Lawrenceburg, TN

Some of you may know already, but, at the beginning of the month, Andrew and I took a trip east to meet my Dad in Tennessee. I picked Lawrenceburg solely because it was exactly halfway between Warrenton, VA and Waco, TX. I knew nothing about the town when I made the plans.

The trip out was pretty uneventful. We left on Friday, April 3 and I think Andrew was mostly excited because we got doughnuts on the way out of town; talk about a doughnut-ivore! FYI, the welcome center in Texarkana, AR has a playground and they give the kids small highway maps. That map served as a springboard for all of our travels that weekend. He tracked our progress across the entire state of AR, even though there were only three markers the entire length of I40 through the state on his map.

We hit the welcome center in Memphis, TN and got him another map that he monitored most of the way to Lawrenceburg. I don't know when he started not sleeping in the car, but he only took a 15 minute nap throughout the course of the 12 hour drive.

Anyway, on Saturday, we explored Lawrencebug a little. It is a strange little town. It really seems to be a layover between Nashville, TN and Birmingham, AL. They have a really well maintained downtown square except for one thing; when we were there, the entire greenscape was littered with "Cash for Gold" signs - disappointing. All of these photos were taken in or around the old square.

Here's an amusing aside. I find it truly amazing what a camera can do. While we were out making photographs, there were at least 3 groups of people watching us to see what we were doing. None of this seemed in the least bit like suspicious questioning, but rather an honest curiosity. At one point, we were shooting a vignette in a forgotten doorway and one woman came up behind us, looked for a moment, and, as she walked away said, "I was just wondering what you were taking pictures of." Another woman with her daughter and grandkids came up to us just to talk about the town and the area. This may speak as much about the people in the area, but I have encountered this pretty much wherever I have been. If you look like you know what you are doing with a camera and have it pointed somewhere different, people will treat you as if you are professional. You should see it when you add a business card to the mix ...












(c) 2009 Scott Everett