The Polk Historical Home and Museum in Columbia offered a new tour during the month of November that didn't involve a tour of the house, but of the area around the house in Columbia including some of the historic district and the square. The Polk family and their extended kith and kin were fixtures in the mid-1800s in Columbia and many of the houses and buildings have stories involving the family and their impact on the area. The Polk family was also INCREDIBLY petty and there were plenty of feuds going on over a variety of issues. Take for example Polk's brother-in-law who left his whole denomination of religion with his family, became an elder in a new denomination and donated land and building funds for a new church right on what amounted to his front lawn when someone at his old church made a joke about him allowing to let his son go to dance lessons. The tour is on hold right now so they can tweak it some, but it was a fun time walking around Columbia.
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Owl Hill is a private nature preserve in Brentwood that offers day passes for hiking and has their own program of hikes led by volunteers. The volunteers that led the last fall color hike of the season were very knowledgeable about plants in particular and also the preserve itself. The hike has one rather difficult uphill section, but the rest is a nice hike across the ridge of the mountain. This was my first experience with Owl Hill and I was very impressed. It was a lovely hike with well informed volunteers.
Once a year before Halloween, Travelers Rest holds an event to celebrate the season. This year it involved actors retelling parts of various real life cases that happened in Tennessee and having a poll at the end to determine if the guests thought the culprits were innocent or guilty. The story of the Harps I was pretty well aware of, but the other two were more obscure including a daughter who probably murdered her father and a man accused of being a witch. The home tries to throw a nice reception at the end with a string band, old time games and refreshments. The main sticking point for me is that the actors are clearly people who work around the home and some of them didn't seem like they'd even read the scripts before and were hard to hear (the low light wasn't helping them read). It's a minor complaint but it was a bit distracting.
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AuthorA librarian doing the travel. Archives
May 2024
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