Nashville Skyline

For spring break, we traveled to Nashville for a conference and to explore, to shop, to enjoy the warmer weather. Nashville is fun every time we visit. The weird combination of universities, music producers, musicians, bankers, Christian book publishers, good food, and New South sensibility makes it interesting.

We had to visit the Frist Art Museum, which is one of our favorites. We love the Art Quest area upstairs where children, adults, grandparents get to make art that's somewhat influenced by the lead exhibit. The current exhibit (Matisse, Picasso, and the School of Paris) is Impressionist art from the Cone Collection in the Baltimore Museum of Art. We made cubist collages, prints, paintings, drawings to music, sketches, still lifes. Sometimes I think we spend as much time in Art Quest as we do in the exhibits. This is a beautiful space and one of the most impressive hands-on art areas in any museum we've visited. The photo is of the sketch area.

The Adventure Science Center was a favorite of the youngest family member. He particularly liked the seven-story climbing area, the laser fight between the white blood cells and the germs, the lever that lets you lift a car, the instruments to play on. The climbing area leads up to a dome where the adventurers can have a wonderful view of the Nashville skyline.

Since we spent much of last spring studying about Greece, we were interested in seeing the replica of the Parthenon. While the original is in Athens, the one in Nashville is probably more like it was when it was built. Built for a World's Fair, the temporary structure was designed to be an exact replica. Now reinforced as a permanent museum, this building also houses plaster molds of the Elgin marbles as well. But the most impressive part is the 47-foot scupture of Athena that is now covered in gold.

My husband particularly likes to go to The Great Escape, which we have discovered is right off the I-65 interstate at the Broadway exit. That's in the middle of the music area. Besides great CD's, DVD's, we also somehow managed to pick up a few more Star Wars guys. Gee, I wonder why.