We spent spring
break in Nashville and Pigeon Forge, and today I’m recapping the first two days
of our trip!
Sunday,
March 30
Sunday was
primarily a travel day. We couldn’t
check into our Airbnb until 4 PM CDT which was 5 PM EDT, so there was no rush
to get up early and get out. We ended up
leaving around noon, we stopped at Panera for lunch along the way, and then we
made it to the Airbnb in the early evening.
We ran into
TERRIBLE traffic in Chattanooga and Knoxville, which slowed us down
tremendously, so needless to say, we were all suuuuper ready to be out of the
car.
We’d booked a
Dolly Parton themed Airbnb – I mean, it is Nashville, so we had to,
right?! – and it did not disappoint. I
loved it so much that I gook a gazillion pictures, so prepare for picture
overload. Bless Brian and Jacob for
putting up with all this pink! Haha.
The Airbnb was
in an area that was super close to The Gulch, downtown, and 12 South, so we
loved the location. It was central to
pretty much everything. It was also in
an area that is a good mix of older, smaller houses and brand new massive
houses… it’s pretty clear that many, many people are flocking to Nashville
because of all of the new builds replacing the older houses in the old
neighborhoods.
Our Airbnb was
a small, older house, but it was so dang charming. There was a mural in the carport, and when
you walk through the (pink) door from the carport, you’re in a small galley
kitchen with pink appliances. Right off
of the kitchen was the bathroom and the main bedroom where Brian and I slept...
And then the
other sleeping space was in what would normally be used as a living area. It was the cutest space, and it was more of a
bedroom rather than a living room since it had a full-sized bed with a trundle
bed and a twin sized bed. There was a
massive TV on the opposite wall, and the best part was the spiral
staircase. Well, that and the life-sized
Dolly cutout. They also had a balloon
arch in the corner and some fun lights that you could turn on to get in party mode.
The spiral
staircase went down into a basement (that had a door that goes out to the backyard),
and the basement was the living area of the house. My favorite thing – all of the stickers on
the spiral staircase! So fun!
The first
living area had a couch, a mini refrigerator, a microwave, a karaoke machine, a
wall of musical instruments, a huge floor-to-ceiling mirror, a giant selfie
ring so you could get the perfect shot, and my favorite part – a four seater
vanity where we could get ready each morning.
Right off that
room was a super cozy nook with a massive couch area for lounging, and I did
spent some good time in there relaxing one of the days.
The backyard
was super cute, too. There was a large
deck off the back door in the main sleeping area complete with a butterfly
mural, and the deck went down into a green space with a fire pit and
hammocks.
On this trip,
the kids started taking these weird panoramic pictures. They discovered that if you scan the person
in one position, they can quickly change positions in the same scan so it looks
like there are two of you in the picture.
I don’t really know how to explain it, but just look at this picture of
Olivia in the bathroom. That picture was
taken in one shot, and it is not photoshopped, yet there are two different
versions of her in the picture. So
creepy. Haha.
After we
explored for a bit and got settled in (and took a million pictures), we all
changed clothes and freshened up for dinner.
My Aunt Retta (my dad’s sister) lives in Nash, and we hadn’t seen her in
years as she rarely makes the trip down to Georgia, so we had planned to meet her
for dinner the first night.
She chose the
place – Ted’s Montana Grill – and it was a great place. The ambience was perfection, the food and
cocktails were delicious, and there was no wait since it was late-ish on a
Sunday night… we almost had the place to ourselves.
For dinner, I
opted for the bison meatloaf (my first time trying bison), with garlic mashed
potatoes and broccoli, and it was all so yummy.
The meatloaf tasted just like beef, but apparently bison is a leaner cut
of meat than beef, which is always good.
We spent nearly
two hours there with Aunt Retta, catching up, reminiscing, and enjoying
ourselves, and it was so great to spend time with her since we hadn’t seen her
in so long. Side note, I don't know if she would appreciate me saying her age on here, so I won't, but y'all, I just want you to know that this woman looks like she could be my sister, but she is, by far, old enough to be my mother. She takes such good care of herself and she does not age.
We left just before 9 CDT
because the kids wanted ice cream next door.
They were just about to close, so we made it just in time. Brian and I were too stuffed from dinner, so
we opted out of dessert.
When we got
back to the Airbnb it was around 10:30 our time, so we were all exhausted. We got the kids in bed, and then Brian and I
ended up staying up late to keep an eye on the storms that were approaching
because there were tornadoes everywhere just west of us. Thankfully, we only had some thunderstorms
and rain, and the tornadoes stayed to the west.
We were grateful to have that basement, though, just in case we needed
it!
Monday,
March 31
Monday morning,
the weather was still yucky – cold and rainy – but we weren’t going to let it
hold us back. We slept in until 8:30 our
time since we’d stayed up so late, but it was only 7:30 Nashville time, so we
ended up getting out early. The first
stop was donuts for breakfast… y’all know we always have to find the best donuts
when we travel!
We ended up at
East Park Donuts & Coffee and man oh man were they delicious! I got a maple bourbon and a vanilla bean
glaze, and that maple bourbon was DELICIOUS.
After
breakfast, we headed straight to the Country Music Hall of Fame. We thought it would be a good morning for
that since the weather was so yucky. I’m
not going to go into detail about every picture – I took hundreds in there! –
but a few highlights were seeing all of the Taylor Swift stuff (they had more
than I thought they would… they actually had an entire room dedicated to her!),
seeing the Luke Combs exhibit (seeing the original Tracy Chapman tape that his
dad owned that he listened to when he was a kid and also seeing the original manuscript for Forever After All), seeing
Hank Williams’s Martin guitar that looks so similar to my dad’s, and seeing
outfits from a band that Olivia’s guitar teacher just introduced me to… The Red
Clay Strays. It was so cool to see them
there because I’d never even heard of them prior to a couple of months
ago.
The ultimate,
though, (well, for Olivia and me anyway) was seeing the Taylor Swift Speak Now dress
from The Eras Tour. A little back story
for you… leading up to the trip, we’d been telling the kids that we were going
to visit the Hall of Fame, and I told Olivia they would likely have something
in there that belonged to Taylor Swift. Well,
for days leading up to the trip, she kept saying, “I cannot WAIT to see the
Speak Now dress.”
I had to
explain to her that Taylor Swift has a gazillion outfits from her very long
career, and that the chances of that one dress being in that one museum at the exact
time that we were there was highly, HIGHLY unlikely.
Well, what do
you know that we rounded a corner towards the end of our visit, and there it was
in all its glory – the Speak Now dress that Taylor Swift wore during The Eras
Tour!! I couldn’t believe my eyes and
neither could Olivia. Both of us may
have teared up a little… Olivia because she had been dying to see it so much,
and me because I was just so happy that Olivia got her wish. Needless to say, we ended up going back to it
and taking more and more pictures. Haha.
We spent some
time in the big circular atrium and the gift shop after our tour, and the kids tried on hats and got souvenirs. They also happened to be playing a Taylor
Swift record when we were in there, so Olivia and I were vibing. ;o)
By the time we
were done there, we were all starving, and thankfully, the rain had stopped, so
we were able to walk over to Broadway to find somewhere to eat. We ended up at Luke’s 32 Bridge (Luke Bryan’s
honkytonk), and they had live music (per usual since everyone does 24/7 in
Nashville) so I was thrilled!
The first floor
with the band was just a bar and they didn’t do full table service, so we had
to be seated on the second floor, but it’s an open space and they seated us
right by the balcony so we could see and hear the band perfectly the whole
time. They were a cover band, and they
sang so many good songs. Right when we
sat down, they played Neon Moon by Brooks & Dunn and I told Brian, yep,
this is the place for me! Haha. I looooveeeedddd that song when I was in
fourth grade. It was literally my favorite
song for, probably, a whole year. They also
did lots of Luke Combs and newer stuff, too, so we enjoyed it.
Brian and I aren’t
big day drinkers, but I couldn’t go to Luke Bryan’s honkytonk and not get a Shake
it for Me cocktail – I mean, it’s his classic song! – so I got one and
Brian and I shared it. I had a Caesar salad
with grilled chicken, and I have to say, the food was really great. I expected it to be just basic like any other
bar food type of place, but the salad was really good – they used good quality
ingredients, they added a few extras to the salad, and I really appreciated
that they chopped up the lettuce and chicken really small… that is the
BEST. I hate getting a salad where I have
to cut everything up. So anyway, two thumbs
up for Luke’s 32 Bridge!
When we were done
eating, we went down into the basement to look at the merch, and then we headed
back out on Broadway. Though the rain
was long gone, it was still dreary and cold and SO WINDY. OMG the wind was ridiculous.
That made it a
little difficult to explore, but we did make our way in and out of several shops
to check out all of the Nashville merch.
In one of them, we saw an old Zoltar machine, and I was reminded of the
movie Big. SO good.
We also spotted
Tootsie’s. If you’re not familiar,
Tootsie’s is one of the OG honkytonks in Nashville and it’s been around since
1960. LOADS of famous people have played
there through the years, and it’s very well known. We thought about taking the kids in there
since it’s open for all ages during the day, but Brian and I had already hung
out there during our last trip, so we decided to skip it.
When we were done
on Broadway, we drove over to Opryland Mills Mall because we wanted to find
something indoors since we were all tired of battling the cold and wind, and
also because they have a Lego Store. We
always have to visit donut shops, pizza places, and Lego Stores when we go on
vacation. Haha.
Unfortunately,
the Lego Store there was tiny and not impressive at all, but the kids were
still excited to go. We ended up walking
the whole loop of the mall (which is massive) and then we headed back to the
car because everyone was tired.
I was chilled to
the bone and was craving coffee at that point which is weird because I NEVER
drink coffee in the afternoon, so we stopped at a Starbucks on the way back to
our Airbnb. I would have loved to go to
a local coffee shop, but the kids were begging for cake pops so we opted for
Starbucks. Turns out, they were all out
of cake pops (whoops) so the kids got brownies instead.
We hung out in
Starbucks for a bit, went to Publix next door to grab a couple of things we needed,
we grabbed some gas, and then we went back to our Airbnb to relax for a
bit. I snuggled up on the couch with my coffee
and my phone and got some stories uploaded to Instagram while the kids played
the instruments and took more creepy panoramic pictures. Lol.
After a little
break, it was time to figure out what to do for dinner. We ended up settling on Five Points Pizza
East as they had great pizza reviews, and it was really yummy. While we were in the restaurant, the server
gave the kids some pizza dough to play with, and when Olivia picked hers up,
she said, “This pizza dough feels like OLD PEOPLE SKIN!” Right as she said that, an elderly gentleman
just happened to be sitting down next to her, but she didn’t see him. I don’t think he heard her, but needless to
say, we had to have a conversation about thinking before we speak, especially
if it could hurt someone’s feelings, and especially when we’re in public. Lol. We also snapped pictures with a couple of murals, one before dinner and one after!
After dinner,
we headed back to the Airbnb, the kids got showered, and then everyone went to
bed. We were all exhausted. It was a great first couple of days despite
the weather!
Happy Monday, y’all!
