After five fun-filled days in Florida, we loaded up our garbage bags of dirty clothes and a couple new boogie boards and climbed in our sand-filled truck to begin our journey home. But not without a pit stop in Nashville, Tennessee on the way! Nashville would be a first for all of us and while a bit skeptical as to whether it would be a worthy destination for a family with young kids, our plan was to explore, eat more good food, and simply take in a new city together. We had so much fun in Chicago in May and decided if the kids could handle that, they'd be just fine in Nashville!
After a quick stop at Waffle House on our way out of town, we took highways from Destin to Nashville, giving us some great scenery for our drive. We drove by so many adorable southern towns, roadside stands, and cute markets that took everything in me to not stop, but the kids were riding well and we had the itch to keep going. We listened to John Denver, Willie Nelson, and Alabama, stopped to fill up the tank just once, and rolled into town just before dinnertime.
We stayed in East Nashville, an up-and-coming area of Nashville known for some good eats and a diverse mix of locals and aspiring artists. I wanted to stay away from Broadway because I figured it wasn't going to be the right scene for the kids, but let's be honest, the cute airbnb I found played the biggest factor in where I decided to hang our hats...
We discovered that this adorable place was actually owned and occupied by a young couple who had moved in and renovated it just a few years ago. She is a photographer, he's a musician, and they rent out their place many weeks of the year. It was homey, charming, and hip, and such a great backdrop to our short stay in Nashville. And it was within minutes of The Pharmacy, a restaurant on the top of my Pinterest board.
I LOVED the concept of this place so much. The building used to be an old pharmacy, so the owners decided to keep the tradition and develop an eatery with a simple, sophisticated, and old-school charm. They serve burgers and fries, have an old-fashioned soda fountain and serve milkshakes, phosphates, and sodas, and the majority of their seating is in the back of the restaurant on a gorgeous outdoor biergarten. After a week of seafood and eating in our swimming trunks, a burger, fries, and ice cold beers tasted so great. And the kids sucked down some milkshakes within seconds!
One of my favorite parts of staying at an airbnb is that you get to do "home" in a place that isn't your home but provides all the amenities to just play house. We've stayed in a few over the last few years and while a hotel is a hotel pretty much no matter where you go, I love that the homes we've stayed in have all had their unique touch that has become a memory of each place in and of itself. There was the distinct smell of leather in our apartment directly above Allen Boots in Austin, Texas, that tree house bungalow in California, our dreamy retreat in the middle of nowhere in Kauai, and now, our little white cottage in the heart of music city. We got a few groceries to make makes eggs and bacon for breakfast, I was able to get all caught up on laundry before we left (such an amazing feeling upon getting home), and the kids played hide and seek in the backyard. It wasn't home, but it sure started to feel like home by the time we hit the road!
We started our Friday morning in 12 South, an eclectic neighborhood with eight city blocks lined with trendy eateries, storefronts, and lots of street art. It's where you can find Reese Witherspoon's Draper James, that famous Nashville flag mural, and custom-made, outrageously expensive blue jeans at Immogene + Willie. Every block, every store, every old-Chevy-truck-turned-flower-truck was absolute eye candy and I decided this would be a place to return to with my mom or a group of girlfriends. It just wasn't the same browsing all the southern belle dresses sipping sweet tea with my husband watching me (or his watch) from afar. ;)
So many gas-stations-turned-gift-shops in this neighborhood! I LOVED White's Mercantile, owned and operated by Hank Williams Jr.'s daughter.
Enjoying some complimentary sweet tea at Draper James!
I think my favorite part of 12 South, though, was our lunch at Bartaco. This place was so cool. I'm an experience and a detail girl and this place provided both in every sense of the word. The navy blue and white shiplapped walls that featured big wood frames and black and white prints of vintage beach life, the basket lighting and bright green fiddle figs trees, and blue and white checked (but unmatched) shirts of the staff, and the lively bar serving fresh herbed summer cocktails at noon on a Friday afternoon was all enough to make me want to set up camp and stay for the rest of the day. There menu was pretty much all tacos, the food served family style, and even my taco-obsessed husband concluded they were some of the best tacos he's ever had. We were big big fans of all things Bartaco.
After just a little more shopping, a little more street art posing, and some yummy fresh juice popsicles at Las Paletas (I wish I could have filled my freezer with the avocado ones) we headed to Broadway Street to get our first glimpse of the craziness. And it was maybe even crazier than I expected! A far cry from the quiet neighborhood we were just at, this mini Vegas strip was filled to the brim with people at 2:00 on a Friday afternoon. And there were SO MANY bachelorette parties! Who knew so many soon-to-be brides wanted to wear cowboy boots and pedal bar buses up and down the streets for hours on end?! And I'm pretty sure we could hear Old Town Road playing five blocks away and three levels high at all times. Move over Vegas, Broadway was bringing the party!
We visited the Johnny Cash museum and loved this experience. It was interactive, the kids thoroughly enjoyed all the music, and we learned so much Johnny Cash, but also all the up and comers of his time that truly paved the way in the music industry.
We went back to our airbnb to get fixed up for dinner, then took an Uber back downtown for the night. We listened to some live music and played some retro arcade games at ACME Feed & Seed before Mila talked her prince into a horse-drawn carriage ride. It was definitely a "unique" way to see Broadway and the kids learned a thing or two stopped at red lights next to some tractor bar crawlers. ;)
And ended our day on the pretty pedestrian bridge! We watched the sunset before Mila's knight in shining armor came to the rescue once again and saved a baby doll from the river. The baby took quite the dive from the top of the bridge, but just as I was about to click "buy now" on my Amazon app., Beau was negotiating with a boat owner to push the baby to shore. Mila was screaming from the top of the bridge, more because she was worried about the lengths her dad would go to to save her baby than about the baby itself. And I was right along with her!
Baby saved and in the arms of her mama, we hopped in an Uber and headed back to our little white cottage for a good night's sleep before one more day of vacation.
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