Tennessee Vacation ...

… day 4.  And a fabulous day it was, too!

I’m very excited about today! 

As we have reservations for a 10:00 am tour of Carnton House we were up and out of the hotel by just after 9:00 am.  I had purchased the “Behind the Scenes” tour … which is a longer tour than just the house tour.  I wanted to see it all!

We were at Carnton House with plenty of time to check in and look through the gift shop.  We also discovered that we were the only ones on this tour … just like yesterday’s Carter house tour!  Our wonderful tour guide was James … which I suspect was the cousin of the author of the book I mentioned yesterday as he was very knowledgeable of the author and the house.  The tour was supposed to be only 90 minutes but James spent over two hours with us! 

We first toured the beautiful house where James told us the history of it in addition to lots of information on the McGavock’s … who owned the house at the time of the Battle of Franklin.  Then it was on to some of the out buildings and finally we ended up in the cemetery. 

After James left us to our own devices we spend some time in the beautiful gardens.  And that’s where we came across the very cool broadhead skink (could also be a common five-lined skink) in the lower left picture.  How cool is he!  I spent some time getting up close and personal as I knew he was harmless.  I love it … whether he is a broadhead or a common five-lined skink!

We were at Carnton House for about four hours before heading back to our resort in Crossville.  We took a different route back to the resort so that we could stop at another Civil War National Battlefield … Stones River National Battlefield.   There is a driving tour at the site that we did and another cemetery that we visited. 

We stopped for supper on the way back … getting back to our condo by 6:30 pm.  After relaxing for a bit we headed out again for a walk on one of the trails at the resort.  It was a lovely evening.

Of all the days of our vacation I’d say this was my favorite as it realized a long standing goal of visiting Franklin, TN and Carnton House.

Backblipped: July 18, 2023 … almost caught up with vacation pics.