John and I decided to take a trip to Nashville Last weekend. We had been to St. Louis and Indianapolis and from the second we drove into Nashville the overall "feel" of this city was vastly different! It seemed very comfortable and lively. We stayed with Tyler, one of John's friend and he was kind enough to show us around the city. We had gotten in late on Friday evening and went to a a little coffee shop "Cafe Coco", apparently this coffee shop is the coffee shop of the city to be at! I may have had better Chai, since that is my drink of choice, but the overall atmosphere was very cute! As much as we would have loved a night out on the town, we were tired from the drive so it was back to Tyler's place for bed time :o)
Saturday however was full of site seeing and walking around, it was an all day event. We walked around the city, I took many pictures! it was sunny, 65 degrees and absolutely beautiful. I hadn't even seen the sun in Jasper for who knows how long so I was soaking it up, it was fantastic!
Our journey started out at Starbucks :o) then had lunch at this place called the Bread Company. I had an amazing salad with lettuce, egg, sun dried tomatoes, cheese and balsamic vinaigrette! the boys had a very scrumptious looking sandwich, but I didn't try it so I cannot vouch for how good it was, but John seemed to enjoy it!
Next stop we went to the Parthenon :
We couldn't help but soak up the sun rays and enjoy how beautiful the weather was treating us so we headed to the Farmers Market and walked around the park behind it, read up on Nashville History and watched people sled down the hill at the capitol on cardboard boxes! ha ha it looked like fun, I wanted to do it!
Since the weather hadn't changed, we went to the city to walk around town. We parked at the library so we could get a free parking voucher! anything to save money is worth it! I enjoyed this city because music was playing outside the bars, people were friendly, and I had the best ice cream at "Mikes Ice Cream Fountain" I think I have ever had in my life! oh my just thinking about it makes me crave it! mmmmm.....
\Tyler drove us around the suburbs of the city, he took us to an area of old Nashville where they had all these older bungalow style houses that were all cute and quaint. I love little neighborhoods like that. It reminded me a little of the highlands area in Denver, Colorado. One day...Ill have my own little bungalow, preferably on the beach :o) We also drove around the country side to see some pretty big houses one being the "Swiss Cheese House" it was pretty odd looking ha ha, but it is crazy how huge some of the places were. All the houses had Character to them and they were all different.
Tyler got tickets to the Vanderbilt game and I wanted to have dinner with my cousin Jen so I let the boys have their game time and I enjoyed some girl time catching up with Jen. I hadn't seen her for about 6 years and she is expecting another little one so I got to see the little baby bump! I got to meet the rest of the family and they welcomed me with open arms letting me know if I ever needed to come down for the holidays or whenever I was more then welcome. Its great to know I have a part of the family only a few hours away to visit since Denver is so far now.
We were planning on going to get some steak and on our way to Outback we drove past Brentwood which is where most of the stars like Carrie Underwood live. It was dark so I couldn't see much, but the country side is beautiful in general out there with some pretty amazing homes. We chatted on the little road trip to dinner the whole way and once we got to Outback the wait to eat was an hour in a half...doesn't work well when you got two hungry women and one is pregnant with a baby! we drove around to a couple other places, the wait the same! geesh, but luckily we found Famous Dave's and settled on that. Dinner was great and we couldn't stop talking, it was nice to have the girl time.
I got picked up by the boys around 9ish that Saturday night after they were finished with the game and the plan was for all of us to go out and experience the bar life in Nashville at night. Poor John was exhausted I guess from all the running around so we decided to head back to Tyler's place to re-coupe...re-couping led to him and I tired enough to just go to bed. We had experienced bar life enough in Denver and were pretty sure it was the same atmosphere only live music in the mix. It would have been great to go out, but being tired wouldn't not have done it justice.
Sunday was our day to drive back to Jasper, we woke up but had some time to goof off so we went to breakfast at this little diner down the road. The French Toast was amazing. Apparently Sugarland had done one of their videos at this place. I cannot remember for the life of me what this diner was called though. Tyler had to work, so John and I parked downtown and just walked around in some little shops, and then sat at this one bar and watched some live music, There was this brick wall we were sitting next to where people had written on it, there names and dates. John and I wanted to write on it, but neither one of us had a marker :o( I had to get ice-cream again before we left so that was our last stop. Somewhere is the midst of all that, I lost my debit card. I had put it in my back pocket and it must have fallen out somewhere. I hadn't used it, but it was gone!!! I had to call immediately as we left the city to go home and cancel it. Hate it when that happens!
I would definitely visit Nashville again. Not sure where or when the next trip will be. We are looking to visiting Charleston in March.
In the meantime John has gone back to Denver and I am now here in Jasper by myself so I have to start finding ways to meet some locals so I have stuff to do. This is definitely a new experience for me being in a new place not knowing anyone. Its a good experience and I enjoy my job thus far and the adventures it is going to bring, the challenge is just adapting to a new area with new people. YAY!!!
