Aaron: you’re supposed to put the miles on your car, THEN get a new one. Not get a brand new car and then put a bunch of miles on it.
Me: funny enough, this isn’t the first time I’ve done that. In fact, it’s not even the second time I’ve done that. 🤷🏼♀️
I sort of randomly bought a new car, so we had a lot of bonding time in the 2300 miles I drove over this week.
I don’t typically journal my Tennessee trips because they’re just “going to my former home,” but since I’ve got Aaron along for the second leg I decided to journal it to put into a photo album like I’ve done with all of our other trips.
Thursday, July 23, 2026
Though I woke before my alarm, this was still the first alarm I’d set for this trip. Caitlin wanted to get to Trader Joes in Green Hills as soon as it opened to get prime pick of flowers, and since I’d never had a real Trader Joe’s experience, I wanted to go to!
But first, I hit up Parlor Doughnuts for breakfast. I got a bourbon caramel for me and a lemon for Aaron when I picked him up later. I'm glad I went because I just saw on Facebook they were closing their Clarksville location! I wasn't surprised. When I opened my maps app to figure out what I wanted to do on my visit, SO many of my pinned locations were permanently closed.
Anyway, once I checked out Trader Joe’s (and took pictures of all the things I wanted to buy once we get back to Minnesota), I headed downtown. The Country Music Hall of Fame was opening a new exhibit today - Kenny Chesney - and I wanted to see it!
From there I walked across the bridge to check out the new Titan’s stadium that is currently being built. It looks fancy, but I always thought Nissan Stadium looked cool; this new one looks like it houses office buildings. I’m sure it will be sweet once it is finished. Probably. Maybe.
As I wandered back to my car, I popped into the Walk of Fame park to see whose stars had been added since I was last there. Lucky for me, I was just in time for a Kenny Chesney American Kids pop-up! They had the American Kids bus parked with a CMHOF employee stationed to take pictures of people with. There were even props! Cowboy hats, a tambourine, a microphone, a No Shoes Nation flag… My favorite part was getting to press part of a Hatch Show Print. They had the first two colors of the print already complete, but I got to paint the teal paint onto the press and then slide the press slider thingy (I don't know the technical term) over the paper so it printed onto my poster. They’ve been around FOREVER, so it was cool to be able to take part in this. (Since the 1800s - so seriously forever).
Eventually Aaron was done with work, so I picked him up in Franklin. We went to In-N-Out Burger for lunch. They didn’t build In-N-Outs in Tennessee until after I had left, so I didn’t get the opportunity to eat there before I moved. In fact I think the last time I had In-N-Out was 2019 maybe? Anyway, I had been looking forward to this all week. I assumed with it being so late for lunch, but too early for dinner, it would be pretty slow. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The drive-thru line was 11+ cars deep, and two lines worth of cars. They did have someone outside taking orders, but I still suspect it would have taken longer to go through the drive-thru than eat "inside." We parked (in the back parking lot because they’re so busy they have two parking lots) and walked it. The place was PACKED. After ordering, I sent Aaron to grab us a table while I waited for our food. He circled around, inside and out, two or three times before finally snagging a table outside. My eyes were bigger than my tummy, but it was delicious!
We headed back to downtown Nashville to check into our hotel before going to Top Golf. Aaron had never been, and I haven’t been since I lived in Alabama, so I figured it would be a fun thing to do. I learned that I still hit a golf ball like it’s a hockey puck. Whatever. I got points.
We came back to the hotel after to regroup before our Opry show at 7PM. I knew this wasn’t something Aaron would super enjoy, but I was most excited about tonight’s lineup moreso than any other this week, so he was drug along. We saw Rhonda Vincent, Conner Smith (w/ guest Wyatt McCubbin), John R. Miller, Neal McCoy, Will Hoge, Benny G, Switchfoot (it was their Opry debut!) and Lainey Wilson. Switchfoot also brought Lainey out for their last song. They’d just met today for the first time and supposedly only practiced the song once. Also, when Lainey started her first song (Phone, Keys, Wallet) she saw a little girl in the front, maybe 10 years old, singing along with her. She immediately pulled her up on stage! Adorable.
Friday, July 24, 2026
There was a Parlor Doughnuts around the corner from our hotel in downtown Nashville, so we decided to pop in there for breakfast as neither of us was super hungry. I got a chocolate chocolate donut, and Aaron got the coconut cream.
Once we were packed up, I checked my email knowing that our first excursion of the day had the possibility of being canceled. Sure enough, I had an email saying just that. We were going to go on a boat ride through the Lost River Cave in Bowling Green, Kentucky, but due to recent rains, the cave was flooded and they were unable to run boats. They called us a little later, giving us the option to still come see the other exhibits and receive a partial refund, or to completely cancel for a full refund. I chose the latter as I had a backup plan.
On our way to said back-up plan, we spotted a Buc-ee’s. Aaron had never been before, so I stopped to fill up with gas so he could check it out. We ended up leaving with a full tank, a Kentucky magnet for our magnet board, 5 bags of beaver nuggets, and a banana pudding (I LOVE banana pudding). Oh! And a BBQ pork mac-n-cheese for a mini lunch.
My backup plan was the Kentucky Down Under Adventure Zoo. Here we rented a golf cart since I knew we needed to go through it quick-ish after spending so much time at Buc-ee’s. First, we drove up to the cave entrance where cave tours run every half hour. On the way we spotted a wailing peacock!
The cave, (Mammoth Onyx cave), was discovered by a little girl in 1799. She convinced her brother? dad? someone to cut down a tree and plop it into the cave so they could use it as an exit/entrance system and explore the cave. It was quite wet as we explored it, getting to see all the cave phenomena - stalacmites, stalactites, cave bacon, cave popcorn - they had it all.
The cave tour was a half hour long, so as soon as that was done we carted further up the trail to where the animals were. I was especially interested in seeing the kangaroos, so we headed to their enclosure. After paying $5 for a couple cups of food, we joined the zoo goers who were already exploring the area. Some kangaroos had NO interest in eating. You could put your handful of food in front of you and they didn’t even flinch. On the other hand, as I fed one, another joined in, and the original kangaroo kept pushing the intruder’s head away. It kind of tickled when they ate out of your hand. I also fed an emu while ensuring a small child that it didn’t hurt and I couldn’t even feel the beak, encouraging him to try to feed the emu with his cup of food. He did, despite being obviously VERY nervous! There were also tortoises in this enclosure that we were told we could pet, but not feed.
The zoo did offer other feeding opportunities - bird, horses, goats, and sheep. We weren’t super interested in those and were more anxious to get to Louisville knowing we’d lose an hour with the time change.
We checked into the AC Louisville in the NuLu neighborhood, unpacking before going to our evening excursion. I had booked us a tasting tour at the Rabbit Hole Distillery, just a couple blocks walk from our hotel. This is a distillery that I hadn’t heard of yet, and I chose that simply because it was easy to walk to. The original distillery that I wanted to go to today did not have any tours available when I checked a few weeks ago.
Rabbit Hole Distilling was a pretty neat place. It’s a fairly new distillery in the scheme of bourbon making, opening only in 2012. They didn’t bottle their first round until 2016. They’re also a small distillery, bottling only 32 bottles an hour or 7200 bottles a day. Significantly less than larger bourbon and whiskey distilleries.
The tour was a little different than other tours. First of all, we started with a sample cocktail. I had the old-fashioned, which was composed of Cavehill bourbon, orange liquer, demerara, orange and ango bitters. As someone who never drinks, this was almost enough to do me in. It was very tasty though! I immediately grabbed a cup of water after finishing my drink, and was informed by the bartender that there would not be water along the tour and she recommended that I fill my cup up again before we left on the tour. I love a girls girl!
This tour was different from others that I’ve been on for a couple of reasons. One, they are not currently distilling anything. Distilleries tend to shut down around this time of year to perform maintenance. This is OK because I’ve seen bourbon and whiskey being distilled numerous times, so I didn’t feel like I was missing anything. Something else unique about this tour is that instead of doing a tasting at the end, we did tastings throughout. The first tasting was a bourbon, where we chose between two of their distilled bourbons – Cavehill and Dareringer (these were the two bourbons in the drink choices we had as we arrived to the distillery as well). Cavehill is in a barrel for four years and is 95 proof. Dareringer is their first finished bourbon - spending four years in an oak barrel and then finished for six months in a sherry barrel. The nice thing about attending this with Aaron is that we each could get one sample and then share them!
The second samples we tried were of rye whiskey. I usually cannot stand rye whiskey. That being said, these weren’t terrible! We tried the Boxergrail, which was barreled for five years and is 95 proof. The other option was Starlino, which only sold at the distillery, not in stores, and is 106 proof.
Third, we tried another bourbon. Heigold is a bourbon that barreled for five years and is 95 proof. It is the sweetest bourbon they distill. The other choice was Regallier, which is finished in a French oak barrel, giving it it a nuttier flavor, and is 108 proof.
Our last samples were the single barrel whiskeys and bourbons - Cavehill, Heigold, Boxergrail and Dareringer. I was about tapped out at this point, so I just sampled one of the four choices whereas Aaron tried mine and the one that he chose.
We ended the tour in the bar where Aaron ordered a Paper Hareplane - it was very tasty! But I stuck with water.
On the walk back to the hotel we stopped for some macarons. It’s always hot or miss for me with macarons, and these were a hit!
We went to the hotel bar when we returned to look at drinks and order a snack. Unfortunately, the chef was out sick and there was no back up, so no snacks for us! We talked with the bartender a little and he gave us recomendations for dinner. I asked him about Feast BBQ, as that was our plan for the night, and he said no! Don't go there! We took his recommendations to the room with us to scope out their menus and make a choices.
We ended up going to Feast BBQ - and honestly we regretted it. I had the brisket tacos. They were A LOT and the meat was kind of dry. I also ordered a side of mac n cheese which was also mediocre. Aaron ordered smoked wings and brisket. I thought he liked his better than I did, because he brought the leftovers back to the hotel with us, whereas I left mine on the table. However when I just asked him about it he said it was "horse sh**," so I guess I was wrong. It was super busy, which surprised me for how average the food was. If we're ever back in that area, the restaurants the bartender recommended to us did look good - Galaxie and Royals Hot Chicken.
Saturday, July 25, 2026
We had a five hour drive ahead of us today, but had plenty of time to make it. After learning that we had to PAY for the continental breakfast at the hotel we stayed at, we packed up and left with the intention of finding something good for lunch. We like to look for DDD restaurants, so when I saw there was a Metro Diner in Indianapolis I got WAY TOO excited. Metro Diner is the only thing I miss about Alabama. Its also a location on DDD! Chicken and waffles, here I come!!
After lunch, we continued on our journey to Chicago. The traffic wasn't near as bad as I expected. Despite my 700 trips through Illinois, I have never navigated through Chicago as a driver. It moves so dang slow I didn't need to worry about it! I specifically booked the Sheraton Grand Chicago Riverwalk by Navy Pier so we could park at the hotel and walk anywhere else we wanted to go.
Unfortunately our room wasn't ready when we got there at 3 (even though I emailed ahead of time and was told we could get into the room at 2). We stored our luggage at the hotel and set off on a walk to the Harry Potter Chicago store. It had a line going around the corner, but only took a few minutes to get through it. The store was even bigger than the ones in Universal, which was what I was expecting. You could get in line to get sorted into a house (I don't need a hat to tell me I'm a Ravenclaw!) I found a few things to buy and then got Aaron some butterbeer and myself some ice cream. It was delicious!
We walked back to the hotel, annoyed that it was after 4 and we didn't have a text saying our room was ready yet, despite normal check in time being at 4. They must have heard our complaints because not a minute later we got the text. We were on the 10th floor, so we had a decent city view. We cooled off for an hour before heading out for our evening excursion.
Aaron's brother had recommended we go on the river architecture tour and I'm so glad he did. It was really cool to learn all about the history of the city and its buildings. I tried to write down everything I could remember, but I know I forgot a lot of it!
Our tour guide's name was Dylan, and he had enough to tell us that he was yapping the whole time. I appreciated all the insight, especially because he was born and raised in Chicago.
I learned that Chicagoans used to dump all their waste and sewage into the Chicago River which emptied into Lake Michigan. In the late 1800s, someone came along and helped them reverse the river so they would stop sending their waste floating around their town. It is now the only river on the world that flows away from its mouth.
Dylan told us about the myth and reality of the Chicago fire in October of 1871. (I couldn't help but sing to myself that old camp song about it as he shared). In the 1800s, Chicago was the fastest growing city on earth. In the summer of 1871, no rain fell, leading to very dry conditions. The fire did start in a barn. A tabloid writer pinned the blame on the O'Leary cow because of the dislike and bad attitude toward Irish people at the time. He did eventually retract his accusation, but it is still a rumor that we hear today!
The St. Regis Chicago is the largest building in the world designed by a woman. It is in the style of contextualism and is 6 shades of blue and green to represent the river that flows through Chicago.
The arch of this building holds it upright. This building is known as the hot pocket building because of its arches on the top and bottom. They can't use poles because trains travel through right under it. In fact this building exists because the air rights above the tracks are being leased to it. There are exhaust holes and the bottom to clear the train exhaust.
It is a city ordinance that no one can build within 30 feet of river until you're 100 feet in the air. The reason for this is because the powers that be want a riverwalk to be build all around the river, so once they get to actually doing that the space will be there. They have recently(ish) built a bit of a riverwalk, but there is more to go. This building is known has the mechanical pencil building. It is cut out on one side due to the river and this city ordinance, and the other side for trains. The building takes up only 20% of the ground space that it hovers over. To keep it from blowing too far in the wind, the building has 12 tanks filled with water to help with sway. When building sways the water sways in an equal and opposite direction to stabilize it.
The corn cob buildings were built to be its own city within a city. The top chunk is apartments, with the layers below them being comprised of a parking ramp, office space, a gym, and even a marina at the very bottom! In the winter they keep air pumping in the marina under the corn cob towers to prevent the water, and therefore the boats, from freezing.
I don't remember what this building was for, but it was intentionally sharped like a champagne bottle. The 24 karat gold at the top was hammered down to the width half that of a sheet of plastic wrap.
I had booked us the 75 minute trip which was perfect. It wasn't too long, and I feel like we got a lot of information from it. I was hoping we would get a nice sunset with it, but it was far too cloudy.
We headed right to Giordano's on Navy Pier and there was an hour wait for a table. At 8PM! The host said he could see if there were any open seats and the bar, and lucky for us, there were two! Thank goodness because we were hungry! We ordered a deep dish Chicago classic pizza for dinner. It took AN HOUR to cook, so we also ordered some mozzarella traingles to keep us from getting hangry as we waited. Oh my goodness, it was all so delicious!
We finished dinner just in time for the fireworks to start. It made for a loud and colorful walk back to the hotel!
Sunday, July 26, 2026
We drove the 5 hours back home today, only stopping for an hour or so to visit with friends near Madison.
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