Exit Driveway; Turn Right

Does anyone take Sunday drives anymore?

I was a part of the generation that grew up taking Sunday afternoon drives. First church then home for either a fried chicken or roast beef Sunday dinner. Dishes done and Sunday paper read and maybe a short nap in their chairs for our parents, then there was often time for a drive.

Drives through the country were a big part of RH and my marriage--even when we moved to the country in 1990. And we explored the surrounding country roads when we moved here three years ago.

But we had never turned Right out our driveway since we moved here. Always it has been Left turn, towards the small suburb outside Nashville where we do all our shopping. 

After I had stayed home the first month of this time of pandemic, only taking walks around our 2 1/2 acres and down to the pond, I was desperate to Go somewhere and asked RH to turn Right out of our driveway to see some of our neighbors' houses.

Want to go along with us? Hop in the backseat!

Here are our neighbors.

Pretty soon we come to a house that catches my notice.

If you know me, you know that I love Red!
And I love quirkiness. This house has both and I feel they surely must be kindred spirits. Even their garage is red.

 
We're seeing many horse and cattle farms and lots of fencing on our long road.

 But it is always the touches of Red that I snap pictures of. 

Slow Down, RH!

 I would love to stop and visit these neighbors. Should we knock on the door?

Better not, they might be napping.

We have miles like this between houses so we are surely in the country now.

I always wanted donkeys but could never talk RH into them or llamas or sheep or the Toggenburg goats I badly wanted. Now that goat cheese is the only cheese he can eat, maybe he should have listened to me.

We're seeing miles and miles of fencing.

Aha! Now we know where our train sounds come from at night when we have windows open. Don't you love the sound of a 🚆 at night?

Another cattle farm. Black Angus?

Now our road circles around to the tiny hamlet near us, high in the hills, where Nashvillians built summer homes at the turn of the 20th century. We'll save that little village for another day and continue our drive on a country road that I often take when I'm coming home from shopping (in pre-Corona days) to avoid traffic on the state highway. 

This house is much older than it's style looks.

I dearly love this style of flat log house and the pale gray color with white.

Here's a rounded log cabin and more power to them if they still want Santa Claus and Frosty on their front porch. Maybe there's a story there, as Dolly Parton's character said in Steel Magnolias; I hope it's not a sad one.

 Okay, I have to show you a stone post that I would absolutely love to have in our yard. Don't you love this?

 
 Here's a nice old farmhouse that's been fixed up but it's the other building in their yard that I want to show you.

 
 How would you like to have your own personal Country Store? If we see someone out in the yard we should ask them if it's open to the public.

 
 Want to see where RH and I vote? It's in this sweet little country ⛪!

Now we have to pull back out on on the state highway our road runs off of. I wrote here about our new neighbor across the street from us who lives high on a hill in this gated neighborhood. 

 
It's much more charming than these first ones built, I think. 

This next one is way too imposing for our neck of the woods.

 I mean, do 50 people live there?

We turn Left by it onto our street and soon are home again, to where two people and two dachshunds fit very comfortably in a 1935 cottage that was the farmhouse for what was once only farmland.

 Our drive through the country did me so much good. I hope you enjoyed riding in the back seat!

When was the last time you took a Sunday afternoon drive?