My daughter Janine had today off, so she joined us for some sight-seeing. I was impressed that although she’s lived here for two years, I showed her a place she didn’t know existed!

Our first stop of the day was Stones River National Battlefield. This was a pivotal and bloody episode of the Civil War and a turning point for Union Forces.

We started at the Visitors Center, where I stamped my National Park Passport book and chatted with a very friendly ranger. We had to take turns in there since we had our dogs with us, and there are no dogs allowed in the buildings. We watched the 9-minute movie inside that was filmed on the battlefield and was well-produced. Dogs are allowed to walk the battlefield, though. We walked a long loop from the Visitors Center down to a spot known as the “Slaughter Pen” and back to the Visitors Center.

There was plenty to see as I could imagine the troops here. More than 30,000 troops from both sides were squeezed between the railroad tracks and the Old Nashville Pike. The information boards described what was happening during the lead-up to this battle as well as the battle itself.

While walking, we spotted deer along the battlefield road. Two ran off before I could snap a picture, but this one didn’t seem to be at all afraid of us.

The dogs had a great walk, but we decided they needed off-leash time. Sansa has been a great traveler but she hadn’t had any time to really run after three days of a lot of time in the car. We went to the General Bragg dog park not too far from the battlefield and gave them time to run around. I’d discovered it when I visited here in December of 2021. Janine and Brett have a beautiful white German Shepherd named Scout.

Janine brought Scout back home, then met us in Franklin. I had picked up some brochures that showed us historic downtown Franklin. Looking online, there was a geocaching adventure lab there that was a pub crawl. Everyone was up for that! Janine had only been to the business part of Franklin, she’d never been to the historic downtown. Most of the stops were along Main Street, with the last one being about two blocks off of it.

We started at McCreary’s Irish Pub. We had some food there since we knew we would be stopping at five places to drink. Janine & I each had a loaded baked potato. Danny had fish & chips and Marc had wings. Everything was good and the beer selection was excellent.

The next stop was O’ Be Joyful Bar. This was more of a bar than a pub, but they also had a great selection of beers. They also had some interesting top-shelf whiskeys.

The stop after that was a wine bar that was closed. I still got the answer I needed for the Adventure Lab. We moved on to the last place on Main Street, Americana Tap House. Janine, Marc, & myself each got a different beer flight. Great selection here as well. The food looked tempting, but the beer was filling me up.

The final stop was Kimbro’s Pickin’ Parlor. This is a live-music venue that also has some food and drinks. They has a special on tacos while we were there, but we were really full from all of the beer so we passed on it. It was too early for any live music, which was a shame. Still, I enjoyed visiting and finishing the Adventure Lab, plus there was a micro geocache on the porch here.

Walking around Franklin, there was a lot of history. We were only here for a few hours, so I saw some of it, but there was plenty more to see at another time.

The geocache of the day I would have to say was the one at the Visitors Center at Stone River National Battlefield. It was a regular size, but I hadn’t brought any swag or pathtags in with me so I just signed the log and returned it to the ranger.

Tomorrow we move on to Memphis for a couple of days.