Tennessee

My husband's best friend, Steve, lives in Tennessee. He was the best man in our wedding. He has been here to visit us twice, so, this year we are planning a trip to Eagleville, Tennessee to visit Steve and his wife! I am so excited. Eagleville is about an hour or so (traffic depending) South, South East of Nashville. It is a small town, population 600. Ha!

We plan on staying for about a week, driving down on a Saturday and driving home on a Friday. Steve is planning a pub crawl of live music in Nashville for the Wednesday of our trip, which is apparently the cheap night for alcohol. Even though I'm not a big drinker or bar goer, I told my husband that I was totally up for it as long as we get a hotel in Nashville, within walking distance or a short cab ride from our final destination. Even if I do go to a bar, I am always the designated driver, or I have one drink and then make sure I'm there a few hours so I'm fine to drive home. Now, that's not to say that one drink gets me drunk, that is not the case at all. However, one drink at my height would put me over the legal limit, and that's just not something I want to risk. So this way, I get to have some drinks and not worry about the fact that I have to drive and/or think about the fact that I have to drive back to Eagleville from Nashville.

The population of Nashville is about 600,000. For comparison, Rochester has a population of only 200,000. I hate driving in Rochester. I am not a city girl by any stretch of the imagination. The thought of driving even once in Nashville makes my chest tight.

I have been looking up stuff to do while we are there and have quite the list. I doubt we will be able to do even half of it. First and foremost, I want to visit the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville.

I also want to visit at least one Plantation. There are several to choose from.

The Oaklands Historic House Museum in Murfreesboro. It reminds me a great deal of the Bed and Breakfast we got married at, on a much larger scale.

The Belle Meade Plantation in Nashville was home to General William Hicks Jackson.

Other places I would like to go are:
Cheekwood Botanical Gardens and Art Museum - Nashville
Vanderbilt Mansion - Nashville
Parthenon (replica of the one in Greece) - Nashville
Opryland Hotel - Nashville
Gateway Island - Murfreesboro
Cannonsburgh Village - Murfreesboro
and a number of state parks.

In addition to all of the places I'd like to visit, there are quite a few restaurants that I must go to. My husband worked at a Pizza place called Old Chicago when he lived in Arkansas, and he loved the food. There is an Old Chicago in Murfreesboro, so I have been informed that the first place we are eating is Old Chicago. The next place I want to make sure we eat at is Sonic. For some reason we have commercials for Sonic here but the closest one is in a completely other state. I keep seeing commercials for all of these delicious looking hot dogs, but can't try them! Murfreesboro has a White Castle, too, and I'm sure we'll grab lunch there at least once, but I've been to White Castle before so it's not as important for me to make it there.

Murfreesboro also has Longhorn Steak House, Olive Garden, Outback Steak House, Chili's, Ruby Tuesday and some of my other favorite restaurants, but I'm excited to try some new places, especially Mom and Pop places. I'm going to need a week of doing nothing but working out to counteract all the deliciousness we are going to encounter.

As you can see, we've got quite the To-Do list and I cannot stop thinking about our vacation to paradise, especially since it has been in the single-digits/low teens here in Rochester, New York.