Tennessee Trip: Day 3 - From Chattanooga to Nashville

Tuesday, July 8, 2025

I slept pretty awful, but I managed to get up around 8:30am. We packed up our stuff and headed out just after 10am. Gabe wanted to go to the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum/station. We actually didn’t go in the museum, just the gift shop where Gabe bought himself a hat, and Aaliyah got a cinnamon roll and a cookie since it was her birthday that very day!

Browsing the gift shop. Gabe finally settled on a hat

Chillin' on the benches while we decided where to have lunch

There were lots of trains to see outside. We had a hard time keeping the Blaylock boys from crawling all over them.

For lunch we decided to eat at Uncle Larry’s. It was a small, insignificant looking resturaunt. But man was the food every good. In fact, it was hands-down the best meal we had on the entire trip. Our waitress was very nice and friendly. Most all of us ordered the catfish. Lisa ordered a few desserts as well—blackberry cobbler and key lime cake. Aside from the catfish, I ordered fried green tomatoes, hush puppies, the white beans, and fried okra. The food was exceptionally delicious, and we ate just about everything off our plates.

The key lime cake. It was delicious.

Don't be fooled by the average appearance. This food was top-notch.

The blackberry cobbler was also amazing. 

Then we drove the 2.5-hour drive to our next Airbnb house in Nashville. Our new house was really nice! Lisa especially liked it—she couldn’t stop telling us how awesome it was. What made it awesome was the fact that it had a pool and an amazing view. The house also had a game room in the garage. The kids jumped in the pool as soon as we would let them even though it rained most of the day.

Erik enjoyed hitting golf balls down the hill.

Since it was Aaliyah’s birthday, we went out for pizza because that was what she wanted. We decided to go to Sky King Pizza since it was the closest. The pizza was pretty good, but the sodas we ordered were flat and gross.

Being silly gwillys together!

After eating, Erik, a few of the boys, and I went back to the house, and the Blaylocks went to the grocery store to pick up some food items and a cheesecake for Aaliyah. As I was getting out of the car, I noticed some stemmed flowers strewn around in the beginning of the wooded area near the driveway. They were in near-perfect condition, so they must have been just recently dumped there. I gathered them all up and was even able to find a vase for them in the house. They made a perfect birthday gift for Aaliyah!

Erik tried to light a fire in the fire pit, but it was too wet to light. Bummer since Erik had to use the grill in place of a lighter since we couldn’t find any anywhere in the house. We sang happy birthday to Aaliyah and ate some of the cheesecake. Unfortunately, the cheesecake was icky, and I only had a small bite before passing on to Erik.

I took advantage of the kid-free pool 

Happy 14th Birthday, Aaliyah! What a fun way to celebrate.