Tag Nashville

Merry Christmas, Cube Abandoners!
We hope the year ahead is as stunning, rich, and full as the year behind us soon will be. With warm moments spent with friends and family, and a life that fills full and happy.

2013 was a transition year for ATC. We traveled quite a bit in the USA, our motherland, but only traveled abroad twice, to our northern and southern neighbors. 2013 saw our first trip to Cancun, Mexico, and stunning winter visit to Niagara Falls, Canada. You can find a whole album of trip pics from Cancun in the gallery!

Inside the USA we traveled from Michigan to the east coast, then straight across the nation stopping in Nashville (go country music!) to Memphis (where we met soul singer Al Green) to the Presidential Library in Arkansas, to Oklahoma (where the world’s largest McDonald’s is) and on to Colorado (where the Garden of the Gods was a big attraction) to Utah, Idaho and then Oregon (go ducks!) and on to Washington state, where we were saturated in a light but constant drizzle.

After a few weeks in Washington we did the trip in reverse along the northern route, hitting the long stretch across Montana and the fun sites of South Dakota (Rushmore, Wall Drug and Corn Palace) and then on to visit family in Minnesota, Illinois and then out to the coast again. A full circular tour of the motherland, and a wonderful one.

Michael and Lauren also got married this year in the southern USA. Thank you to all our lovely friends and family who traveled from around the planet to be in, and attend our nuptials. It means the world to us that you came from around the blue planet to be at our humble event.

Now we’re in North Carolina, situated in the Piedmont area between the mountains and the ocean. You’ll find us outside with our daughter or inside, writing this blog and gazing at maps as we plan future adventures.

With the new year dawning, we have some exciting plans for travel within the USA. This massive country has so much to offer, so many amazing national parks, sites and of course splattered across the USA there is one of the largest of everything imaginable, from frying pans to balls of twine…and we want to see them all.

We hope your holidays are full of joy and fun!
Merry Christmas, from Abandon the Cube!

Arriving in Nashville is like driving into a time warp. The downtown area is crowded with hole-in-the-wall bars where musicians are playing live music starting early in the morning. We were there on a Friday with Lauren’s uncle. He took us to Tootsie’s, the most famous of the local bars, where a cowboy and his cowgirl crooned into rusty microphones over a rowdy crowd. It was 2pm and the beers were flowing and the crowd was hopping. We sat with a couple from New York who were fleeing Hurricane Sandy in search of fairer weather and cheerier sights. They couldn’t get over the $5 PBR cans.

Down the street at Layla’s we got PBR cans for $1 and watched an authentic hill cowboy and a lovely lady on bass really bring country music to life. They were no joke, and at 3pm in the afternoon they had a lively audience of diehards, cowboys and tourists.

You can buy cowboy boots and outfits for cheap downtown. Some boots sell three pair for the price of one. We looked but didn’t buy, and continued on down the way for the mid-afternoon bar crawl with our infant baby. Don’t worry, they still can’t smoke inside and Gwen loved the music. She stood on my lap and cooed along with the best of them. And she wasn’t the only toothless lady in the bar.

Nashville has a great dining scene. We were introduced to more southern BBQ at several restaurants and adored every delectable bite. It’s hard not to overeat when the food tastes like ambrosia.

Out on the streets you’ll find wildly talented people playing handmade instruments, dancing or playing guitar. There is so much talent in the city that it overflows into the streets. Record labels sign big named there, like Taylor Swift, and music celebrities mingle with regular folk without putting on airs.

We were lucky enough to have family in Nashville to stay with, and enjoyed a lovely birthday party for my cousin while we were in town. A great visit, an amazing family and a lovely city. I’d live in Nashville if I could. I’ve never been anywhere else where music was loved so much.