Exploring Nashville, Tennesse

Dashville7 explored Nashville for 3 full days in April. We played the tourist bit and visited the Parthenon and surrounding Centennial Park, the State Capitol, the Johnny Cash Museum, the NashVegas strip, different hip neighborhoods, and Jack White's Third Man Records. We also spent half a day on the Tennessee/Kentucky state line at Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area watching bison and elk. It was impossible to post about it all in one post, so this post will have photos from around Nashville minus the music piece because in a place nicknamed "Music City" you have to have a separate post for that.

Our great Airbnb fit 5 people. The backyard was A++

How many women can you fit in a king sized bed?

First glimpse of the Nashville skyline. I was pretty obsessed with that AT&T tower.
So was James. We talked about it a lot.

Downtown Nashville architecture

Dashville7's first breakfast together at Fido in the Belmont/Vanderbilt neighborhood.

Recyclables made into art

Nice ride, dude.

Look at these lovely beer cans from the Nashville brewed Jackalope Brewing Company.

Nice ride, dude. Flower power.

Man-made Lake Watauga in Centennial Park

Accenting the curve of this gorgeous tree!

Chickadees!!

The Parthenon at Centennial Park!

There was a giant seesaw
at the Exposition!

Nashville's Parthenon is the world's only full-scale replica of the ancient Parthenon in Athens, Greece. The ancient Parthenon was completed in 438 BC was a temple to the goddess Athena, protector and patron goddess of Athens. Nashville's Parthenon was originally built in 1897 as part of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition celebrating Tennessee's 100th anniversary as a state (actually in 1896). The Parthenon was the centerpiece because of Nashville's nickname "The Athens of the South". Inside the Parthenon in Nashville is a gigantic replica statue of Athena Parthenos that was completed in 1990 and placed in the Parthenon in 2002. She stands at 41 feet and 10 inches (12.75m) making her the largest indoor sculpture in the Western World!

Silly NYC kids found the one nasty spot in a pretty city.

Siblings jumping for joy in front of the Parthenon.

Can you see the resemblance?

That angel is 6 feet tall!

Centaurs in the details

Copies of originals

Cool kids.

These bronze doors weight 7.5 tons EACH.
They are considered to be the largest matching set in the world.

Don't play on the train!

Centennial Park has a little bit of everything.

Flower Power in Centennial Park

When a city is not overflowing with buildings, you can stop and notice the details.

Ursula and I backpacked through Europe when we were 19.
I was Mapgirl, and she was my trusty side-kick.

State Capitol building

Tennessee's State Capitol building is unique from most other capitol buildings.

Don't ever get shot by a banana by your brother's girlfriend. Dangerous stuff.

Ladies of Dashville7 on the hill at the state capitol

Feeling positive in Nashville.

Dashville7 walking the streets of Nashville!

My obsession with the AT&T tower...

The Honky Tonk - Three floors of booze, music, and good vibes.
We did not go in there this time around.

This strip of Broadway is often called "NashVegas" and gets absolutely nuts at night.

Please go eat a ton of pancakes at the Pancake Pantry. It's delicious.

Also, go to BookMan and BookWoman because it's dope
and we should all be reading more anyway.

6 of Dashville7 drinking bushwackers at Three Crows.
Excellent adult milkshake recommended by the gals at Third Man Records

We met Johnny Cash! Not really...but that's for a different post.

Hattie B's is a great hot chicken spot for the ol' birthday dinner!

Birthday chicken dinner. YUM!

Legit sign at a bar called The Gold Rush

Almost Dashville7

View of the skyline from the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge

Gateway Bridge and the Moon

Celebrating 30 in Nashville with Dashville7

I turned 30 in Nashville this April and it was an incredible experience! If you know me, I'm sort of a planner and may bug you to tell me when/what time we are doing things earlier than you may have decided. So naturally in November 2015 I was already sending e-mails to friends and family exploring ideas for a group trip for April 2016. I settled on Nashville initially for two reasons:
a. We couldn't afford New Orleans and Jazz fest, so Nashville being Music City was a great second.
b. I'd never been there!
I don't know where I got the idea that people would travel somewhere for me, but I feel unbelievably lucky that they did. I rounded up a great group: Ursula, Rikka, James and Jess. We booked a house on Airbnb in the neighborhood of East Nashville and as I did more research my reasons included:
c. Jack White's Third Man Records store.
d. Bison and elk at Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area.

Night one - My four travel companions before a big surprise.

To say it started off with a bang is the understatement of my life, there are no words to describe the  big surprise that happened about 2 hours into our stay in Nashville:
1. Ursula, Rikka, James, Jess, and I went to The Crying Wolf, an East Nashville bar, just before midnight to celebrate all of us being together and me turning 30 in a few minutes.

2. I asked Rikka to take some photos of me, Ursula, and Jess being tired and posing.

3. Some dude sat next to me, and I was excited by the local photobomb but uncomfortable by how close he sat.

Look at this local Nashville dude photobombing us...oh wait....(Savva's expression here is priceless, "Why doesn't she care?"

4. We took a couple of photos with this guy.

5. Then I turned around to thank him for being in my photo and realized it was my brother!

Speechless. The power of the mind and being 100% positive for months that my brother could NOT make it to Nashville because he had to work in NYC all weekend. What a liar!

Tthat is how we became Dashville7 and our journey began! You would think traveling with 7 people who barely know each other would have been a little awkward, or possibly a little dramatic, but everyone got along, everyone had fun, and I was in "pinch me" heaven the whole time - I had family and friends while traveling! Of course we barely talked to locals or anyone else, which is something I could not have predicated when planning this trip.
But how lucky were we to all get along and jibe with whatever the plan was!

The first group photo of Dashville7

Hiking to the Fire Tower on Stissing Mountain, New York

My pal Rikka traveled the world for 15 months and when she returned, in December 2015, we did a hike she had been meaning to do for 28 years because it is more or less in her backyard. You may remember Rikka from that time we saw a bear together while hiking Giant Ledge! Like I mentioned in my last post, this winter was very mild in New York City so all of these photos feel surreal to me seeing as how we did this short hike the day after Christmas!

Stissing Mountain is a small mountain with geological significance in the area. So much significance that the mountain has it's own exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. "This area of New York State was selected as a basis for the hall because it has mountains, natural lakes, forests, a variety of rock formations and both wild and cultivated land." I guess this is true, but if you could do only one hike in the Hudson Valley, I would not recommend this to be the one because I'm all about the view and the view here, while nice, is not majestic like other upstate New York areas!

Hike length: 1.9 miles (roundtrip)
Hike time: 2 hours
Peak Elevation: 1,403ft (427m) and then add 90 feet (27m) if you climb the fire tower

The hike is pretty quick and moderate. It gets steep in some places, but since it is overall so short, that's not such a big deal (you like my professional assessment here?). At the top is a fire tower, which is only scary if you're scared of tall, rattling, old things! For those interested in further fire tower exploration, of the hikes I have done in the Catskill Mountains, there is a fire tower atop Outlook Mountain and Hunter Mountain. (The latter post is from before I decided to post separate blogs on hikes I do.) My favorite part of the hike, however, was Rikka running into a former classmate and them talking the whole way down about their tiny town and then running into more people they knew. It really is the definition of hiking in your own backyard!

We're going up there. Can you spot the fire tower?

Rikka at the start of the trail near Thompson Pond

"Take a photo of me with green stuff!"

Rikka's camera makes colors very vibrant =) Oo la la

Fire Tower!

I love this dork <3

At the top of Stissing Mountain, in the fire tower.
It was a grey day but you can make out the Catskill Mountains behind us a bit.

Thomas Pond to the east

Catskill Mountains

And of course as it goes in small towns,
while in the fire tower Rikka recognized a guy she went to high school with.

Happy to be hiking in DECEMBER in NEW YORK! What?!

They caught up on everything and everyone on the walk down,
 and then the guy ran into other people he knew!