I Apparently Went to Nashville Just to Eat, Sleep, and Shop

When my partner invited me along to his graphic design conference in Nashville, Tennessee, I thought that I was going to use my tagalong time very differently, ahem.

Without the distraction of all the other million things there are to do on my property, not to mention the kids and the pets, just think of all the writing and photo editing I could do! No spending half the day sewing, or taking a spontaneous bookstore trip with a teenager or two, or puttering around transplanting lilacs--instead, I could bring my laptop and all the books I'd been meaning to review and get so darn ahead on my freelance pieces and my personal blog that I wouldn't have to touch the computer again all summer if I didn't feel like it.

Ooh, and the sightseeing! We've gone to Nashville as a family several times, but of course the rest of the family's interests don't quite overlap my own, so this time I could really dive into the honky-tonk tourist sites. I could do the Johnny Cash Museum this time, or sit in one of the open-front bars on Broadway, or even just walk around the Country Music Hall of Fame again on my own agenda. Or I could go visit The Hermitage! I could finally eat some Nashville hot chicken!

Look, here are my guide books to prove that I really did have plans!

My motivation continued throughout the four-hour drive, as I texted the kids photos of us crossing the Ohio River--

--and the scenic, wildfire smoke-infused skies:

But then... I dunno. We checked into the Gaylord Opryland Resort (just a short walk from the new location of the Grand Ole Opry! Which I planned to tour!), and my partner headed straight off to his first conference activity, while I orienteered myself and the luggage through this baffling and overwhelming--though very pretty!--garden sanctuary--

--to our room, where I somehow found myself putting the air conditioning on high, closing the curtains, turning the TV on to the exact mumbly volume level that I find relaxing as hell, and then flopping onto the bed and snoozing away for several hours. 

It was... delightful, actually! The room was dim, I could hear a waterfall somewhere outside the window--and you KNOW how delightful rushing water sounds!--the temperature was perfect, and although I had all these plans that I could be enacting, it just felt like there was nothing I really needed to do and nowhere I really needed to be, so I might as well be sleepy.

OMG y'all, is this how those vacation-type people feel when they're on vacation? Like, those vacation people who don't travel to see all the sites and do the stuff, but instead just want to lie on the beach and eat yummy things? The ones who leave home just so they can relax for a minute?

If so, y'all, it's NICE!

I snoozled away the entire rest of the morning like that, and rallied only so that I could meet my partner at one of the on-site restaurants for lunch--because even when the promise of sightseeing fails to motivate me, the promise of food always does!

After tacos--and a margarita for me, because after all, *I'M* not on the clock! I'm on vacation!--I figured that since I had my pants and shoes back on and everything, I maybe should go out and do something. I found my way out the front door of the resort--which is not as easy and it sounds!--and found a quite lovely, quite well-marked walking path that led around the giant building and towards the Grand Ole Opry.

See, I'm headed right there, and I have the selfie to prove it!

I crossed the giant parking lot, found the sidewalk in front of the Grand Ole Opry, passed the family of geese without getting chased or bitten... and then I took a right turn and went to the mall instead.

And that is somehow where I spent the rest of the entire afternoon!

But to be fair, there was much that I had to do there. I found a store that had the exact style of pants that I knew the teenager would love, so then of course I had to send her many photos of the options and engage in a detailed text-based back and forth about color and style and sizing. Would she like the grey, or a less-traditional-for-her green? Would she perhaps prefer to go completely off-book and try the khaki?

She went with grey and green. I don't think she's ever worn khaki on purpose.

And then, of course, there was a LEGO store, which there is not at my mall at home, so obviously this was the time to buy birthday gifts and maybe a couple of stocking stuffers. I mean, is this not the perfect birthday gift for my older kid or what?

Ooh, today I learned that there's an off-label lighting kit for this LEGO set! I'll have to look into that for her next gift-giving holiday...

I was just about shopped out by the time my partner texted that he was almost done with his conference stuff for the day, so we both got back to our room at about the same time, and since we were both tired, it made sense that we spent the evening just vegging in our room, eating takeout burgers and watching hotel cable.

Okay, so that's one day down, and two days to go. Plenty of time left to do all that writing and photo editing and all that sightseeing I'd planned. 

Except that the next day, I sort of did the same thing again? But lazier? I slept in, I ambled around the resort a bit and bought myself a coffee, I brought my nook with me and sat somewhere pretty and read for absolute hours, I met my partner for lunch, and then I went back to the room and took a giant nap.

And when my partner was done with conference stuff for the day, and we could have gone into Nashville to walk Broadway and dip in and out of honky-tonks, I instead suggested that we walk over to an outdoor concert at the Grande Ole Opry--

--and after hanging out there for a while, I convinced him to go where else but back to THE MALL with me. I don't even know, you guys! But I hadn't gotten a Cinnabon the previous day, and I wanted one!

Goal achieved!

My final day at the resort was actually minimally more productive, since I had to check out and move all our luggage to the car, so that put an end to my previously endless napping. Instead, I spent the day sitting by the river, listening to the spiel of the occasional guided boat tours (?!?), and trading chapters of my book with editing a few photos now and then. The kids texted constantly with all those queries of the teenager who thinks they're being smooth about the fact that their parents will return home shortly from an out-of-town trip--"Mom, where's the steam mop?" "Mom, what do you do with the trash bag if it's already full?"--so that was also entertaining.

And then my partner finished up his last conference activity, we played Marco Polo by text to find each other, and off we went back home! No Hermitage. No Johnny Cash Museum. Definitely no summer's worth of freelance posts! No travel activities to speak of, really, other than the fact that I got a decent amount of the year's birthday and Christmas shopping done... which is not nothing, I guess, so I suppose it was a fairly productive trip, after all.

It WAS pretty nice, though, to come home from a trip all caught up on sleep, for a change, all super relaxed and with no desire to take to my bed for a couple of days to recover. And coming home to a spick-and-span home well-run by the two teenagers in my absence did not hurt, either.

And if the house smelled suspiciously of bleach and Pine Sol, and we were surprisingly nearly out of paper towels even though I'd just bought a huge multi-pack right before we'd left, and I'm pretty sure we used to own more forks than this, well... teenagers deserve a bit of a vacation, too!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!