Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville is in Central time, so we arrived at about 1 local time. Just in time for lunch. As we drove toward the city, I looked up restaurant reviews on TripAdvisor. It steered us to Pharmacy Burger, which I felt like I'd heard of before. It was crowded and there was a little wait, but it was worth it.

Carson had a Farm Burger while I went on a limb and had the Stroganoff burger. I'd read about it in reviews and our waiter recommended it. It was excellent. We really enjoyed this place.

We checked into our hotel where the conference was held, changed and freshened up, and then went to see The Parthenon. That's right, there's a to-scale model of the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee! The museum underneath closed at 4:30 and even though we got there at 4, it was already locked up. Oh well! Carson, especially, LOVED this. 

We drove around Vanderbilt's campus, which was right across the street. 

Carson had to be back for his conference that night. I loved his nametag. He says he didn't put a prefix in his registration, so they put "Professor", His colleagues' nametags said "Mr.". All weekend, people thought he was just a really young full professor. 

Carson hung out with his friends after the first session, while I hung out in the hotel room and went to bed early. 

On Saturday, I went to Louisville and Carson went to his conference in the hotel. For dinner that night, we joined his colleagues at the hotel restaurant. 

On Sunday, Carson had a little more conference, then we headed out at about 12. Our first stop was to the Gaylord Opryland. Parking was $21.00, or free for 20 minutes, so we booked it into this place and really powerwalked around to see everything and still park for free. I've been to the one in Orlando and it's similar, but still, so impressive. Our new goal is to stay in one of these sometime. 

We drove into downtown Nashville afterward and explored. We were unable to escape paying for parking so we forked over our life savings.

This was our favorite Nashville building. Doesn't it look just like Batman's head?

This area is on Broadway Street. Nashville was bigger than we anticipated so this was just a little part of the city. 

Yeah that's a cat on top of this guy's guitar. 

We got cheap hot dogs for lunch, knowing that we were going to splurge a little more on dinner for my birthday. We ate them in front of this fountain at the Symphony. It's right next to the Bridgestone Arena and one street over from the main street.

Overall impression of Nashville: we really liked it. Carson's decided he could live there because there are things to do outside and four seasons and there's lots to do, a university... oh, and the Parthenon. 

Next, we were off to Atlanta!