Franklin..

A few days ago, I had to go to Franklin Tennessee to do some work with a consultant. I had not visited that part of Nashville suburbia. I've been to downtown, the airport area, and Lebanon Road church of Christ multiple times. I've visited Brentwood (home of Dave Ramsey) and Hendersonville (home of my little sister Melissa and her family). But never Franklin..

The trip started out with my getting a rental car at Hertz. The lady at the counter talked me into taking a Prius. I'd never driven a hybrid or a car like that. The car had push button start and I had a lot of trouble getting the exact sequence down of starting the car. The back class had a large horizontal divider making it hard to see out the back. When I picked up Skip Hancock to head to Franklin, I found out the car beeped the whole time it backed up. I was sorely tempted just to take the car back and ask for another one, but I didn't. Our trip went fine. We ran into traffic at the I-24/I-65 split, but besides that, we had no trouble.

Our work went well. We had a nice leisurely lunch at Steak-n-Shake. I polished off a Double Chocolate milk shake. After our day's work was over, we went to check into our hotel. All of the hotels at our exit were a step below where I generally stay. I am a Drury/Hilton/Mariott guy. These hotels were of the Comfort Inn/Days Inn/Ramada/La Quinta variety. We could have stayed at Cool Springs (a few miles away) but the rooms were 80-100 more. So, I opted for the La Quinta. The room was fine (for 55.00) but it just wasn't what I was used to. It wasn't quite as large and the bathroom wasn't quite as big. There was no workout room. The morning breakfast wasn't as good as even a Fairfield or Hampton. I guess I've gotten a bit spoiled :-) Everybody was nice there. I struck up a conversation with the desk clerk upon seeing him wearing a New York Giants jacket. I talked about my son who liked the Giants and we rehashed the stunning Eagles loss again. The wireless internet worked fine. I did get startled about 6:45am with the loud emptying of a dumpster. All-in-all though it was certainly fine for one night.

That night we at the Franklin Chop House. I have this standing policy (which used to drive my former colleague Craig Vincek crazy) of not wanting to eat anywhere that I could eat at Paducah (prompting my choice that night). They brought out an excellent basket of biscuits and the ribeye dinner was great. My sides of broccoli and baked potato were plentiful. We got out in time to get to the hotel to watch the UK-Alabama game. I shouldn't have bothered. UK got muscled around and got down 20 in the second half. They made a great rally to get the lead to 1, but made several mistakes at the end and lost.

The rest of the work the day as well. We stopped at the Cool Springs exit because I had to go to Krispy Kreme. Alas, the hot light was not on but I got excellent doughnuts nonetheless plus some to take home. We stopped in Clarksville and I devoured a rack of ribs at Chili's. I got home in plenty of time to go to Wednesday night Bible Study as well.

All-in-all it was a decent overnight trip for my first visit to Franklin. We'll be doing more work with this consultant in the future, so it looks like I'll be back..