Dragons and Jedis

After Saturday's Rock-n-Romp, we went right to bed so we could wake up at 5:00am and drive to Nashville. Warren had a kendo shinsa/seminar and I planned a visit with my old college roomie who's just had a baby. The monkeys requested a playground visit, specifially Dragon Park. (We'd visited when Satchel was just a baby, and both monkeys were eager to re-check it out.) Satchel also requested a visit to the forest, but I didn't know how to get there and no one could seem to tell me.

I'm notoriously bad with directions. When we go anywhere outside of Memphis, Warren does ALL of the driving. On Sunday I was equipped with a Tom Tom GPS unit and Google Maps on my iphone. I really like Google Maps, but it's hard to use when you are the person driving. Therefore, I relied on the Tom Tom, which actually talks to you. In our case, the Tom Tom is voiced by Yoda. ("Right you must go.")

Yoda successfully got us to East Nashville where my friend and her sweet family live. We were a bit early, so the monkeys and I checked out the awesomeness that is East Nashville and even played a bit at East Park. Once the monkeys got their yayas out, we spent a few hours at my friend's house. After that, we grabbed some lunch (more on that later) and then went in search of Dragon Park.

After my initial success in getting across the city, I relied on Yoda to safely navigate us to Dragon Park. (I was able to determine it's real name, Fannie Mae Dees Park and address on the Internet.) After about 30 minutes of circling the city, exiting and re-entering the "motorway," and fearing that I might end up in Chattanooga, I finally pulled over, turned off the Tom Tom, and consulted a map.

The monkeys were very supportive. "Yoda sucks!" they ranted from the back as I desperately tried to get my bearings. After another 20 minutes, I happily pulled up to a park and said, "We're here! I did it!" A few feet later, we saw the Parthenon and I realized the celebration was a bit premature.

I thought it might be a happy accident, but whatever interest the monkeys had in the Parthenon after viewing Percy Jackson, did not compare to their fantastical vision of Dragon Park. We hopped back in the car and eventually did find the park. And thankfully, the monkeys were impressed.



There were many other things to play on around the sculpture, clean bathrooms, and a working water fountain. On top of that, there were lots and lots of families. I plopped down in a chair and rested after our long journey while the monkeys thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

After an hour or so, we went in search of Warren, who thankfully was just 2.3 miles away. He passed his 2-kyu rank testing and was in good spirits. He looked a little sad when I climbed in the passenger seat, but after my re-telling of the day's events, he agreed to do the rest of the driving.

Our final Nashville stop was an hour long shopping spree at Trader Joe's. We loaded up on dinner, snacks for the car, and goodies for our pantry at home.

We made it home around 8:30pm. What a day! Next time, we'll spend the night. (And eat at all of the places I wanted to go to that were closed on Sunday!)