Why does that alarm keep going off at 7am?

Oh yeah...this is a "productive" vacation - which means that we have "agendas" and "action items" and "goals"...things of that nature. As far as I'm concerned, we are still on CA time...going to bed at 1am and waking up at 5am. Of course when you put a 4 year old to bed in a hotel room, all other occupants must be quiet and do whatever needs to be done using only the light of the stove hood in our mini-kitchen. Thank goodness for free high-speed internet that allows us to quietly blog into the night. Ok, I'm off track.

Goals....right. So, we had goals whilst vacationing in lovely Murfreesboro, TN. We wanted to get a "lay of the land" as well as look at some potential neighborhoods. In order to do that, we enlisted the help of our TN based real estate agent, Kami Shipman who contacted us (interesting, huh?) after hearing from her BofA appraiser husband that some tech support guy based in Concord, CA (that would be Mike) was interested in TN real estate information. So, we had scheduled some time with her when we planned our trip with the purpose of having her give us a tour of the area and, based on our set criteria, show us some neighborhoods where we could potentially buy.



So after waking up, cooking eggs and toast in our fabulous mini-kitchen we set out to meet Kami at her office here in Murfreesboro. We instantly liked her (we've been emailing for awhile anyway) and felt comfortable with her. She seemed to really understand our whacked out ideas of what we are looking for in a house (we are SO weird and picky!). We talked for awhile, then she took us in her car and we went on our tour. We did not look at any houses today, but narrowed down some neighborhoods that appealed to us so we could drill down (sorry, database programmer language just fits here) a bit the next day and make some appointments. It's amazing what you can actually find when you are with someone who knows where they are going...up till now, Mike and I have done a fine job of getting ourselves a bit lost and only finding places to eat :)

We fell in love with a particular neighborhood called "Royal Glen"....the lot sizes were big, the houses were far enough away from each other and it was just tucked away enough from civilization, but close enough to it if that makes sense. We'll be looking at one of the houses for sale in that neighborhood to get a feel for the interior style within that hood.

After our tour was over, we said goodbye to Kami (until tomorrow) and headed back to the hotel. Yes, we refreshed. And, we actually had left overs for lunch! That meat from Jim 'n Nick's did just fine to tide us over till dinner....that and a little sumthin' sumthin' from everyones favorite corporate monopoly, Starbucks. Man, I really love those new Orange Mocha's...oooh...and today I was naughty and went caffeinated! Ok...sorry, off track again.

After lunch, we decided to shoot on over to Historic Franklin, TN and check out some of the sights there. Of course, we stopped off at a new park on the outskirts of TN called, Pinkerton. Now - I don't know what it is with these middle Tennessee people, but they sure like their "fort" type play structures! It's not like they had some war here or something...oh wait. Right. Nevermind. Anyway - these structures are amazing and Abby has the best time playing on them! After the park, we headed over to a historic site called, "Carnton Plantation". More civil war stuff...I don't know, it was this house, and some generals died there and it's big...you know, stuff like that. Why don't I just have Mike write about it later. Yeah, we'll do that. I was smart enough to take some flicks, so you can see those by clicking here.

After walking the grounds at Carnton, we headed over to the "Factory" shopping place that looked cool. Unfortunately, they were all closed (it was after 5pm at this point)....a man on the street interview answer to why things shut down at 5pm: "Girl, the sidewalks roll up at 5pm". Whatever that means.

So, we decided we need to refresh ourselves back at the hotel and regroup. On our way home, we took highway 96 (which is not like a highway  in the CA sense of a highway). It was a nicely paved, two laner that went through beautiful rolling hills with lots of horses and big beautiful farms and houses....it absolutely knocked my socks off.

DINNER

We had THE best dinner tonight. We decided to check out this semi-dive called "Mike's Catfish Cafe" here in Murfreesboro. Of course, I'm not so naive to think that I make the worlds best catfish so I went in with an open mind. The food was great...hush puppies, fried green tomatoes, catfish...YUM-O. One of the best parts of this dining experience was the fact that Mike's is a SMOKE FREE DINING ESTABLISHMENT! Mike (my Mike that is) almost did a back flip in the parking lot when he saw that! He is not a fan of the smoke....down right allergic to it if you ask him. We were also happy to hear that the TN Senate recently passed a ban on smoking in restaurants and most work places. This information came to us from our darling college-aged waitress Ashley who didn't seem quite as pleased as we did. Bummer for her.

After our best dinner in Murfreesboro was done, we headed home (not before filling up our gas tank at $2.88/gallon.....oh, don't be jealous). After a phone call to Aunt Jan, we all settled down (Mike might say "hunkered", but that's him) for the evening. Abby to sleep and Mike and Kristin to bloggin.

Stay tuned for Mike's most interesting take on the Carnton Plantation fun.