Tennessee is not a bad place to be.

Thursday night I watched the sun go down over the fields of Virginia and woke Friday to watch it rise over the train tracks of Knoxville. I'm in Sunny Tennessee. And boy, is Knoxville pulling out all the stops to impress me. I've seen art, I've seen sun,I've seen tiny puppies make friends with other tiny puppies, I've seen Cheesecake on a stick AND I've seen Julia Nunes. You incorrigible little flirt Knoxville, wooing me this way. Julia Nunes is someone that was already on my US Mission list but I had know idea that she would be HERE and NOW and for FREE or that Knoxville was having their annual Dogwood arts festival. 

Julia Nunes: World's Most Infectious Smile.

Before we continue with Tennessee though, I feel I should back up and wrap up DC.

So i went to Big Dog Obama's House. On the way there I saw an awesome white building and taking photos of it I thought to myself "They must make a lot of the buildings white around here, like its the fashionable thing to do". No Sascha, that isn't a white house, it's THE White House. No sighting of BD Obama or his new dog Bo. There was a protest starting in the park across the street though. Something to do with Tax according to Mr security guard. He didn't seem to know or care much about it. Dude seen it all before. There wasn't much protesting happening when I went and had a look see, just rotations of the Forrest Gump soundtrack playing while people milled about (seriously guys get some new protest songs already). I then realised I was wearing my newly acquired Bloomsburg Hoodie and figured they might not appreciate being represented at a protest so I left to do a lap of Barrack's place.

By the time my circuit brings me back, the protest has grown. It seems every redneck with an agenda has come out to play. I still don't hear anything about taxes but I see this: 

And hear a lot of pledging of allegiance and star spangled bannering. I start to get a little scared and figure its time to run away just as this arrives:

I scampered away to the safety of the nearest art gallery.

This whole day was wet and miserable and couple that with the endless amount of Neo-Greek Monuments I got a little over it. It's no wonder the Vietnam War Memorial was so controversial. It's the polar opposite to all the white stone pillars. Speaking of the Vietnam War Memorial, The chick that designed it, Maya Lin, had an exhibition on at the Corcoran Gallery while I was there. She's no 90 year old french woman but definitely does some nice work. 

The following day the sun came out so I went in search of Japanese Cherry blossoms. Alas they had flowered the week before.

Tomorrow I move on to Nashville and after that I've been convinced to go to Memphis as well. We shall see. Unfortunately all this slothing about in the sun has given me the sniffles so I'll see where the mood takes me.