I'm going to beg for forgiveness right up front and tell you that this post is going to be all over the place. I've been struggling with how best to tackle the events of the past week. Some much happened on the trip @mrsbozz and I took to Nashville that I wasn't sure how I should present it to you. Do I go day by day? Event by event? It's a tough call.
In the end, I think I am going to give you a mixture of both. This first day included a ton of travel and a ton of different topics that I will be tagging here. See if you can keep up!
After a rather horrible experience flying to Nashville our first time visiting, my wife and I decided it would be a better idea to drive from now on. We rented a car and made the ~9 hour drive on our second visit, so on this (our third) visit we decided to rent a car again.
It is always kind of a guessing game what Enterprise is going to stick you with. Last time it was a Chrysler 300, and this time since I selected a small SUV, it was anyone's guess what I might be driving.
Imagine my surprise when a shinny new 2022 BMW X2 28i was one of the choices. I have never driven a "European" car before, so I was quickly intrigued. I let the guy behind the counter know that we were driving down to Nashville so I wanted something comfortable. He was quite quick to recommend the BMW.
You might notice I put the word European in quotes. I only do that because I am fully aware that most cars these days are international, no matter their make or model. They are assembled all across the globe and there is very little patriotic correlation between brands anymore.
It is a pretty car. I will fully admit that. The interior did seem a little cramped, but overall, it was fun to drive it. Parking down in Nashville (and many big cities) can be a bit of a pain, so having something small to get into tight spots is always a plus.
Having a four cylinder with turbo, it got us pretty decent gas mileage on the way down and it was zippy to boot. That was important given the way people drive these days. I often found myself going ten and even twenty five miles over the speed limit just to keep up with the flow of traffic. Given it was a rental I had a propensity to "drive it like I stole it" anyway, but it still felt a little weird to have the cruise control set to no less than 80 mph pretty much the whole way down.
Even at that speed, I still had cars, trucks, and semi's blowing past me on either side. It was crazy.
While I enjoyed the BMW, I don't think it was any nicer than my wife's Buick Lacrosse. Sure, it had some more bells and whistles, but it is also 8 years older than our Buick. As far as being a smoother ride, it wasn't. The turbo also threw me a little. The Buick has a six cylinder engine. When you want to go, you just go. The lag with the turbo made it difficult at times to get that acceleration that I am used to. The lag was slight, but it was definitely noticeable.
Heading out from home there was a light snow falling. I wasn't too worried about it since the BMW had XDrive which is all wheel drive. I was sure it could handle any Spring squall that was thrown at us. We passed through Lansing, then Indianapolis, Louisville, and finally after about nine hours and a couple of stops, the skyline of Nashville came into view.
If you look really closely in the photo, you might see several cranes over on the right hand side of the frame. I know that construction is no stranger to big cities, but I feel like every time we come back to Nashville, there is always a ton of building going on.
It seemed like every corner had something that was under construction. Be it a renovation of an existing building or a brand new sky scraper being born. It is crazy how much this city is growing.
My wife and I pulled into the drive at the Double Tree Hotel Downtown in the early evening. This is the hotel we have stayed at the past two times we visited. It is in a decent location and usually the price isn't too horrible compared to the hotels closer to Broadway (the main drag). On this occasion however that wasn't the case. We soon realized why as we tried to pull into the valet lane. It seems there was some kind of convention happening in the town and that is why rooms were selling at a premium.
We had thought about trying to do an Air BNB or VRBO, but due to some other factors (which I won't get into here), we settled on the hotel. At $55 per night I hadn't planned on valet'ing the car, but as soon as I saw how crazy busy it was I decided to bite the bullet and just pay the money so we could simply unload our stuff and get into our room.
It was just about time for some of the Elite 8 NCAA Men's tournament games, so we took a short walk around the corner to a place called The Corner Pub. It's a really cool venue with lots of space and a ton of TV's for watching different sporting events.
After the long drive a beverage (or two) was in order. I grabbed a local beer and my wife got her usual captain and diet coke.
I went with the State Park Blonde. It was refreshing and just what I needed after being stuck in the car for so long. At 4.5% ABV it wasn't too heavy and I liked the fact that it was something local that I might not get the chance to try up in Michigan.
Since this all took place a week ago this past Saturday, I am going to throw the #beersaturday tag on this post for the @detlev contest. If you are a fan of Blonde Ale's like I am, I highly recommend this one. It was so good I had another, and then two or three more....
We also decided some food might be a good idea. My wife saw Buffalo Cauliflower as a special on their menu so she decided we should give it a try.
I'm not a fan of cauliflower, but I have to admit, it wasn't too bad. I actually enjoyed it. Maybe it was just having driven 9 hours and even my shoe would have tasted good, but I think I would definitely get this again. It wasn't overwhelmingly hot, but there was a nice tingle. The Blue Cheese crumbles complimented it well and the ranch dressing to dip it in was the perfect accompaniment.
After a short time (and a few more drinks), we decided to try another one of their appetizers:
We got the pretzel sticks with homemade queso. They were good but the cheese dip was a little grainy. I actually think I would get the buffalo cauliflower versus these in the future. It was pretty clear that the pretzels had been deep fried versus being baked. I'm not opposed to deep fried foods, but there are some times that I think they over do it. This might have been one of those times. Needless to say, we had zero issue eating every single one of the sticks.
We stayed and watched the full Houston/Villanova game and then we decided to head back to our hotel. The Double Tree has a nice bar and on the weekends they always have live music. Given it was a Saturday night we felt it might be best to stay away from the craziness of Broadway. Our friends who had driven separately agreed to meet us at our hotel bar (they were staying at a different hotel).
When we got back to our hotel bar we were a little nervous that there wasn't a band playing but before long a young lady showed up and started getting setup. Turns out it was none other than Hailey Steele. If you are a fan of the US television contest The Voice, you might recognize her from season 2 when she was part of "The Line" Duo.
It just goes to show you how fickle and/or crazy the music business and more specifically Nashville can be. You never know what kind of hidden gem you might find at the hotel bar on a Saturday night. You never know if her career stalled out after her initial brush with fame or if she just prefers a slower pace to connect with the crowds. It appears she has some pretty big gigs in the future opening for the likes of Willie Nelson, so I wouldn't call her a "has been" by any means.
Eventually we decided to call it a night and we headed up to our hotel room. Here are some parting shots of our view:
I hope you are ready, because I have a ton more Nashville content to share with you. I promise to keep it light and fun!
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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or @mrsbozz unless otherwise sourced