Anniversary Getaway Weekend

Scott and I escaped the realities of life for a weekend away in Nashville to celebrate a belated 21st anniversary. On Friday we headed to The Hermitage, home of Andrew Jackson. I had my camera but the really good pics to take were inside the house and that wasn't permitted. My school plans now include Scott taking James and Abigail back this autumn as we will be studying the 1800s in History this year. Then it was off to lunch and a wander through a mall while waiting to check into Gaylord Opryland Resort.

Check-in was not what I would have expected from a resort; we followed the signs to registration and after waiting in a line of cars for over 15 minutes were directed to a parking lot since we didn't want valet service. Then we waited in line to check-in. We got excited because our room had been upgraded to an atrium view but when we got upstairs we discovered that we had two double beds so back downstairs we went (cutting the line) to ask for the king bed we'd requested upon making our reservation and we lost our upgraded atrium view. We picked up our Grand Ole Opry tickets from the concierge desk, had drinks and then went to dinner at the Aquarium. The food was delicious, the service was good and the view was spectacular.

Saturday morning we had breakfast at Bob Evans and then headed downtown to explore the city. We did lots of walking so I burned off some of the calories of eggs, bacon and sausage gravy over biscuits. We explored Fort Nashborough, we tried to visit St Mary of the Seven Sorrows Church (oldest standing church in Nashville) but it was locked, and we visited the Tennessee State Museum. We also wandered into the Ryman Auditorium but opted not to go on a tour and wandered past many bars with live country music but chose not to deal with the cigarette smoke. So instead we ate lunch at the Spaghetti Factory.

We watched a movie on HBO (much comfier than a movie theater), took a nap and then had a late dinner in the mall food court. Then it was off to the Grand Ole Opry for the 9:30pm show. I was worried since the couple sitting next to us had brought their newborn (less than a month old) twins with them but thankfully those babies never cried. I wish I'd thought to call the kids to tell them to listen to the radio while we were at the show; they could have heard us applaud. It was a sold out show because the last performer of the evening was Carrie Underwood - she sang 4 songs and was fantastic.




This is the lineup of all the performers at Saturday night's show:
Jimmy Dickens
Connie Smith
Mandy Barnett
Jeannie Seely
The Whites
Cherryholmes
Mike Snider
Jim Ed Brown
Clay Walker
Opry Square Dancers
Bill Anderson
Jimmy C. Newman
Carrie Underwood