Vacation End and Heading Home

Well, the Rowes are heading home from TN, but we still got in a 1/2 day of vacationing before heading out.  We went to one if our most-frequented restaurants for breakfast, Flapjack Cafe.  While Julia, Ethan and I have tried more than one different item over the four mornings we ate here, Madeleine stuck steadfastly to her tried-and-true bear pancakes:

For some reason, today her bear pancakes were served well before the rest of us got our meals.  I remarked that Madeleine would be sitting around bored by the time we got our own breakfasts, but I should have known better.  Madeleine launched into a whole narrative with her bear.  His name was Tedeleine.  He really wants to go to Massachusetts.  He's never been there.  He has only been to Tennessee.  So as Madeleine ate him bite by bite, she reassured him that he would travel to MA inside her belly.  And that's not all Tedeleine would get to do.

MADELEINE: You'll get to see what it's liking living underwater when you go in the toilet, Tedeleine!

So, yeah.  She was definitely still eating when the rest of the meals came.

We spent the next few hours in Knoxville, at the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture:

We enjoyed exhibits on Ancient Egypt, Cherokee history, and Evolution.  Madeleine sat down to watch a video on the history of Native people in Tennessee and the struggle to keep Cherokee culture thriving after colonization and the Trail of Tears.

MADELEINE: Why did they make a video to make us NOT PROUD to be American?
ME: Well, it's important to know the story so we know how hard we need to work to keep the Native American culture alive.

Madeleine later came up with a solution.  "I wanna be the President, so I can just make the rules of, like, NO fighting and wars and just have peace on Earth."

I am 100% behind this future candidate's platform.

We headed to the airport after touring the museum.  Julia packed her Ziploc of ethnic people in our checked suitcase, and Ethan convinced Madeleine to put her ridiculously unnecessary pile of ducks in there too, so this time we got through security without a hitch.  We are all sad to bring our vacation to a close, but happy we got to have such a fun week all together!