Nashville Recap

Hey y'all!

I mentioned in this weeks Ten on Tuesday that today was going to be a recap of our short Nashville trip & I can't wait to share it with y'all.

This trip was much shorter than our last (and I covered Nashville in detail in my Nashville Travel Guide) and we were there for one specific reason; to go to the PBR (Professional Bull Riding) for my husband's early birthday.

We left Friday around lunch and while it should only take us about four-five hours to reach Nashville, we had to battle horrible traffic in Birmingham due to road work and then I made Chris take a detour to Huntsville (terrible idea-I hate driving in Huntsville!) 

 But the traffic & the long hours were worth it when I finally got to experience the Southern Living Store-y'all it is so good.

I didn't bring anything home with me this time, but I had my eye on these Alabama stamped wine glasses-they were so beautiful!

When we arrived in Nashville it was after 7 o'clock, so we checked into our hotel room, freshened up,  and called our Lyft driver.

At this point in our trip, I made a major fail.

I left my ID in our hotel room.

I don't know if y'all know this, but if you're going to Broadway then you have to have your ID to get in anywhere, so I realized I forgot it as soon as we got to Broadway so we had to call another Lyft driver to carry us to our room and then back to Broadway.

Thankfully, he was a super nice guy who helped me feel not as terrible as I did & he also recommended an amazing taco place just off Broadway; Bakersfield Tacos-it was so good (& really dimly lit in there) so I didn't get to take any pics!

That night we just hopped in and out of the bars listening to some really good live music-live music on Broadway is one of my all-time faves!

The next morning we woke up, had breakfast at our hotel, and then headed down to Franklin for the day to visit Carnton Plantation.

 I read about Carnton in the book, As Southern As It Gets, and it was honestly one of the best historic sites I've ever visited (& being a history buff-I've visited a lot!)

The home itself was beautiful and was on beautiful grounds (just outside of the house is where the Battle of Franklin was fought, that battle being one of the most bloody & brutal battles of the Civil War).

Carnton was used as a field hospital for the Battle of Franklin and the stories that have survived the test of time are incredible.

Our incredibly intelligent guide knew answers to every question and was able to share much insight on not only the house and property, but the family, and the war as a whole. 

There was no photography allowed inside the home, but had their been I would've taken a shot of the floors in one of the upper bedrooms.

It was evidently used as an operating room by the military surgeons and the wooden floors were still bloodstained-it was so moving.

This shot was inside one of the slave cabins still preserved on the property.

The gardens at Carnton were beautiful.

They have two witness trees still on the property (trees that "witnessed" the action that occurred on the property-in this case the Battle of Franklin).

Saturday after we left Carnton we grabbed lunch on our way back to the hotel room, took a nap once we got there (Nashville will wear a girl out, y'all) and then around 4 o'clock we started getting ready & headed into town.

We hung out around town, grabbed an appetizer at The Merchant, and then headed down to the Bridgestone.

The arena was incredible, one of the best venues I've ever been to!

Y'all-there was a sweet Bridgestone employee who was trying to take our picture, he was struggling, so we settled for a selfie at our seats 😉

We had awesome seats, super close to the chutes and next to all the action.

I'll say this about the PBR (Professional Bull Riding, if you didn't know), they know how to put on a show.

It was seriously amazing, from the special effects at the beginning all the way to how they set up the bracket of how the riders ride-it was a great event!

After the event ended, we headed down to our favorite bar-the George Jones & had a huge plate of brisket fries and listened to some live music before calling our Lyft driver and heading back to the room.

We were supposed to stay until Monday afternoon (so we could be in the solar eclipse's path of totality) but farm-work called so we packed up Sunday morning, stopped at Cracker Barrel and made it home in a little over four hours.

Even though this was a short trip, it was still a good one-we packed in all the fun we could!

Have you ever visited Nashville? Let me know below what your favorite part of that city is!

Until next time. . .

xoxo,