Girls from Arkansas, Havin’ a Ball

Throwin’ it back to July 2016 for my Bachelorette trip with 6 of my girls. This was my first time in Nashvegas, and it was definitely one for the books.


Y’all, I love Nashville. This was my first trip there and it was full of wonderful experiences. Since then I’ve been back twice, and have another trip coming up to there this year! This trip was the last weekend in July of 2016, middle of the summer but worked out best for all seven of us.

I had always dreamed of going to Nashville, so when the time came for my bachelorette trip, there was no better place I could think of than here. Seven of us hit the road on a four hour road trip that would last 3 days.

Friday:

Bright and early we met up and headed out, our first stop McDonald’s for some necessary breakfast. We arrived in Nashville around noon and made our first stop the Opry Mills mall, where we had lunch at the Aquarium Restaurant. We had a wonderful experience here!! Our waiter was friendly and attentive to our needs, and at the end of our meal he toasted us with a round of shots and free souvenir glasses.img_8267After lunch and roaming around the mall (including riding a carousel, because why not?) we headed to check in to our Airbnb.ย Our two-story condo was big enough for the seven of us and in a quiet neighborhood not too far from downtown.

We relaxed and then got ready for the night. Before we went out there were of course lots of pictures to be taken.

We headed downtown to Broadway via Uber, which is quite possibly my favorite memory of any Uber I’ve ever taken. It was a mini van, with a fold down TV and we sang the whole way there. I’ll spare y’all the videos of us singing.img_0775We spent the rest of the night bar-hopping and honky-tonkin down the Broadway strip. The atmosphere is what you think Nashville would be, full of country music and people having a good time.

For dinner we decided to just stop in for a burger at Paradise Park, which hit the spot. This place had me cracking up, it was a “trailer resort” complete with artificial turf. Unfortunately, it’s now closed and sits vacant on Broadway.

Saturday:

After getting some rest, our first thing to do on Saturday was a Nashville Pedal Tavern tour.ย This is something that normally (if you’re in a group) has to be scheduled a couple months before going. I knew I’d always wanted to try it out and that we’d never do it for any other occasion, so why not give it a go.

We did the public Midtown Tour because we knew we’d see enough of broadway and wanted to see some different scenery and area. Our group was on there with another group of girls and one couple, and we listened to mainly boy bands from the 90’s (little bit of JT, backstreet boys, and *NSYNC!). Our “driver” Geoff was INCREDIBLE. He played the perfect music, told the jokes, sang, played his guitar, and was overall down right entertaining.

For this tour you can BYOB, just no glass. It also stops at 3-4 bars for you to hangout at for a bit. My favorite place we stopped, SomeWhere SOS (now closed), was a little whole-in-the-wall inside/outside bar with pong and chairs outside. We had some delicious fried chicken here and hung-out under their fans. We also stopped at Loser’s and Rebar, not staying long at either.

The downfalls to the pedal tavern were A.) it was hotter than hades out, so it was a little miserable (our own faults though) and B.) the seats are NOT adjustable. Most of my girls and I are 5’4″ish and there were not enough “short” stools, so as we pedaled our body’s also moved back and forth which was quite uncomfortable… but also maybe wouldn’t have been quite as bad if we had not had shorts on due to heat. Basically, don’t go when it’s 100 degrees outside and you’ll probably have a blast!

Overall it was a good time, and a great experience! Lots of fun and laughs.img_0894-1.jpgFor lunch, we had Donatos Pizza which definitely cured my hangry self. The pizza was great and it was a cool (literally the air felt great) place to chill out and eat.

Back to the Airbnb to chill and recuperate, we noticed our Airbnb was a little too warm for our liking. Turns out the air conditioner had “frozen” and we were not getting cool air. Our host was quick to call someone out to take a look, and in the meantime we laid around sweating. We got the AC fixed, but when it’s 100 degrees out it takes quite some time to “catch-up”. We were literally sweating trying to get ready for the night, needless to say we were glad to get out of there for the night.

We headed back downtown and stopped at Wildhorse Saloon for dinner. This place was pretty neat, they had live line dancing going on with an instructor on stage to teach you a dance. I had never line danced before, so it was a great experience! Dinner was great and we loved the atmosphere in there, great music going the whole time too.

Next we made our way to The Big Bang (Dueling piano bar).ย If you’ve never been to a piano bar before, there are 2 pianos and 2 ‘performers’ who go back and forth with songs basically “dueling” it out to get a reaction from the crowd. They played lots of well known songs and we danced and sang along for most of the evening. I would definitely recommend stopping in here on your trip to Nashville.

We finished our night at Tootsies Orchid Loungeย and I LOVED that place. We fought our way to the front of the stage and sang like our life depended on it. It was packed, but the atmosphere was phenomenal. They have a roof top view of Broadway as well, which is awesome. I’ve been back to tootsies since then and it’s definitely on my list of must visit places in Nashville.

Both nights we took before and after going out pics, out of all seven of us and both nights these are the ones that surfaced with a matching before and after.

Sunday:

After sleeping our night off, we packed our things and checked out of our Airbnb. We headed to Acme Feed & Seed for brunch. I’ve since learned that they only do brunch on Saturday & Sunday (which is disappointing), but it is amazing. The ambiance on that Sunday morning was chill and cozy. We all sat in a big booth laughing and chowing down our various brekky’s of eggs, bacon, biscuits, etc.

If you know me at all, you know I’m a huge country music fan. So of course I wanted to stop in the Country Music Hall of Fame. It was pretty incredible to see the different artifacts from various country artists over the years. Surprisingly, to me anyways, there was a lot of Elvis stuff mixed in with everything else.

One of my favorite things to see was the wall of gold/silver records. There were multiple floors (3 if I remember correctly) full of pictures, records, artifacts, clothing, cars, etc., and so much to see! There were even brief videos displaying the history of country music.

After a wonderful trip full of memories, we headed out of Nashville on the road for home. It was a great trip, one that I’ll never forget, with some of my closest friends.


Nashville is full of history, entertainment, country music, good food, and so much more. If you have the chance, take a trip there! I promise it’s more than just country music. There’s so much to do, you could never get bored there. I’ve been 3 times and still haven’t seen and done everything I’ve wanted yet, close but not quite. It’s a good place for a long weekend trip, as you can hit most of the must see/do places in a couple days, but you could definitely spend longer there if time allowed.

Thanks for reading, and hanging in through these winter months of no travel. I’m reminiscing on past trips to fill the void for now. I have a couple more places to write about before spring gets here. I have a weekend trip planned out that I’ve been dying to do, and we’ll go as soon as it gets a little warmer out!

Feel free to share! ๐Ÿ™‚

 

If you haven’t had a chance to read my first Nashville blog post, click Here.

Also, you’ve never used Uber before, click HERE for free ride credit.

And click HEREย for a $40 credit for Airbnb!

 

There were girls from Argentina and Arkansas,ย Maine, Alabama, and Panama.ย All mixed together and having a ball. Yeah we went out last night.” – Kenny Chesney

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