Today we drove most of the day, so Anders and I slept while Annika played on her tablet and Dak drove. I did go through the pictures from our last day in Nashville, which was packed. We started the day checking out Nashville guitar stores. Annika loved playing on the ukuleles, so she might start taking lessons:. Meanwhile, Anders found the most inappropriate guitar for his age group. Dak tried out a bunch of guitars and we found this really different guitar, made in South Africa: I checked out the banjos and a slide guitar; Annika finally got a harmonica. Afterwards, we went to the hat shop, where Dak found a hat he’s wanted forever and I tried on some of the more beautiful hats. Annika got that puppy hat at a gas station and wore it most of the vacation. It was a little out of place at the hat store, but the guitar store guys LOVED her and gave her free stickers.

On the highway, we finally had a chance to get a few pictures of the super-ugly confederate statue: I did a little research about the statue, and it turns out it was sculpted in 1998! The city was going to put some landscaping to obscure it, but the state didn’t allow them to do so. It’s that ugly color because it was vandalized with red/pink paint last December. It’s so terrible in person. Ugh.

We went to the Willie Nelson and Friends Museum next. It was the most kitschy place ever, but it had a lot of great artifacts. My favorite thing was the Braille Playboy magazine in the first display and the great outfits.

Next door to the Willie Nelson museum was “Cooter’s Place,” which had a Dukes of Hazzard museum inside. I was kind of blown away by how many ugly plastic toys and things that were licensed. Additionally, the guy who owns it, the actor who played Cooter, is an unabashed supporter of preserving Confederate monuments and Trumper, and this was evident in the stickers available for purchase. It was pretty gross, overall, but I did take a picture of the kids with the car.

After the tourist traps and craziness, we headed to a local park where there was a huge mosaic Dragon and other art. I took way too many pictures. Here are a few:

There was also a lotus made of bicycle frames that was really fun:

We ended the day at the Loveless Motel and Cafe, which had the best food in Nashville. The caramel sweet potatoes, hash brown casserole, and creamed corn were to die for.

We are ending today in downtown Chicago, in a historical hotel on the Magnificent Mile. This could not be more different from where we were just 24 hours ago.