The skies were much clearer this morning, lots of evidence of over night rain but the sun was valiantly trying to shine through the remaining clouds.

We had the massive dining room, by far the biggest we've struck yet, all to ourselves for breakfast. I put the microwave to good use making scrambled eggs with bacon :-) happy girl lol

We set off, headed for Nashville, along the way we stopped in at the Jim Beam distillery. There's heaps of bourbon fans about at the mo cos it's Bourbon Festival weekend. Pete's not a huge whiskey or bourbon fan and even I didn't fancy the free tasting session when we'd only had breakfast an hour or so ago; must be getting old lmao

As we were leaving the Jim Beam compound we spotted a groundhog sitting on the train line. Only other wild life we saw today was a group of 6 eagles all circling the same, to us invisible, prey.

We cruised into Nashville, only a two and a half hour drive which as usual took us longer due to our normal head off the highway here and there to check stuff out. Finding a hotel wasn't as easy as usual, apparently Taylor Swift is in town tonight and the fans have pretty much booked the place out. One place we tried was interesting. As we pulled into the driveway a cop was doing the same. As I headed into the office two different people were like, "psssst hey, don't do it; roaches!!" Lmao. I still went in and the guy behind the front desk was talking to the cop re some white woman who he reckoned was 6' tall lol. I decided the roaches warning and the whole call the cops thing was not a good sign so back to the car I went and onto another hotel.

All good with the one we finally found. Across the road is a Cracker Barrel. We've not shopped for a few days so that was an easy lunch option. Our first time there and it was pretty good, the waiter was a bit worried when I ordered sides of broccoli AND steamed veg which he'd said were cauli, carrots and broccoli. He says, that's a lot of broccoli and it doesn't come with any bread. lol I assured him I could handle it! Could be I'm the first ever to not choose a carb as a side let alone the usual 2 or 3 carbs.

We did some boring chores; a load of washing and some grocery shopping.

I planned a big night out in Nashville, some drinks, some good live music and dinner. I even had a map with all the best places marked out. We drove the 15-20 mins into town, paid a fortune to park and hit the streets.

We saw some interesting things, a bachelorette party and two bachelor night out crews. They have these pedal taverns, a 16-person bicycle powered party on wheels, very cool. There were 5 semi trailer trucks lined up outside where Taylor Swift was performing. A lot of fans had her t shirts on, oddly enough most were older women.

There were quite a few of the religious nut jobs out and about trying to save our worthless souls lol. There was a guy beside the river preaching to a surprisingly interested looking small crowd, another guy with one of those placards of the "the end is nigh" ilk and a herd of young men and women dressed in some sort of loony fringe get up, we think Amish?? The latter 'herd' was trying to distribute some sort of bible bashing literature.

There were heaps of buskers most of whom were pretty good, well all but the old black guy who cut the bottom out of a coffee cup and thought it made an excellent trumpet roflmao

The streets were packed, like The Dallas Stock Yards the percentage of women to men was 2 or 3:1 the only thing about the women is most were smoking, severely unattractive :-(

Some of the bars had some good music coming from them BUT they are all packed with smokers, even the ones serving food were the same.

Our big night out turned into a wander around the entertainment district, back to the car, 20 min drive back and a few drinks in with cheese and crackers for dinner :-(. Really disappointed but just not prepared to sit in any bar that stinks and makes breathing difficult.