Today was the day we started heading back west. Brandon is a huge fan of the Percy Jackson novels (and movie), so his only to do item for Nashville was to see the Parthenon (in the book Percy and his friends have to collect 3 of Persephone's pearls so they can leave the underworld and one of them is at the Parthenon in Nashville (another is at the St. Louis Arch), where they have to fight a hydra (5 headed beast).
After the Parthenon, we drove down Music Row, which was really just houses converted into studios (and kind of disappointing) and the downtown area that houses all the bars that up and coming artists sing at (not really our scene, so we offered to watch the kids while everyone else walked around, but it was so hot we had no takers). We headed over to Opry Mills Mall to eat at the Rainforest Cafe, since the girls had never been to one before. This is how Jacob handles the noise of all the animals and the rainstorm:
He ignores it. After an early dinner, Rick and Jacob went and hung out in the car (by choice and both seemed content with it) while the rest of us adults followed the kids around (seriously, how did I end up with a kid that likes the mall?). We quickly found out that it was Tennessee's tax free weekend (no sales tax on clothing and school supplies) so the girls led the way to their favorite stores for some back to school shopping. Normally I would cringe, but it was actually kind of fun.
