DailyHistMaymesterTrip.blog

Tuesday May 19th was another early day for me. I went to bed around 10:00 PM, but I could not fall asleep until 12:00 AM. I woke up at around 5:50 AM. I took a quick shower, got dressed, packed my bag, and went downstairs to have breakfast by around 6:30 AM. I had a very hearty breakfast: scrambled eggs, chopped potatoes, a blueberry muffin, some toast, a strawberry yogurt, and some coffee. I had such a good breakfast that I had to go for a walk afterwards for about 20 minutes. We were out of the hotel by exactly 8:00 AM.

We made it to the Hermitage by 8:24 AM. We came in with our tickets and checked in. We were given a brief introduction to the mansion, property, and of Andrew Jackson himself when we checked into the site. After our introduction, we made our way towards Andrew Jacksons mansion. The walk from the check-in to his mansion was around a 10 minute walk. Additionally, between Andrew Jackson home and the check-in was a middle ground with 250 flags symbolizing America’s 250th birthday. In this area, there were different flags with different amount of starts, for example, there was “The Great Star Flag,” “23-Star Flag,” “25-Star Flag,” “27-Star Flag,” and “29-Star Flag.”

We got to the Mansion around 8:42 AM. It was a really cool place to visit because the tour guide explained how the mansion looked like it does now. He explained that Andrew Jackson first built a small house for him because he started out very poor, but after the war in New Orleans he got very famous because he lead his army to victory in under 40 minutes, he added onto his house to make it bigger. Andrew Jackson house burn down due to a heavy fire in 1837, so he just remodeled his house and made it even bigger and better. A cool point about Andrew Jackson is that his wife, Rachel, at some point in their life was married to two men. Divorces back then took very long to get finalized and due to that fact Rachel was in the process of getting divorced but before that was processed she married Andrew Jackson. It was a very fun and educating tour of the mansion. I learnt a tremendous amount in the visit to Jackson’s home.

After our tour of the Mansion we were given the independence to go and check out Andrew’s garden and other parts of his land. The garden was kept up very well and looked beautiful. I enjoyed being able to see what his home would have looked like when he was alive. Although, I am still not sure if the garden was supposed to resemble what it looked like back in Andrew Jackson’s time, so I am going to assume that it is.

This was one of many artifacts held inside of the check-in area. After we got done with touring around Jackson’s property, we had some extra time to look around at all of the impressive things that Jackson used in his time. This was a chariot that Jackson used to get to places. Additionally, there was what Jackson wore on a stature with all of his other accessories and his weapons that he used a great amount in the wars that he fought in.

After our tour of Andrew Jackson’s mansion, we started making our way toward the Smoky Mountains. We left The Heritage at around 10:45 AM and around 20 minutes later we made a stop at a gas station to get some water and snacks. I hot me some water and some protein bars.

We made our lunch stop at Buc-ee’s at around 12:30, This was the first time I had been to a gas station this big. I am pretty sure that the highest number I had seen on a gas pump was 390. That is 195 individual pumps that were at this monster place. We all went in and got our lunch and drinks. I went in to get flabbergasted by the amount of stuff and food that was inside. I had never seen this much amount of jerky in my life. I got me a banana pudding, sliced pineapples, a veggie wrap, a fried apple pie, and a bottle of water.We left as soon as we could.

Around 4:00 PM we stopped at this place in Tennessee. I do not remember exactly where this was in Tennessee, but the reason we stopped here was because the gps was taking our bus through a route our bus could not pass through. Our amazing driver went outside to ask for a better alternative and we took this opportunity to go look around and get some coffee. We were stopped her for around 35 minutes.

This was our final stop before we made it to our hotel Econolodge. We were driving through The Great Smoky mountains, we count not go to the visitors center because they closed at 5:00 PM and we were too late. We kept passing up perfect spots to take photos and after a while of asking we finally stopped to look around and take some photos. It was a very fun experience to have because this view was just amazing.

We made it to our hotel by 7:10 PM and after we all got settled into our rooms and had some time to loosen up we all went to get some dinner. There were two food places across the street and one was closed. Me, our two professors, and all of the girls ate at the restaurant “All Fried Up,” where most of us had their fish. It was delicious by the way. All of the other boys made their way to the subway down the street and had their dinner there. They had a fun time as well. After we all got done eating, we all slowly made our way to the hotel and got ready for bed.