Tennesseeeee

Time to catch you up...

So I just had visitors for the past few days! Jess (who is a year younger than me... we went to middle school and high school together, and then Etown too!) and her roommate Olivia came to see me! :) It's so nice to have guests because it spices things up a bit. Liv's luggage was left in Philadelphia by USAir so we had a little delay with our plans for Saturday evening, but it turned out ok - we went out to eat then went to the honky tonks downtown. Sunday we checked out the Opry area (which included the Opry itself, the Opry Mills mall, the Opryland Convention Center, and a little wax museum that was pretty pathetic) then went to the Loveless Cafe for dinner. The Loveless was pretty standard diner-type food, but the mac and cheese that Babs had was delish and we definitely intend to go back. OH and the biscuits - best biscuits on earth? I vote yes.

Monday we toured downtown Nashville all day - The Frist art museum in the morning (where we spent most of our time painting with watercolors in the children's center), followed by a loop around the stores on Broadway, Jack's BBQ for lunch (mmmm... pork barbecue and sweet tea), then they toured the Country Music Hall of Fame (Brett and I went there in December so I didn't need to go again). In the evening, we went to The Wildhorse Saloon because we thought we'd do line-dancing, but they only had two little sessions so we didn't stay... instead we went to Tootsie's just so they could say they'd been there, then went back to The Stage which we had all enjoyed on Saturday. Tuesday we went to Lynchburg, TN, which is the home of Jack Daniel's and the only Jack Daniel's distillery in the world - they do all of the distribution from that point worldwide. We tried to go to Miss Mary Bobo's for lunch, which is like a home-cooked meat-and-three family-style restaurant/house basically, but it was booked so we got $5 lunches at a little hole-in-the-wall place in the town square. And some ice cream - I gave up chocolate for Lent, so I had vanilla... vanilla is usually a waste of my time and my caloric intake, but it was decent. The Distillery tour was really neat - I will definitely go again, so if you come to visit you can plan on it. :) Tuesday night trivia at the Flying Saucer, then today we just relaxed because we had seen everything there was to see! Whirlwind tour of Nashy completed in less than 5 days. Go here to see pictures... try the slideshow feature to zoom through all of them with captions.

What else is new? Still trying to finalize plans for summer and next year in terms of internships and jobs. Doing lots of schoolwork. A trip to PA to get my state inspection and a trip to Orlando are in my near future, so I have a lot to get done. Haven't had much 'ish' to prompt a column-type spot entry recently so I'm sorry if this has been disappointing. Stay tuned.. there's always something 'round the bend.
Love,
La