One Last Yeehaw!

Nashville was the perfect place to end our trip. You know it’s going to be a fun town when the shuttle bus taking you downtown has a video screen playing Big n’ Rich with everyone singing along on the bus. Even better was the bus driver’s jokes. For instance (and you have to imagine this in a southern accent)…

“One day a man and his wife were sittin’ watchin’ TV when a commercial for Slim Fast came on. ‘You know honey, I bet if you sprinkled some of that powder in your panties, your giant bum would slim down’ said the husband to his wife. The next morning, the husband went to put on his underwear and noticed some white powder in them. ‘What’s this?’ he says to his wife, ‘Miracle Grow you sonofabitch!’”

I hope that made you laugh, though probably not as much as our bus did.

Anyway, we got off on Broadway, which they call Nashvegas, and ventured to a local spot off the main drag as recommended by a local Tennessean called Back Alley Diner (B.A.D.). There we had amazing burgers for pretty cheap plus all the live music we could have ever imagined. Literally they had two performers up at a time switching off singing and they only got three songs before the next two performers took the stage. And it was a Tuesday night. If that’s any indication of the how much a music town Nashville is, I don’t know what is. Some of the performers were pretty good, but my favorite was a tone deaf guy in his late twenties who had beautiful lyrics but no sense of pitch and who ended his performance with “find me on Facebook and Christian Mingle.” What a cutie.

From there we ventured back to Broadway for a change of scene and found Honky Tonk Central where there was a full band playing lots of country greats, including John Denver’s Country Road which made me very happy. It was also where we watched the Royals start their complete domination of the Giants, which made Ryan very happy. It was also where we discovered Honky Tonk Tea, made of lemonade and sweet tea Vodka, which maybe made both of us a bit too happy.

Craving something sweet, we left that bar for Mike’s Ice Cream, famous in the city and rightfully so. Cookie Dough and Oreo ice cream in thick scoops were creamy beyond belief, or maybe that was just the Honky Tonk Tea.

Our last stop was at the Tin Roof Live Music Joint where we had one last beer to cheer the trip. Then it was back onto the bus for the shuttle ride back to the hotel, (also fun) to finish up our last night of the trip.

But the excitement couldn’t end there!

At about 7:00am this morning, I heard a car alarm screaming from the parking lot. I woke Ryan up, “is that our car?” and he grabbed the keys to shut off what we figured was a false alarm.

Nope.

Luckily all our valuables were in the hotel room, so the thief only managed to get some of my clothes in the bag he grabbed… and Ryan’s swimsuit. Why the thief wanted Ryan’s torn, faded, mildewed swimsuit stuffed in the back pocket of the driver’s seat we’ll never know, but my guess is he’s regretting it.

I wore it all around Patagonia.

Honestly the most valuable thing he got was my Patagonia hat, which I got in Punta Arenas, Chile and is by far the warmest hat I’ve ever owned, not to mention the most sentimental. Bummer. L I guess that’s what we get for parking next to a Waffle House.

Damn you Waffle House

Anyway, it’s Day 100 and St. Louis is calling, so we’re currently driving a blustery drive back home to fix the window there. We’re still counting ourselves fortunate, even though we were robbed twice. This trip has been priceless, the good with the bad. Sometimes you just gotta laugh it off.