Those icicles were 15+ ft tall and bigger around than my head!
We love to shop (window shop, that is), so we stopped at an Outlet mall near the state line. It was there I found my first ever Bath and Body Works Outlet! Body wash was $3 instead of $10.50 and the Wallflowers were $2 a piece. Great deals! I only wish we had one closer to home.
We made it to our hotel, Hampton Inn, about 4. Our room was on the top floor at the end – furthest away from the elevator.
Isn't that a nice view?
The view of downtown Nashville was great! We were literally right across the street from the Country Music Hall of Fame, the home of the orchestra, and the Musician’s Hall of Fame. It was only two blocks to Honkey Tonk Row and the rest of the downtown attractions.
We immediately went walking around town. Boy was it COLD! We had hats, scarves, jackets, and gloves and still shivered a bit as we traipsed around. The high temperature on Friday was only in the upper 20s, so by dark it was getting pretty darn chilly. We decided to hop in the car and go hit the Opry Mills shopping.
Opry Mills must have been built by the same group that did Discovery Mills on the north side of Atlanta. The layout was just about identical. We walked through most of the mall before we decided we were hungry. We stopped for dinner at one of the first not fast food places we stumbled across – the Rainforest Cafe.
Talk about a unique dining experience!
That's a tree... in the restaurant.
Apparently this place is a chain, but this was the first one Sandy & I had ever seen. The food was just okay and overpriced, but you were paying for the atmosphere, not the quality of the meal. There were trees & vines & robotic gorillas & elephants & fish tanks & thunderstorms & at least 3 dozen small children running around. A kid with ADHD eating ice cream on his birthday at Disney Land couldn’t have been more overstimulated!
After dinner & being in the car all day, we were pretty much pooped, so we went back to the hotel to enjoy all those cool channels on the TV we don’t get at home (like TLC and the Weather Channel) before passing out.
We were up pretty early the next day and had a list of places we wanted to hit. Not being country music fans, we opted to skip the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Ryman Theater tour. We went to Tubb’s Record Store downtown and The Great Escape records & comic book shop near Vanderbilt. We wandered around Vandy for a while and then headed to Elliston’s soda shop for lunch. Easily the world’s best milkshakes – even in the 20 degree weather.
Look at all that ice!
That night we went back downtown. We admired the frozen fountain and watched the local reporter do a bit in front of it about the cold temperatures. I’ve never seen a fountain freezing as it ran!
After watching some bad karaoke and peeking in the country music bars, we headed over to B.B. King’s Blues club. The House band was playing and the music was amazing! We stayed out pretty late and were happy to crash when we finally made it to bed.
We slept in on Sunday morning, had a lazy breakfast downstairs, then decided to hit up some more shopping. One of our favorite artists, Andy Gullahorn, lives in the Nashville area and had written a song about the Green Hills Mall. Of course we had to check it out! This mall could put Lenox to shame! It had every name brand designer store you could think of AND a Tiffany & Co. We didn’t go in (I might have been tempted), but I peeked in the windows as we walked around it. Didn’t buy a thing except another scarf for the cold weather. Afterwards we headed to San Antonio Taco Company for lunch. Great food! Interesting dining experience…
After lunch it was back over to the Opryland area. Lora’s sister, Emily, had recommended that we go. Apparently, though, you have to pay to park. Not $5. Not $10. They wanted $18 just to park the car. *snort* Like I mentioned before, we’re not country music fans and I’m too cheap to pay that much money just to park my car. So, we went back over to Opry Mills so Sandy could look at the Gibson Guitar store again. While we were there we found a brochure for Cooter’s.
Cooter’s is a memorablia shop owned by the guy that played Cooter on Dukes of Hazzard – Sandy’s most favorite show growing up. We easily spent 2 1/2 hours here going through the “museum” and gift shop. Sandy had to pose with the General Lee parked outside. We took more pictures in this one store than we did of the rest of Nashville combined. I think this one stop made the trip for him.
Sunday night we went to a local music venue called Eighth and Lindley. We googled who was playing locally and found two random folks who didn’t seem too country. The featured acts were Stephanie Chapman and Trent Dabbs and Ashley Monroe. The music was pretty darn good! We met one of Sandy’s old friends from high school who’s attending law school at Vanderbuilt. It was nice to meet her and let them catch up between songs. Another late night.
Monday morning we were up early and headed back home. It was snowing as we left (first snow we saw this year!) and we had fun in the parking lot before leaving. It was a very nice trip & we really had a great time!
Mural across from the hotel
Another restaurant in Opry Mills had a giant fish tank!
Elliston's Soda Shop
Snow!!
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