What 4th of July?

First and foremost, so sorry for the late post! It seems like we've been running around like chickens with our heads cut off for the last two weeks! I'm going to fill you in on the rest of the time Carly was here and let Em tell you about her first week in her new home!

*Apparently I should read my previous blogs before I start writing a new one. This one's going to be a more in-depth look at Carly's last days... which the blog before briefly touched on. I'm not going to rewrite this sucker so deal with it! Also sorry for the lack of pictures! 

Carly and I finally got to Nashville on the 1st of July. I mentioned in the previous post that we were way too anxious to arrive at our final destination that we completely rerouted our trip. The next day we hopped aboard the Red Neck Tour Bus (last time we visited Nashville we did the tour and met the tour guide and he was really helpful showing us all the local places rather than all the tourist hotspots). You're allowed to drink on the bus so naturally we did. After the tour Brian (the tour guide who you may also hear me call 'Tater' or 'Dougie Fresh') showed us the BEST burger joint in Nashville. It's called the Pharmacy and is located in East Nashville. If any of you lovely people come visit us, that's the first place we're going. East Nashville is full of hipsters and reminds me a lot of Seattle. Any time I feel like I might miss home I can just hop in my car, head to that part of town and quickly find a coffee shop, and find people in extra tight skinny jeans wearing black framed glasses and beanies. After that Brian took us to a bar called 'Douglas Corner Cafe.' Apparently it's Eric Church's favorite place in Nashville! Tuesdays are open mic night where singer/ songwriters come to play their songs. Carly and I instantly fell in love with the place. 
One of my most favorite things so far has been getting to know our neighbors. The two guys who live behind us, Jeff and Jeremy, are straight up rednecks. Carly and I somehow got involved in some intense golf cart races, golf cart doughnuts in the rain, sparkler bomb explosions and got our first lesson in fishing in the South. Their accents were just too much for me to handle at first. The best part about Jeff is the very first thing he said to me was "Washington? Yall like the Cougars or Dogs?" I told him I was a Husky fan, he agreed, and we became best friends!
Thursday brought us the 4th of July. The Band Perry was playing for free downtown. You can google "Music City 4th of July" just to get a feel for how crazy it was. The plan all along was to go down early, get a parking spot, bar hop until the concert started, and then watch the fireworks. Well as you know we don't do well with plans. It POURED all day. We got downtown with no umbrella around 1pm. Ran into BB Kings bar to escape the rain, grabbed a seat at the bar and ordered us a drink. Turns out our bartender used to be a cheerleader for the good ol' 49ers (gag me). She was trying to make a top to wear out after her shift with a couple of bandanas. Carly, being the art teacher, took her bandanas, some mardi gras beads, and a pair of scissors and whipped up a top for her right at the bar. Needless to say we got free drinks. The rest of the night was a blur. We met a group of guys from Chicago, some girls from Boston, and a couple more girls also from Chicago. We crashed a Bachelor party, drank straight from the pitchers at Paradise Park (a trailer park themed bar), got kicked out of Hooters, danced our butts off at the Honky Tonk and Tequila Cowboys (my two favorite bars) and ended up on the other side of town watching one of our friends (a guy we met at Douglas Corner) perform rather than The Band Perry and the fireworks.

Friday was a recovery day. We didn't leave the pool once.

Saturday we met up with the guys from Chicago. I'm going to paraphrase in order to keep this from being an even longer novel than it already is. Carly stole a bike, Carly stole a cell phone, Carly got drunk, Carly got lost, Carly was found in the bathroom, Carly had a shitty car ride back to the house, Carly got 2 hours of sleep, Carly had to be at the airport at 4am, Carly hated her life.

She's going to kill me for that.

I had four days by my lonesome until the lovely Emily arrived! Those days consisted of me sitting by the pool, buying Titans season tickets, finding a job working at Wild Buffalo Wings, lots of early morning runs, potato gun adventures with the neighbors, and most importantly, letting my liver recover from my adventures with Carly!

Until next time!
-AK

Carly's last day

LP Field

Honey I'm Home!

So our plans took a bit of a turn Sunday morning. Originally we were going to leave Chicago, head to Indianapolis, cut across to Branson, drop down to Little Rock, and then go through Memphis on our way to Nashville. When we eventually woke up Sunday morning we decided there was still more we wanted to see. We packed up and headed to the Shedd Aquarium in downtown Chicago. It was amazing to say the least! There were dolphins, sharks (my favorite), penguins, belugas, giant creepy snakes, and all sorts of other things. About five-thousand times bigger than our lovely aquarium back home. We were able to play with stingrays, and Carly got to see her first 4-D show, Ice Age the Melt Down. Since there was so much to see and do there, we got off to a little bit later of a start then expected. We finally made it back to the car around 1:00 or so and headed off the Indianapolis. 

The only reason we went to Indianapolis was to go and see the Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Indianapolis Colts. Man was it worth the stop! The stadium was HUGE. I thought the Seahawks and a nice field but this one kind of blew it out of the water. I decided when I get rich and retire I need to drive across the country again just to tour all the awesome stadiums. From Indianapolis we headed to Louisville Kentucky. Using our awesome brain power, we realized we could still use the hotel discount we had from Chicago and decided to stay downtown Louisville. It was a Sunday night so we didn't really have high expectations for the night life there, but decided to go out anyways. Well as you may have figured out from the previous posts, there is no such thing as a boring night with Carly and I. We headed to 4th ave., which is like a city all on it's own. We went to a place called the Sports and Social Club and took a seat at the bar. Seeing that they had bowling lanes for five dollars we decided to play. While waiting for lane assignment we ran into this guy who was frantically looking for his friends. Apparently his Army buddies were suppose to be at this bar and weren't. We decided to help the soldier-in-need by inviting him to bowl with us, at which point we became the three best friends that anyone could ever have. We bowled, we drank, and mingled to other bars, and once again, did not go to bed until at least 4am. 

Morning came and we decided to bail on the rest of our plans and just head to Nashville. We left around 10am and made our way to Mammoth Caves, which is the longest system of caves in the world, about 400 explored miles. 
Fact #1: caves are not made for almost 6ft tall people. I took on the alter ego of Gollum and gave a whole new twist to the tour. The caves were absolutely stunning. Way better then the Jewel Caves in South Dakota. We did the two-hour tour and then began our 2 hour drive to Nashville. 
Fact #2: Us Seattle people have not experienced rain like they have over here. We were forced to pull off the freeway and wait out the rain so we didn't die. Thankfully it only took a half hour or so for it to let up enough for us to keep driving.

And just like that we made it to Nashville : ) I have never been so happy. Right off the bat we found a Mexican restaurant that does 2 for 1 margaritas, which if you know me at all you know that that is my all time favorite thing. The last few days have consisted of us exploring the different areas of Nashville with a guy we met last time we visited. Conveniently enough he was a tour guide last time so he knew where all the good spots were. We had the best cheeseburger of our lives at a place in East Nashville called "The Pharmacy" found a local bar where singers and songwriters come to perform, and partied our little butts off on the 4th with all the random people we met. Life at my new house has been awesome as well. I have a ridiculous Mexican style pool that looks like a resort pool, crazy redneck neighbors who took us fishing in the dark, attempted to catch fireflies, had golf cart races and even went on a beautiful 2.5 mile run at the lake. 

I'm sad to say that Carly is leaving me Sunday, but she's promised to come back for  New Years Eve...which I recommend all of you do as well! I can't wait for Emily to finally be here and experience all that I've discovered and more : )
Until next time!
-AK

The Shedd Aquarium in Chicago

Colts Stadium

My pool!

Old Hickory Lake, right down the road from me

Our redneck tour 

White trash Redneck 4th of July