Once a year Josh and I love to get away to a new place, whether it be camping or visiting another city. We like to get away, just the two of us, and reconnect. Last year we couldn’t really squeeze that in for our fifth anniversary because we had a six month old baby who still needed her mama close by. We opted for a two day excursion 10 minutes away from Brooklyn and got our own hotel room while she stayed in the camper with her grandparents. We were in Colorado so it was definitely still a treat but not our normal Josh and Katy trip. We decided then that our Christmas gift would be a trip for just the two of us after Brooklyn was finished nursing.
Flash forward to April when we still hadn’t planned our “Christmas Trip”, Josh decided to add his own little twist to our trip by buying me Ben Rector tickets for my birthday. There were a few concert dates to choose from; a couple in Florida, one in New York City and the other in Nashville. I highly considered Florida but ultimately we thought Nashville would be a great road trip destination and despite gas prices it would still be cheaper than flying. So we bought the concert tickets in Nashville and started to plan.
This was my first trip to Nashville and I’d heard a lot of good things. I’ll be honest though, we aren’t big country fans and I was a little nervous that we wouldn’t find enough things to do. But it was somewhere I at least wanted to visit and say I’d been there. And if nothing else grabbed us we’d still be able to see Ben Rector and that would be the highlight of any trip.
Thursday
We left for our trip on a Thursday morning. My mom has been coming over on Wednesdays this summer so she spent the night at our house and took Brooklyn home with her on Thursday morning. Josh drove and I did some work in the car to wrap a few things up and get some of my emails answered while we traveled. At our first gas stop we encountered the slowest gas pump in America. It was so slow that the tank reached full at the same time the tow truck arrived to help us break into our own car. Did you catch that? Why yes, I did lock both of our keys and our phones in the car at our first stop for gas. I think Josh was already wanting to turn around at that point. But no joke, that gas pump was so slow!!
Once we were back on the road the trip was pretty smooth after that. We stopped for lunch at Chick fil A and saw the arch in St Louis. The gas pump we used halfway into Missouri also almost overflowed and way overfilled our tank so we actually didn’t stop for gas again until we were just outside of Nashville. Once we got into the city we found our AirBNB. We stayed in a neighborhood called The Nations which has grown rapidly in the last five years. We relaxed on Thursday evening and planned our adventure for the next day.
One thing I really enjoyed about Nashville was all of the neighborhoods have their own culture and there are a lot of neighborhoods to explore. I enjoyed driving past homes in different parts of the city as some were just really charming!
Friday
Friday was one of my favorite days of the trip, we explored the 12th Avenue South neighborhood which had a great park at the south end that we walked through and the homes in the area were some of my favorites. It was definitely my kind of place, there were lots of cute boutiques and the area seemed really family friendly. One thing we noticed in the other neighborhoods we visited was a lot of bachelorette parties. There were certainly a lot of girls in 12th Avenue South but there were a lot of strollers and couples too.
I wish we would have had a bigger budget to eat out on this vacation, there were several restaurants I would have liked to try in this area. We did get a chocolate chip cookie at Five Daughters Bakery though which was delicious! They had a precious outdoor seating area with a play area for kids. We mostly walked the neighborhood and just enjoyed the atmosphere. It was just a really charming area. My favorite thing was the little flower truck, I got a lot of inspiration there for the flower garden I’d love to have some day.
Once we were done exploring we decided to drive around and we went up to Belmont University’s campus. Belmont was a school on my college list at the end of high school but I never visited campus. We just drove around and then sat under a gazebo in front of the Belmont Mansion for a while. It is a very pretty campus. And the houses around it were gorgeous!
After enjoying the afternoon in the sun we went back to the AirBNB to freshen up and make plans for dinner. This also happened to be the day of the Dobbs decision so honestly we were a little bit nervous to stay out too late as we weren’t sure what to expect in the downtown area after dark. We decided to go to a restaurant called Pinewood Social. It has a bowling alley and pool at the restaurant. We thought it would be a fun place to spend the evening, unfortunately we should have made reservations and the only seating they had was outdoors. Thankfully it was a nice evening. We shared queso, salsa and a quesadilla all of which were delicious.
After dinner we drove through the downtown area and saw the craziness on Broadway, it was packed and so loud even just in the car! We decided Sunday night might be the best night for us to be there, hoping it would be a little less crowded.
Saturday
On Saturday we went to another neighborhood called The Gulch. There are a lot of high end stores in this neighborhood like LuluLemon and Urban Outfitters. We window shopped and hung out in a park with some really nice couch-like benches! And we got ice cream at The Nashville Sundae Club. It was really hot outside so after we explored The Gulch we decided to find somewhere we could hangout with air conditioning. We thought the Grand Ole Opry area would be a great place to explore. We spent some time in the Opry Mills mall and then walked over to the Gaylord Opryland Resort. I would love to stay there someday, it’s a beautiful hotel.
Around dinner time we headed back to the mall to grab some dinner at a Mexican place before the Ben Rector concert. The concert was fantastic as always, he is one of our favorite artists to see in concert. He puts so much effort into his shows and they are always just so fun. I love that his fans know every word to his songs. The weather actually ended up being really nice for the outdoor concert and seeing the city skyline and the bridges during the concert was the perfect vibe. And not to be too mushy but holding hands and singing love songs with my husband is one of my favorite things to do!
Sunday
After the concert we went back to our AirBNB and crashed. I think we walked over 14,000 steps so we were very ready for bed. We ended up sleeping in on Sunday morning and spent the morning and afternoon relaxing at the AirBNB. Parents of a toddler really need that extra rest sometimes and we don’t spend many days being complete bums. It was honestly one of the best days of the trip.
After we got our fill of rest we decided to make one more trek downtown and spent some time on Broadway. We parked at the Music City Center which was one of Josh’s favorite buildings because it is shaped like a guitar. We walked through the Walk of Fame park and up 4th Avenue to Broadway. I hate to say it because so many people love this part of Nashville but it was not our favorite place. We don’t drink alcohol and the smell was just very overpowering, it was really crowded and very loud. I feel like an old person saying that but it was just not our scene.
We did find a few interesting things to do though and we got our rooftop bar experience which was a hoot because the guys at the bar next to us were doing their best to embarrass their wives and we had a great view of their show! We got to see the Ryman Auditorium and stopped in some of the stores across from it. We also went to Mattheessen’s and shared a big cookie! Then we did some sightseeing on our way back to our AirBNB. We drove through downtown to see Nashville’s library and the state capitol. We wanted to see their state mall but they were having a festival and some roads were blocked off. We also drove through Germantown on the way back and that was another cute neighborhood. I’m glad we took it slow on our last day and got some rest before driving home Monday morning and picking up our girl! We were so happy to see her and it melted our hearts to see how excited she was for us to be home!
All in all I think I was spot on in my expectations of Nashville, we aren’t big party people or country music fans so it wasn’t the most interesting city to us. But, we did see the attraction for people who enjoy those things and we did see one of our favorite musicians in Music City so that was pretty great. I also love being in big cities and Nashville certainly had a great downtown area with a lot of people to watch! I think my favorite part of town was the area around Belmont though, all the cute southern style homes were so fun to drive by. So much cute aesthetic home inspiration! It was a great trip to reconnect as a couple and I can’t wait for our next adventure!