5, but she was with Grandma! She is 10 now and she is spending a week over 2 hours away with nobody I know!! I know she will be having so much fun, she won't even miss me. But I worry. She is going to be doing things I wish I could watch her do. Swimming, canoeing, archery, ping pong, arts and crafts. And I am thinking about her with nearly every waking moment. It's been a day and a half and I feel sick to my stomach most of the time and I had trouble sleeping last night.

I am sure she will be fine, but is it so wrong that I jump every time the phone rings? I know it's quiet, really REALLY quiet around the house-just the way I like it-but I just can't wait until Friday gets here!