Sunday, July 05, 2009

Fabulous 4th

Darby and I went to Nashville this weekend to meet up with some friends from ACU. Dylan and Andrea live in Georgia now, so Nashville is a great meeting spot, plus, it's a fun city.

We had SO MUCH FUN! On Friday, we met at our hotel (the Millenium Maxwell House), ate great Mexican food, and walked around downtown for a while. Friday night, we ate at a Mafia-themed Italian restaurant. Then, we went on a "ghost tour." A guide dressed in 19th-century clothes led us to different spots in Nashville and told us stories about the ghosts associated with those places. It was pretty cheesy, but interesting. Afterwards, we were going to go to a blues club, but we looked in and it looked a little shady. So we got ice cream, and went back to the hotel to play Rummikub. Pretty crazy, huh?

Saturday, we went out to Cheekwood, which is a restored mansion and botanical gardens. It was beautiful.

Darby and Me

Dylan and Andrea

Then, we went to Opryland. We ate lunch at the Gaylord Opry, peeked in on an Irish-dancing competition (long story), went to the Opry museum, and shopped a little bit at Opry Mills mall. They had an Ann Taylor factory store, so I was in heaven. :)

We thought the fireworks were going to start at 9:30 or 10 (like in Texas). So, we went to dinner around 7 and were planning on driving downtown afterwards. It had been raining off and on, so we weren't even sure the fireworks were going to happen. We left the restaurant around 8:30 (after having the most amazing dessert--cookie dough eggrolls, oh yes!) As we were driving toward downtown, we saw the fireworks start. I'm not sure if they were supposed to start that early or if they were trying to avoid the rain. Traffic was almost at a standstill, so we had a perfect view from our car. It started pouring, but they were still shooting off the fireworks. I felt sorry for everyone standing outside getting soaked. I can't believe how well it worked out for us. We were nice and dry in the car, and we had a fantastic view. The fireworks were incredible! The finale was insane. I'm so glad they weren't canceled.

This morning we woke up, ate breakfast at Panera, went swimming, and checked out. It was a perfect weekend. I have always loved the 4th of July, and this was definitely one of my favorites. We all agreed that we will have to make an annual tradition of taking a trip together.

1 comment:

Sallie said...

How fun! It's great to have friends you can travel with. I miss the 4th of July when you kids were young (well, after Hannah quit screaming her head off at fireworks shows)! Dad hasn't ever been really into fireworks but I like to see them. Maybe we'll go next year and enjoy the comfort of watching them from his air-conditioned office again. It'll make me miss my kids, though! So glad you had a good and safe trip. Every couple has to have a running out of gas story!