Continued from Little Rock, AR.

Breakfast. Kids woke up super early, typical.

They were stingy with the bacon at breakfast buffet. You can only get bacon if you ask the staff manning the omelette station with the long line. Kids can get away with asking for bacon by joining at the end of the line.

Nom nom nom.

Not the greatest art choices for our hotel. All the paintings look like a city being set on fire.

Alright, time to get back on the road. We’ve got around 5.5 hours of driving today to Nashville.

Heading from the burbs of Little Rock towards downtown.

Kind of a quaint city actually.

Some giant penteocostal church right outside of town.

Murica.

Heading into Tennessee, we started listening to songs from artists with strong links to Tennessee.

Woah, what is that train/subway doing out here in the middle of Arkansas?

More Tennessee related artists.

Really quite a boring drive in all honesty. Arkansas from the freeway is pretty boring, can’t see much and not much to see.

I’ve been fighting this rattle that you can only hear well from the driver’s seat.

I think it’s the center speaker making popping noises? Maybe a loose connector? Only happens when driving fast at around 75mph to 85mph. Or maybe it’s the windshield wiper rattling outside? The search continues for the noise. I heard it for the first time about a month ago and it’s been prevalent since. Ugh.

Solar farm.

Oh, we’ve caught up to the train/subway again after taking a gas stop.

Ewwww, it’s a Bart train from the Bay Area. What is it doing wayyy out here in Arkansas? Bart sucks.

Fuel stop.

Now entering Tennessee.

Memphis.

Out of focus, but immediately we noticed that the roads here in Tennessee is worse than roads in Arkansas. Let’s hope it improves as we go deeper into Tennessee, because roads here in Memphis sucks.

Tennessee means musicians from Tennessee, JT.

Minecraft again, after doing the voodoo magic with the router. At least they didn’t fight as much this time.

Pretty.

Rest stop, looks like a house.

Again, terrible roads.

Alright, we are in Nashville.

Found our hotel.

We are going to drop off our luggage and then head right back out out in the car.

 

Our room looks onto the parking garage behind our hotel.

Heading to downtown Nashville just a short drive away.

Found a lot to park in. It’s really expensive to park here in Nashville, something like $36 for 3 hours. I think there were cheaper lots, but this was the first one I saw, so it was the first one I parked at.

Here we go.

Country Music Hall of Fame.

Nice, museum floors.

My girls love Taylor Swift. They got a Taylor Swift scavenger hunt worksheet, but quickly lost interest.

Swifties.

Actually, here are the real Swifties.

Rest of the museum just filled with costumes and musical instruments.

Elvis’ Caddy. Even had a TV inside!

Country Musicians have some funky outfits.

Accordion baby.

RL guessed the owner of this outfit immediately.

Dolly Parton.

More Swift stuff.

We quickly blazed through the museum as neither me nor RL are big country music fans.

For us the museum was a little disappointing. I thought that there would be more to see than just guitars and outfits.

Found at the museum gift shop.

Oh cool, the metal spike goes from outside to inside. I wonder what happens if it gets hit by lightening?

Across the Country Music Hall of Fame is an area with the walk of fame. The whole time leading up to this trip, CL kept thinking we were going to see the Walk of Fame (the one in Hollywood) and we’d correct her and she’d get disappointed. RL walked the kids over to this area and announced this was a Walk of Fame…the kids were not impressed.

Kings of Leon isn’t country though, right?

It’s late afternoon around 4pm. We are looking for dinner and maybe a drink. It’s really hot out here right now. We know there are live music bars/restaurants here. We are following the sound of music.

Nice pun.

Nope, The moment we got here, it’s just a sensory assault. Reminds me of Dirty 6th in Austin. Not our scene at all, and every bar has live music blasting so loud it hurt your ears.

Ugh, get me out of here.

Dinner spot. Came here 14 years ago with my mom and sister when sister was moving to New York. I guess this is probably as kid friendly for food as it gets here in downtown Nashville.

It’s actually calm and quiet in here, like a sanctuary.

Little KL had found pennies at the Walk of Fame and was super excited about them.

Let’s eat…sort of. It’s hot, we are hot, we are tired from being in the car all day. No one is having a good time. Then of course, PL knocks over an entire cup of water and it gets all over little KL. Then little KL starts crying about it…sigh. It’s a disaster zone over here.

RL is PL’s mother for sure. Not too long after PL knocks over her water, RL also knocks over her water and fully drenched her own shorts.

Finally done, let’s get out of here and go back to our hotel where it’s cool and quiet.

I had a photo taken in this exact same spot 14 years ago. Much has changed since then and now there are 4 more people in my family.

And this is me in the same spot 14 years ago.

Someone has a very wet butt.

This part of Nashville, definitely not for me.

Why would they keep the sign for the church up when it’s been razed and turned into a parking lot?

How many different names can one road have. Six, and possibly more apparently.

Looking good. Washed it about a week before the start of this road trip. The previous time it was washed was last summer right before the road trip to Colorado…yeah. It’s been washed a single time in the past year.

Been in the car all day, let’s get some energy out of these animals at the pool.

Then stock up at the corner store across the street.

Ahh, right across the street. Convenient.

So, this is what $172 a night gets you about 5min from downtown Nashville.

The beds were terribly worn though and sagged badly in the middle.

I also went to the convenience store myself after RL did earlier. We took the same similar photo of the exterior.

A treat to cap the night and seems very fitting for this heat. It’s so hot.

Wait, the night is not over yet. Got hungry, good thing I had foreseen this and gotten myself a chicken salad sandwich at the convenience store earlier. Score.

Sunset through our blinds.

And reflected off of another building.

To be continued at Asheville Part 1.