Final Day of our Road Trip... Home Again...

"There is nothing like returning to a place that reminds unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.”
~ Nelson Mandela ~

We were altered by our trip... it was so great to get away, not to worry about work things, and to enjoy cherished time with my daughter, Kasey. Thank you Lord for this time away and the memories that will stay with us for a lifetime.



Sunday was all drive time, heading home....

We encountered more "road monsters", wind generating farms (acres and acres of these wind things!!)







Our GPS likes to sometimes detour us in strange routes? It took us off the interstate for some reason into some work areas between Gary, Indiana and Chicago, IL... odd route for sure.








Over the bridge thru Chicago, and off to Wisconsin....









We arrived home around 2:00 p.m.... and man is it cold here! *L* We were used to 70 degree weather, sun and no coats...came home to 40 degrees, overcast and windy, needing our winter coats...brrrrr!!
But, still glad to get home.....Thank you Lord for safe travels and fun times!

A quick unpacking of the van and then headed out for a surprise 60th birthday party for a dear friend ....

Photos of the party posted here soon...

Saturday - Back Downtown Then Heading North...

We're headed north toward home today, but first we headed back to downtown Nashville to visit Tootsies, (last night it was too busy).






The views down Broadway Street....




We saw this band last year at Tootsies, and enjoyed them again (with a new singer) this year too!







Tootsies Orchid Lounge is one of the old famous honky tonks that boasts many country singers among it's patrons. Some even got their starts singing at Tootsies!

The Wall of Fame wall has old signed photos of many great singers from the past and the present.













We headed across the street for lunch before leaving town ... Chili and Cornbread.. yum!!

And then we were on the road again....


We were glad we didn't have to deal with any bedbugs along our travels... but we did decide to stop at a FLEA market... FLEA LAND of Kentucky..*L*



It was NOT worth the stop... uggh, nothing of interest, plenty of JUNK.

So off we went... endured a horrific rain storm for about 2 hours after dark (not fun driving in it!), so we decided to stop and call it a night just north of Indianapolis.... our most excellent road trip is almost over... *sigh* ..but what a GREAT time we've had! I'm very thankful.

Doing the Friday Night Nashville Scene....

Borrowing some lyrics from a Hank Williams, Jr. song...

"And I'm watching the sun go down this evening
and soon it'll wake this town thats made of dreams,
but before it does a new star will be shining
and lighting up the ole Nashville scene."

We arrived in Nashville in the afternoon, after getting settled into our great hotel (which was FREE because I cashed in my reward's points from my Priority Club card!)






... and after checking emails, we decided to eat downtown and visit the honky tonks.

Our hotel was about a mile and a half from Broadway and the old bars that some of the great country western singers got their start at and still visit from time to time.

Here are some of the sites we saw, places we visited, and great food we ate.





Tootsies was PACKED (no room to stand or sit) ... so we figured we'd come back tomorrow morning, they have great bands starting at 10 a.m. there too.




We had yummy BBQ at Jacks!








A cool piano assemblage!!







Back to the hotel for some sleep, great fun, great nite!!

More Nashville fun tomorrow.....


(Also more photos once Kasey gets hers edited)....

Thursday's Child ...... Day Six of Our Most EXcellent Road Trip

It seems that we had changed places on Thursday with Wednesday's child...

Re: This nursery rhyme...

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living,
But the child who is born on the Sabbath Day
Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.

Earlier today we were Thursday's Children - full of woe... *L*
After having such fun and staying out late on Beale Street last night, we spent a good part of today sleeping in the hotel room, and just lounging around. I ate the leftovers from our Rum Boogie feast for breakfast AND lunch while Kasey slept in even later than I did!

I think that Memphis had a Veteran's Day Parade, I could hear them from the 10th floor of our hotel room, and our window had a good view of one of the main streets, but I didn't see it, even though it sounded like the band was right under our window. Since neither one of us were even dressed by 11 a.m. we missed that opportunity...shucks!

But then we got our second wind and decided to have a fancy meal at a beautiful restaurant just a block from our hotel.





The dinner at Texas de Brazil Churrascaria (Brazillan Steakhouse) was DEEEELICIOUS!! And WAAAY too much food, we hardly put a dent into tasting ALL that they offered there, we had to pass on a lot of their meat entries and salad entries because there was just TOO much.... all of it looked soooo good though!

These were our salad entries... you could go back as much as you wanted to for more... we didn't... but wished we could, there were SOOO many unique food items to try!







The waiter took this photo of us, it turned out blurry unfortunately.

At our table, they gave us these little cardboard disks, and when we wanted to try another kind of meat entree, we flipped it over, and waiters with different meat skewers came around to serve us.





A very nice meal... pricey, but worth it if you can eat alot! *L*





We needed to walk off our meal, so we headed another couple of blocks down the road to Beale Street again. We stopped at a couple of places, but of COURSE had to stop at Blues City Cafe again!








It wasn't a late night for us since we decided to make Nashville our next stop and we'd be leaving in the morning to get there.

Walking back to the hotel, which was across the street from the Peabody Hotel..famous for their ducks, I snapped a photo of one of the ducks feet imprints on the sidewalk named after Danny Thomas.



This is the view of the Peabody Hotel sign from ground level, and on the 10th floor of our hotel across the street from the Peabody.





Soooo, onward to Nashville in the A.M..... time for sleep now.