Fifty-three

Nashville, August 2008

Saturday: LONG drive down. Seth did really well. Got checked in at the resort around 6:00 pm, went and had a mediocre steak dinner, and called it a night, we were too tired for much else. Seth thought it would be cool to sleep on the sofa bed ... but I woke up around 11:30 and Seth was in bed with me and Brian was on the sofa bed, unconscious, TV remote clutched in his fist. He really watches too much television.

Sunday: drove around near the resort, found the Aquarium ... and here I should confess that my internet research failed me; I thought it was a real aquarium ... it's a restaurant called the Aquarium ... just a bunch of fish tanks! I felt like an idiot! But, there's a place just across the mall from it called Sting-Ray Reef with a big tank full of sting-rays and small fish and sharks, and then some other tanks with other critters (snakes, toads, piranha). You can buy a little dish of shrimp and feed the sting-rays. Seth wasn't interested so I did it. They're so soft! We also rode a carousel there. 'Cause, you know. Sting-rays. Carousels. Naturally! At 2:00 pm we attended Backyardigans Live! at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in downtown Nashville. Seth really seemed to enjoy it. Brian only fell asleep once. At 5:15 pm, we boarded the General Jackson Showboat for a dinner cruise down the Cumberland River. We mostly had a nice time ... I'll just say that it was a long time to be on a boat with a three-year-old, and leave it at that. I did snap some pics of a big sculpture on the banks of the river near downtown, a Google search reveals its name is "Ghost Ballet of the East Bank Machineworks." Seth thought it was a roller-coaster.

Monday: we'd originally set this day aside for driving up to the Land Between the Lakes and being all outdoorsy and stuff. It rained pretty much all day, so we changed our plans. At 10:00, we went to the Adventure Science Center, which is WAY cool. Seth had a blast. The whole middle of the place is one big climber with slides here and there; you can climb all the way to the top of the building and look out over the city; really, really cool. Seth scaled it twice. There was a small dinosaur exhibit; too small, really, but Seth liked it. We went to a show about stars and planets in the planetarium that was pretty cool (and narrated by Luke Skywalker), and the slide in the Small Intestines part of the body exhibit makes a really loud fart sound when you hit the bottom ... another highlight for Seth. It takes so little to make him happy. We left a little after lunch time, went and had some lunch, and then laid around the room for a while until we lucked out and got a small break in the rain, so Seth could go swimming. (The indoor pool had been drained the day before; some hoosier guest broke glass in it so they had to drain it and clean it out.) While at the outdoor pool, Seth scared the crap out of us by just jumping in and going straight to the bottom. I had just gotten out of the big pool and gotten in the little pool, and no sooner had I done so than he got *out* of the little pool and tried to drown himself in the big pool. Brian was only four or five feet away but it took him a few seconds to get to him. Seth didn't act very upset afterwards, but Brian was pretty spooked by it. Of course, Brian was *already* traumatized ... the first thing he did was jump in the pool with his cell phone in the pocket of his swim trunks! He's still trying to get it dried out.

Tuesday: long drive home. Seth watched his movies most of the way, and Brian and I were so glad we'd found an audio book to listen to. We're not finished with it, it has thirteen discs!

In any case, it was nice to get away, and nice to get home. Seth was worn clean out, I got him to bed at 8:00 tonight, which is early, with no argument from him. I'm about to go to bed myself!