Nashville - Day 5

 Happy Halloween! Today we're doing the hop on hop off trolley around Nashville. But it's way more fun this time. Why? Because my friend Tracy from my Quartz Hill High School days lives in Nashville now and is joining us!

Tracy was on the rifle team with me at QHHS. She was my right hand rifler. She was good. Solid. And had all the leadership skills I needed to help captain the team. She was clever with her new rifle stunts and we both pushed each other to be better. I moved to Washington and then TASIS and we kinda lost touch a little. It was harder to keep in touch before social media. 

The last time I saw Tracy was in 1992 (or 3) at her wedding. I was her Maid of Honor and then that was it. We lost track of each other. I always wondered what happened to her. Turns out her life has turned out just fine. She's doing quite well with a little company of her own focusing on quilting and embroidery. 

The Hop on Hop off trolley was entertaining. We got to see a lot of Nashville, some huge parks and Music Row. 

Nashville has a ton of murals

The capital building

I'm sure they said, but I don't remember why they
have a Parthenon replica.

After all that fun on the bus, we went to a Triple D restaurant for dinner. Finally. We hadn't hit but one restaurant on our list so far. Sad. We really do pretty well with food, but this trip, not so much. 

The Grilled Cheeserie was on point. I had their Quesabirria grilled cheese and Oh...My... God! There's a reason they're a Triple D.

 

I should also mention that after the hop on hop off and lunch, we had to find the angel wings in The Gulch. Sherrie had heard about them and it was on her list. Luckily they weren't too far from where we ate lunch. 

Tracy and I - both angels

Crabs are angels too.

While we were taking this photo Tracy said something to the girls in line behind us about "have you ever worn crab hats in Nashville?" Then suddenly they wanted to wear our hats. So we let them. 

Nashville - Day 4

 Ahh Sunday. It was a day to rest. And rest we did. 

Though we decided to head out and try the Loveless Cafe which is about 30 minutes out of Nashville. We loaded up and headed out. 

We drove through some beautiful countryside. Nashville area really is quite pretty. The leaves were all changing too which just added to how gorgeous it was. 

We got to the Loveless Cafe and saw hundreds of people mulling around. Well, maybe not hundreds, but a lot. I hopped out - yes the gimpy one - to see what the wait was. An hour and 45 minutes! There was no way, we were all starving and no one wanted to wait that long. But we did take advantage of these peep hole photo ops. 

We found another restaurant near by and decided it was good enough. Not great, but good enough. 

After a few wanted to go check out this mansion on the Vanderbuilt campus, but I had had enough of seeing things and just wanted to head back to the hotel to rest. So I hopped a ride with the Nieces and then promptly took a nap and just hung out by myself for a bit. It was glorious. 

One of my nieces was headed back to Seattle and we had to drop off the car, so after we did that we decided a simple dinner would be best. Enter Cracker Barrel. OMG. What is it about this place. The food is just ok, not really great, and yet I'm drawn to it. Mom used to love to take me to Cracker Barrel. Maybe that's why I feel like I gotta go there. 

At any rate, dinner was good and filling. We were carb-loaded up and ready for another day in Nashville. Tomorrow we'd be doing the hop on hop off bus! And spoiler alert - a good friend from my Quartz Hill days would be joining us. Yay.

Nashville - Day 3 - The Wedding

 Today's the day! The Big day! I'm so excited for the Niece and new Niece. I'm sure they're excited too. 

But before we drive to the venue we had a leisurely morning then out to Uncle Bud's for lunch! Blueberry didn't have any options for lunch here but a baked potato! I'm not sure why I find that so amusing, but I do. The food here was amazing. 

We sat down and was immediately given a bowl of beans, hush puppies, cole slaw and sweet tea! Those beans! Lord, I cannot even explain how delicious they were. Beans are often too salty for me, but these were seasoned perfectly. I thought of dad and his love of this type of food. I sure wish he could be there with us. 

The hush puppies were the bomb as well. I like hush puppies, but they aren't always moist or flavorful enough for me. These were amazing! They actually had corn in them and were seasoned perfectly. 

When were full and happy we got back to the hotel in time to change our clothes and then head out to the venue. We were told to get there early so that we could take the shuttle up to the venue. We met the fam in the lobby and we were off. Man we clean up nice.

The venue was a place called Annie Acres and man was it beautiful. The farm house style venue was perfect. I loved it immediately. It felt so much like The Nieces that I was glad they found it. 

The wedding went off without a hitch. They were both so happy and so beautiful. The vows were so them and so lovely. I'll admit I teared up a bit. 

The reception was no slouch either. They had BBQ for the food, music, a photo booth set up, specialty drinks, sweet tea and more music. Oh and some cup cakes! 

The reception hall

A nice set up of photos of the loved ones not with us. 

The photo booth we took full advantage of. The brothers and I got it started, then it was our family taking over the booth for a bit. 

The funniest part of the evening to me was when the latin music started up. See The New Niece's family is Puerto Rican. And boy or boy do they party. At one point her entire family was on the dance floor cutting up the rug. Meanwhile the Germans were all sitting watching. It was pretty amusing. 

The entire wedding was beautiful and so memorable. I'm so very happy for the two of them and can't wait to see how their lives turn out. 

Nashville - Day 2

 It's a beautiful day in Nashville today. The fam is headed to the Grand Ole' Opry. Well, we were, but we got lost. Still, we made it...after some detours. 

See, when I'm in a new town I like to not drive the freeways if we can avoid them. It gives you a chance to see the neighborhoods and the town. So that's exactly what we did. The brother and his fam took the freeway and we took the back roads. 

We were fine. We tried to follow the signage for the entrance to the Grand Ole' Opry. I mean, how hard could it be to find it? It's not small! And yet, we drove around and around. We didn't believe our navigation - that was the problem. The nav was taking us where we were supposed to be, but it just didn't seem right. 

After a good 30 minutes my phone rang, it was the brother wondering where we were. He explained where to find it and we just didn't listen. Again. But alas, we made it. Just in time for our appointed tour time. 

The oldest brother, my sister in law and the middle brother

The Grand Ole' Opry tour was so darn good! I was really impressed. They focused way more on the history of the opry and not so much on the country music. The tour starts with a wonderful movie about the history, the people and some of the music. So well done. It helped that it was hosted by Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood. 

The tour takes you through the backstage of the Opry. They showed us all the plaques with all the members on it. Loretta Lynn has a ribbon because she just passed. The dressing rooms all had themes - none of which I remember - and then you walk out on the stage. 

In the middle of the stage is a circle of wood brought over from the Ryman (which is where the Grand Ole' Opry started). Country music singers dream of singing on this stage and becoming members. It's the highlight of most of their careers. The circle represents longevity and the "circle of life" in a way. It was pretty cool. 

Then we got to stand in the circle and get our picture taken! And of course we had to do it with crab hats on. I mean, we couldn't leave Nashville without giving the Opry crabs. 

After the opry we walked over to the Opryland Hotel. Kathy had been there before and she said it was pretty cool. We had burgers there and then they walked around checking out the place. It was pretty darn cool hotel. 

Dinner tonight was the "rehearsal" dinner. Which really wasn't what you think. Instead our family and The New Niece's family all met at a the Santa Fe Cattle Company restaurant for dinner. 

The Niece

The New Niece

Another Niece and a great niece

The Bride's

Nashville - Day 1

Now that I've been home from Nashville for well over a week. I think I'm finally ready to write all about it. 

This was a weird trip for me. I wasn't overly interested in Nashville - being that I'm not a country music fan. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that Nashville was fun. What wasn't fun was all the damn pain I was in. Day 1 my left knee was acting up which meant the day we were going to walk all over the place was difficult and exhausting (it's very exhausting to be in pain). On top of the the back was still not great. The ride didn't help that's for sure. So day 1 was a bit much. The knee got better, and the back a little better - but not great - as the week progressed. Then the day before we were to come home I came down with a cold. Blech. All in all, not my favorite vacation. 

But let me back up. Let me talk you through each day. 

Day 1 - Oct 27

Here we are! Nashville. The flight was fine and now we do the tourist thing. 

We were headed to Broadway to walk it and see what Nashville has to offer. 

Broadway is a trip. The street is lined with honky tonks blaring music out every door. And by blaring I mean BLARING. It was so loud, and frankly annoying. I felt like I was changing radio stations too fast. Each door playing another song...another country song. Though to be fair, a lot of the country I heard was 90s country songs, which was when I last listened to country music. I did find myself singing along with each new door we passed. 

We walked - check that - they walked I hobbled up one side and down the other. Blueberry was in 7th Heaven. She loves all things country and kept hollering out who owned what honky tonk. She acted as if I knew who she was talking about. But, I swear, she was like a kid in a candy store. 

We lunched at the famous Jack's BBQ on Broadway. That's when I realized we were in for a treat. The food prices are SO FREAKIN in expensive. 

After Broadway we walked past the historic Ryman Museum. There is a lot of history (Country music history that is) in this building. We plan on going through the museum on Monday. 

Just down the road from the Ryman is Printer's Alley. It's where BB King used to play. Now it felt a lot like a seedy part of town that maybe we shouldn't be in. 

On our way back to the car I was talking about how much I wanted a coffee. So we decided we'd look for a cute little coffee shop or something. Instead, Janet found this ice cream shop and I figured ice cream is like coffee, right? 

The ice cream creations were amazing. I wasn't overly hungry for a huge ice cream thing, so I had a small peanut butter and chocolate shake. It was the perfect size. Kathy stuck with a scoop ( a very large scoop) of ice cream, but the others went all out. 

My little shake

Janet and Ashley's MONSTER shake

Sherrie and her Salted Caramel shake

Dinner that night was meeting up with the whole fam and some of the friends of the brides. It was nice to see the whole fam again. It had been since Mom's celebration of life in 2017. 

After feasting on Mexican food it was to bed to sleep it off. Friday we were the Grand Ole Opry. Oddly, I'm looking forward to seeing the Grand Ole Opry.