Warning, I didn't take a whole lot of photos.
We left at 5 am, and the car ride went surprisingly fast. My MIL had donuts and fruit so we were able to eat breakfast. We tried to nap a little, but it just wasn't gonna happen, so the girls decided to put in Brave. By the time we were finished, we were stopping at Carbondale for a coffee/bathroom break around 8:45 am.
And before we knew it, we were near Kentucky Lake. My MIL had heard of this place called Patti's, which is a historical area/settlement (?). There is a block or two of quaint shops that we toured before sitting down at Patti's restaurant for an early lunch. Everything is themed old-southern. The bread which comes with the meal is baked in small flower pots, which was pretty cool, and is served with homemade butter (regular and strawberry - both amazing). The place is known for 2 inch thick pork chops, but they had a lot of other comfort-type foods that sounded good. I ended up with a spinach, artichoke chicken wrap which was different than I expected but pretty decent. It was a great out-of-the-box way to start off the trip. I offered a challenge that we not eat at any chain restaurants all weekend to keep it going.
We arrived in Nashville around 2pm on Friday afternoon. After some interesting first impressions at the hotel (DoubleTree), we got settled into our room, which we shared with Andy's brother and his girlfriend. We took a bit of a rest and waited for Andy's other brother and his wife to get into town. At about 4pm, we decided to all head down to Boardwalk to see the crazy Nashville action..
It was definitely interesting. And pretty busy considering it wasn't even dinner-time yet. We visited Honky Tonk Central and Tootsie's before we could finally get in to eat dinner at the Merchant. This was recommended to us and did not disappoint. There were so many things on the menu I wanted, but I ended up getting the grilled salmon BLT. Oh my Lord, it was heavenly.
Afterward, we went back to the hotel for a quick rest before heading back out with Andy's 2 brothers and their ladies around 9:30. We went to the Second Fiddle, which of course had live music but luckily wasn't too crowded. We were able to snag a few chairs and just listen. Ironically, we found a group of bachelors that we know from Illinois, which was pretty crazy.
We went back to the hotel around 11? I of course first woke at about 4am the next day but dozed in and out until about 7:30 am. I got ready and grabbed breakfast at the buffet downstairs (pretty decent, actually). We loaded up a little after 9 am to head to Opryland.
We walked to the Grand Ol Opry but didn't really have time to take a tour, so we killed time at the mall before walking over to General Jackson's boat at 11:30. Immediately after loading the boat, we went to the buffet - salad, grits, baked beans, meat, cornbread, cheesecake, and cookies. Yeah, real southern food. Everything tasted surprisingly good, but the meat I could've done without.
The entertainers sang for about an hour and they were all quite good. The group had several singers and musicians that rotated doing pieces that again, were real country, southern songs. When they finished, we went to the top of the boat to enjoy the weather and listen to acoustics while we cruised the last half of the way.
After docking, we headed to the Opryland hotel to check things out. It's a pretty big place, so we spent a few hours meandering before heading back to our own hotel for a nap.
Stay tuned for part 2...
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