Arrival
Nashville was my first trip outside of airline employment so we traveled there on 4 tires instead of 2 wings. I noticed that it took considerably longer in the car. I didn't like it, but I guess I'll have to get used to it.
This trip to Nashville was supposed to be our anniversary trip (we really know how to celebrate an anniversary, don't we?) but we got bumped from all of our flights in June and ended up in Ocean City. We couldn't get the hotel stay refunded, so here we are.
Slums of Brentwood
Instead of going directly to the hotel, we took a detour around Nashville to go see Jadie Thomas in Brentwood. She had just had her new son, Parker, and we wanted to see how frazzled someone with a toddler and newborn looked. We were pleasantly surprised that everyone looked good and alert.
Parker was adorable and slept a lot, and Torin tries to sleep as little as possible. She apparently gets really quiet around naptime thinking everyone will forget and she can stay awake. I still don't understand why anyone would try to avoid sleep. I mean, who does that? But I digress...
Their house was beautiful and it was in an unbelievable neighborhood. We're talking million dollar houses just around the corner. But as their neighbor told them when they moved in to their non-million dollar house, they live in the "slums of Brentwood." Don't get me wrong, I'd sell a kidney to live in these slums.
Opryland....Here we come!
After visiting with the Thomas folks, we headed towards our hotel. Jadie gave us directions and we were on our way. Of course, the route she told us would have been the shortest had they not closed the entire freaking interstate! Who does that? Can you just close and interstate? Well, the geniuses that make up the DoT in Tennessee figured that it was acceptible to divert an entire interstate onto a 4 lane road with stoplights galore. Of course, where we were going was 4 miles away on this road. Not happy.
Well, we decided to backtrack on the same interstate and wind around and eventually make it to our destination, but not after me cussing the Governor of Tennessee, the Mayor of Nashville and pretty much everyone else in the state except for the Thomas family, Shane Battier and Steve McNair.
The Opryland Hotel
Just as my blood pressure was getting back down to normal levels, we walked into the lobby of the Opryland Hotel and were greeted warmly by the longest line I have ever seen to check into a hotel. They apparently were caught off guard by all of the people with reservations showing up around check-in time. I can understand how that might be surprising for a hotel.
After waiting for 30 minutes in line, we finally got our room keys, and my day got much better when they honored my airline rate when I had no ID to show them. If you've never been to the Opryland Hotel, you can't really comprehend how big the place is. We were in one of the closer rooms and it still felt like we walked forever to get to our room. But even after nearly having an aneurism on the drive there, standing in line for way too long and hiking to our room, I had to admit that the place was pretty cool.
Scouting out the place...
Since we were only going to be there only one night, we wanted to make sure we got to see and do everything we wanted. We proceeded to do a lap of the entire complex which was the most exercise I had gotten in a little over 6 months.
For the most part, I was entertained the entire time by the horde of women that had descended on the hotel wearing sashes and giant tiarras. The only problem is that they weren't there for a beauty contest. At least I hope they weren't. I could only figure out that it was some sort of conference and these women sold something. I tried my hardest to figure it all out, but I was too distracted by the prom dresses from the late 80's they were wearing.
Finally....Dinner.
Emily's only request was to go out for a nice dinner since this was supposed to be our anniversary trip. We ended up changing our restaurant choice at the last minute and ended up at Ristorante Volare which turned out to be a very good Italian restaurant.
We had heard that inside the atrium at the hotel, they had nightly laser shows and on the way back to our room, we saw a bunch of people waiting around for something. We thought that it might be time for the laser show, so we sat down next to a couple wearing matching shirts that looked like Texas flags. Don't mess with Texas. Anyway, we sit and wait. And wait. And nothing happens. Just a bunch of people sitting around looking at their watches. We tried to figure out a way for us to leave and not make it look like we were big idiots waiting for a non-existent laser show. We couldn't come up with anything, so we just got up and left.
Summary
All in all, the trip was pretty nice and the hotel was fun. I think I am glad that we were only for there for a day because I am pretty sure that I would struggle to find things to do if I was there much longer.
Things I learned:
- Whoever signed the order to close the interstate should be fired. Now.
- Grown women in sashes and tiarras make me laugh.
- You can call it "Mozzerella Fritta" but it's just still fried cheese. And I LOVE fried cheese.
- When you go for a lap of the Opryland hotel you should pack a lunch and drop breadcrumbs.
- Don't mess with Texas.