After stuffing our faces with Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream, we drove straight to the hotel in a slight food coma. Now when booking the hotels for the trip, I thought Best Western would probably be  a safe, economical choice across the board. Apparently this is not the case in downtown Nashville. This happens to be the second worst hotel I’ve ever stayed in (with the first being The Beverly Inn in LA, as some of you may fondly remember).  Not only are we not in the safest part of town, but also this place is completely under construction, smells of feet and urine, and you can hear every word of the people outside your door. There was unidentified hair in the bathroom.  20 minutes after getting settled in the room, we were startled by someone at the door pushing on it and trying to get in. I then proceed to have severe tachycardia and run in the bathroom to hide. Enter Dave saving the day! He went to the door to see what the deal was. It was a couple trying to get in the room thinking it was theirs. Little did we know this would not be the last we see of them…

On a positive note, the city of Nashville is as amazing as we hoped it would be. It is filled with lots of my favorite things. Country music, beer and delicious food. We ventured out on that beautiful warm night to see all that the city had to offer.

We were so tired and said “ehh we’ll just stay out for a little bit”.  And five hours later we were still going strong. I’m sure many of you got the Snapchats to prove it. We found a saloon called The Silver Dollar, which initially lured me in because the band was playing a Lee Brice song. We ended up staying until the very end of the set because they were so good! Remember when I said we hadn’t seen the last of the couple that tried to break in to our hotel room? Well of all the bars in Nashville they happened to stroll in to this one! What are the chances. They did not seem to recognize us so we just chuckled about it.

The band was very talented. Especially Scott “Skittle” Johnson (yes Skittle, which is coincidental as it is one of my favorite candies and has been quite a staple on our road trip diet). He is seen on this video with his amazing fiddle skills. I apologize for the poor video quality and I will blame that on my iPhone 4. Yes, just the iPhone 4. Also, I would like to point out how hard it was for me to stay somewhat still and not dance through this!

Go back to the hotel and get some rest? Nah. Let’s keep going. En route to the next great country bar we saw a big sign that says “Joe Knows Nashville”. Joe, do you know Nashville? I’m not sure. But we thought it would be a good idea to take a picture and send it to you 🙂

We then decided to venture to the world famous Tootsie’s, where again I was lured inside by a great band playing a great song. This time it was Garth Brooks “Friends in Low Places”, which is a favorite of some of my favorite people! Please refer back to the last post to take a look at Dave & Laura’s singing skills, or great lack thereof.

The name of the singer here was John Stone. They provided us with another 3 hours of fun. We had such a blast singing and dancing along with the band. Highlight of the night would be the last song which was announced would be a slow song. As everyone that was left in the bar groaned, I got really happy. Yup. You know what that means. We middle-school slow danced in the middle of Tootsies. What.

Unbeknownst to me, Dave captured this moment of me loving life:

We aren’t as good as we once were, but last night we were pretty darn good. Late in the night when the Jack & gingers started catching up to me, John Stone started to play Toby Keith’s “As Good As I Once Was”. I got so excited because I know there is a part where we all yell “Daaaaaave!” I so desperately wanted to capture this moment on video. You, too, can witness this moment courtesy of iPhone 4 and Laura’s amazing video skills here:

We had such a great time on our first night in Music City! Stay tuned for what Day 2 has to offer…