Megan texted me a couple months before the Pursuit Conference asking if I wanted to turn it into a road-trip with her by stopping in Asheville on the way there and Nashville on the way back. UMMM…… YES. Rule #1: Never say no to travel. Megan has a friend in Asheville so we stayed with her for three nights before heading to Rome, Georgia and it was so much fun! The weather was a bit colder than expected and Asheville is full of way more hippies than I have ever seen in one place but it is such a cute town. The first day we were there, we got coffee at an old double decker London bus and ate at this tapas place called Curaté. The food and ambiance was amazing — I had a chicken dish that melted in my mouth and they had a plant wall with the most beautiful light fixture (photo below). Originally, we had planned to go to the Biltmore but after we found out it was $60/person, we instead stood outside the gates and took photos by the pretty tulips! 🙂 Our trip to Asheville ended with a hike up Chimney Rock where there was an incredible waterfall and then we woke up early the next morning to drive to the conference.

Once the conference ended, we were on our way to our Airbnb in Nashville! I was most excited about this because I had been to Nashville twice before but only for the day so I never got to experience the music and nightlife there like I wanted. Megan hadn’t been so that also made it really fun for me since I got to show her around a bit! I can honestly say our time in Nashville proved to be the most entertaining trip of my life. Nashville in general is SO much fun but I think what really made our trip memorable was the fact that Megan and I befriended three young girls around our age and hung out with them our first night there. We went from bar to bar, listened to music, met a lot of new people, and experienced true Nashville life.

Over the next few days, we went to the Opryland Hotel, Country Music Hall of Fame, we explored Franklin, and did all the Taylor Swift things. Megan met T. Swift when she was 16 and always talks about her life in Nashville so we went to her favorite stores, coffeeshops, and even drove by her penthouse!! At one of the stores we went to called Gilchrist Gilchrist where Taylor has bought a lot of furniture for her penthouse, we asked the ladies who owned the place about her and they teared up, saying they’d never be able to thank her for her kindness and for all she’s done for them. So just to confirm, she is as down-to-earth as people think. We ended up buying Taylor’s favorite candle from there that she gets whenever she’s in town and now my room smells like a forest. 🙂

Our last night in Nasvhille was just as interesting as our first when our waiter at a restaurant sat down with us and psycho-analyzed our personalities just by talking to us for five minutes. He was telling us about a seminar he took in college about the colors of personalities and he was spot on in his guesses of both our personalities. He said he knew I was INFJ because I wanted to read over the whole menu before ordering a drink. Haha! Yep, always gotta know the details… He also slipped in after an hour of talking to us (don’t ask me why he didn’t have a job to do…) that he always tips 60% when he’s eating out and OF COURSE when he brought our receipts, Megan and I looked at each other and without having to say anything, we tipped him 60%. If he does what he did with our table with every table, I guess that explains why he only waits on one table every hour. Haha! Such a little stinker! He knew what he was doing. It was a fun experience though, and it made our last night in Nashville a good one.

We were sad to leave the next day and I already miss the music scene and energy of the city but thankfully I finally got my film scans in and I got to relive the trip a little bit. I just took my new Pentax 645N on this trip so I was forced to use it and I am so thrilled with how every shot turned out! I’ll do a post on the camera itself soon but the auto-focus is incredible and my light meter worked perfectly!! EEK! Have a look…