Birthday Trip to Nashville, TN
So the last post was about my mother’s birthday trip. This post is about mine. This is going to be a very picture heavy post. Seriously. If you stick with it until the end I will be very impressed and grateful. It was nice to go out with my camera again. I don’t really have the time or energy when I’m back in real life, and when I’ve gone to the UAE there are so many rules about what you can and can’t take pictures of that the majority of the time I didn’t take my camera out of my bag because it just wasn’t enjoyable for me. As usual, most of these pictures were taken with my trusty, beloved Fujifilm x-100v.
A few months ago I took a few days to go to Nashville (with my mother of course, who is my favorite travel buddy) and we had a great time. We stayed at Conrad Nashville and the staff there couldn’t have been nicer. Darren, who helped us with our bags, had lots of good suggestions on where to go and what to eat while we were there. This was definitely the fanciest hotel we’ve ever stayed in. The kind where you don’t open your own doors and the staff remembers your name and greets you whenever you leave or come back. It was a little intimidating but nice. Luckily the price wasn’t bad for when we went. It really all depends on when you book. I was surprised though because normally prices are crazy high during the summer months because that’s when everyone travels.
My mom, God bless her, kept up pretty well with me. I like to hit the ground running as soon as I get to a place unless we’ve gotten there late at night. We got to the hotel super early at a little before 9:00am but luckily we were able to check in right away. I’m always prepared to have to leave my bags with the front desk but luckily that’s only happened one time. The only time I couldn’t check in right away was when I went to Al Ain, UAE in January (post to come soon) but even then, the hotel (Al Ain Rotana) gave me a temporary room for a few hours while they prepared my room, which was very nice of them.
There were a lot of places like these near the hotel that appeared to be abandoned or empty and covered with graffiti. I wonder if any urbex people have ever gone inside. I did a quick YouTube search but didn’t find anything, but there are lots of videos of urbex stuff in Nashville which was very interesting to watch.
I saw this as we were walking back to the hotel after getting breakfast at Milk & Honey and I thought it was hilarious. There are a few people I would love to say this to. Since we went to Milk & Honey on a weekend the wait for a table was almost an hour but it was early and we generally don’t eat a large breakfast so we didn’t mind. I had the honey butter biscuits and a coffee of some kind and my mom had the rosé waffles. I wasn’t a big fan of the biscuits but my mom let me try her waffles and they were delicious.
"Musica" Statue a short walk from Conrad Nashville
I don’t think I’ll ever totally abandon street photography but I definitely am focusing on other types of photography now. After I dropped my mom back off at the hotel to rest, I headed out to John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge to get some pictures. I thought this was a cute shot of two people enjoying the day, but I didn’t know whether I liked it better in black and white. You be the judge.
After the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge I headed back to the hotel to rest before we headed out to dinner. We hadn’t gotten much sleep because our flight to Nashville was at 6:00am. Also, I walk to most places so I was a bit tired. If it’s an hour walk or under, I walk there. I relied on Uber a bit more for this trip because I realize it’s a lot of walking for my mom. I also like to walk because when I’m on vacation I eat waaaaaay more than I do when I’m at home. I love going out to eat and I don’t believe in restricting yourself on vacation. All the walking burns off the extra calories. For dinner we went to Puckett’s for BBQ. I had seen this place on a YouTube video and the prices were extremely reasonable.
I believe my mom and I split a meal because we knew it was going to be a huge portion, especially since I ordered the Puckett’s BBQ Platter. OMG! Everything was absolutely amazing! I don’t say that lightly. It was true. The meat was cooked to perfection, the baked beans were sweet and tangy and the cole slaw was nice and crunchy and not drowning in mayonnaise. I’m not a fan of sweet potato so I didn’t eat the fries but my mom said they were really good. I loved the bbq sauce and even bought a bottle to take back with me. I wasn’t sure if I’d have room in my suitcase so I didn’t buy 2.
The next day we went to Belmont Mansion which is located on the campus of Belmont University. The inside of the house was gorgeous and the grounds of the mansion and the campus were beautiful and extremely well maintained. The landscapers and other workers do a fantastic job of keeping everything beautiful. The day had periods of being a bit overcast but luckily I was able to snap this picture when the sun came out. The next picture in the slide shows when the clouds briefly came in.
Throughout the grounds were these beautiful gazebos and benches to sit and rest. It was very peaceful.
The pictures do not even begin to do the house justice. It is huge and stunning. The dining room was the room my mom and I were most excited to see because we caught a glimpse of it when we were let in the front door. When you get there you usually have to wait a little bit to see if any other people arrive to the tour, which is generally self guided, and you get a 10-15 minute introduction to the history of Adelicia Hayes and her family. We spent about an hour there exploring the different rooms. This is kind of funny but when my mom and I were checking out one of the bedrooms a couple came in after us and the man said about a picture of one of Adelicia’s husband’s that was on the wall, “He looks like Will Ferrell!” and I couldn’t help myself and I burst out laughing. Luckily they were cool and they started laughing too.
The attention to detail in these displays were really impressive and the worker’s deserve a lot of credit for making it look so authentic.
I absolutely love floor to ceiling windows so I definitely had to get a shot of this corner of the house. I feel like if you could have this in your own home it would make a great reading nook with a cozy couch and maybe a fireplace.
As I mentioned, it was a bit overcast that day so the pictures aren’t super bright and vibrant but even the clouds can’t dim how stunning the grounds are. I took quite a few shots of my mom by the fountains and gazebos.
At this point in the day we were starting to get hungry but we didn’t want to eat a full on meal since we were going out to Jason Aldean’s later (highly recommended!) so we stopped off at Biscuit Love for some bonuts. Man oh man were they delicious. It came with a side of blueberry compote and lemon mascarpone. I wasn’t able to take pics with my camera at Jason Aldean’s and I was too shy to take my camera out of my bag after the guitarist was saying the crowd was really good that night and that a previous night there were a ton of “influencers” there who were the worst. LOL! I can’t say I disagree with him and I definitely didn’t want to pull my camera out after that, so here’s a few pics from my Instagram. The band was really good and the food was amazing. I had the mac and cheese with chicken and bacon and my mom had the prime rib sandwich. I also had a Cowboy Killer drink which was really good and they definitely didn’t skimp on the alcohol.
I love when my mom goes on trips with me but she is a big worrier and when we travel together I generally don’t go out after it gets dark because she gets so anxious and knowing she’s anxious makes me anxious and I can’t enjoy myself. I remember going out at midnight to get pictures of the Duomo in Milan and leaving my hotel at midnight (I wanted to go that late since there wouldn’t be tons of people), or just for late night walks in Abu Dhabi, although I will say that even though I was obviously cautious in Milan I never (even late at night) ever felt unsafe in Abu Dhabi. I know there are all these articles online about how to stay safe as a woman while traveling solo and while I understand why women get nervous, I live in NYC. There was a shooting directly across the street from me. Cautious is my default mode and I can honestly say I have to be more on guard in NYC then I had to be any place I’ve traveled. It is what it is. I’m glad I was able to snap this shot of Broadway at night when we were walking back to the hotel after dinner at Jason Aldean’s.
The next day we went to the Johnny Cash Museum. My mom isn’t into country music and I wouldn’t say I’m a major fan but I do appreciate some of it and I definitely wanted to check out the Johnny Cash Museum and also get a shirt for my dad.
For dinner that night we went to Wild Wasabi. Luckily they had things that my mom could eat since she is not a big fan of sushi. I absolutely love sushi and the fact that they make a smiley face in the rice was a cute little touch. My mom had the fried rice (I believe the chicken fried rice) and I got the chirashi.
We’re almost at the end and as I mentioned in the beginning, if you made it this far then I am very impressed. Normally I would break a post like this into multiple posts so it wouldn’t get this long, but considering how I’ve neglected this blog for almost a year, I figured it would best to make this post (and most likely the next post about Al Ain) into one long post, although with Al Ain I didn’t take that many pictures.
For our last night in Nashville we went to Pinewood Social and split the fish and chips. Normally we each get our own meal but restaurants serve so much (which is not a bad thing since it means there are leftovers for lunch or dinner the next day) but it seems that the fancy hotels never have a microwave in the room, which means that we have to throw out so much food and I hate throwing out perfectly good food. It is so wasteful and unnecessary. I wasn’t crazy about the apple coleslaw but the fish and chips were good although in hindsight I wish I had gone with either the shortrib mac and cheese or the French dip. The servers were so sweet at Pinewood. They brought us out the food on two separate trays and we didn’t even ask them to do that. I left a good tip obviously. They were all so nice and attentive without hovering.
This was taken from the window of our hotel room. I really do love night photography, which is funny when you think about it because I hate the dark. I enjoyed my time in Nashville so much and I really am hoping to one day go back there because there were a few places I didn’t get to see and a few places I want to go back to to eat. I just have to focus on positive thinking and all that and things will just work themselves out.
