3 Years Later... A Nashville Recap

Remember that I time I went to Nashville?
Oh hey, yeah, that happened.

the view from our hotel room on the 24th floor

Just like I promised, here's the blog post about it all.
I had a hard time deciding the best way to do it.
Day by day?
But I decided to go more by topic...

Conference
We'll start here, because after all, that was the point of the trip.
CASE/ASAP is an organization for Student Alumni Associations, Ambassadors and student philanthropy groups. There were around 600 college students there from universities all over the country, including many I'd never heard of.
We definitely clicked the most with the kids from the University of Utah (a few of whom we already knew), and the boys from the University of Rhode Island (I'd never met anyone from RI before!)
The days were filled with keynote speakers, breakout sessions, all that good conference kind of stuff.

Food
This might be the greatest thing ever. I definitely fell in love with southern food and culture while I was there. Everything they eat is very comforting and homey. Most of it is fried. Drinks are served in Mason jars. Love. Our adviser has a friend who lives in Nashville and she took us to this FABULOUS restaurant called SouthernBred. YUM! I seriously wish tea wasn't against the Word of Wisdom because sweet tea is kind of a big deal in the south.
Did you know fried green tomatoes are a real thing? Not just from a book/movie. And guess what? I ATE THEM! (if you know me, you know that's a big deal because I hate tomatoes.) They were great! They didn't taste like real tomatoes. And they were fried. And dipped in a yummy ranch sauce. Both things that make things better. I ate a bite of catfish too! (that's another big deal). Seriously, everything I ate was sooo good. Pretty sure I ate my weight in awesomeness those few days.

A Crazy Coincidence

Let me introduce you to our new friends Tyler and Ashlyn. We met these guys on our flight from Atlanta to Nashville. We overheard a bit of their conversation talking about Zion's bank, and a future in Logan. That caught our attention so we started talking to them. They are from Tooele and Tyler is planning on being an Aggie when he's done with high school and his mission. We assumed those few minutes would be our only time with them. However, the next day we ran into them down by the river. We met their aunt and uncle that they were visiting and they told us all about living in Nashville... Surely that was going to be it, right? Wrong. Two days later, we're at a concert, and lo and behold, who has the seats right next to us? That's right, the Cahoon's! Crazy things happen... 

Fun Things
Obviously this is the best part. There were so many fun things to do in Nashville!
Our hotel was right downtown, just a couple of blocks from all the stuff going on.

We spent a lot of time just wandering the streets of the city. There was so much to see! If you walk down the main road all the way to the end, you come to the Chattanooga River. There are boats in the water, a couple awesome bridges, and just across the water is LP Field, where the Tennessee Titans play.

Right in the heart of the city is the street of Broadway. It's far from the Broadway in New York City, though. Rather than theatre after theatre, this Broadway is honkytonk after honkytonk. Each of them have live music going on most of the day and definitely all night. Walking up and down the street was a blast and provided for some excellent people-watching. It reminded me a lot of Vegas, just less slutty.
Along with the bars there are your typical tourist shops and some of the best ice cream I've ever had. Seriously though. Red velvet with Oreos in it? Hello, awesome.

We spent one of the nights at the famous Wildhorse Saloon. They had some decent food, but by far the best night of country dancing I've ever experienced. It was mostly line dances, and all but two of them were brand new to me. They had instructors who would teach a dance every hour or so, but for the most part we just followed a couple of cowboys who knew what they were doing. Seriously, they had a dance for every song. Pretty sure half the time they were making it up as they went. After this, country dancing here in Logan will never be the same! It's always been one of my dreams to line dance in a Nashville bar... Done and done.

While we were there, we had to go to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. I'm a huge country music fan, you know that, so this was another dream come true. It was very Smithsonian-esque, but all centered around country music. It was full of clothes and instruments from different singers. Around every corner a new song was playing. There was a whole exhibit devoted to the legendary Hank Williams Jr. There are two full HUGE walls covered in artists' gold and platinum records. Then of course, the Hall of Fame itself.  Here are a few pics of the awesomeness...

 "hello, I'm Johnny Cash..."

 Elvis' gold Cadillac

the original manuscript to Miranda Lambert's White Liar.

Ok... Ready for the epic conclusion of this trip?

So as soon as we got to Nashville, we heard that Keith Urban was doing a show that weekend. I'd seen Keith live before, and loved it, and was not opposed to going again. However, we'd heard it was a sold out show and the only tickets available online were super expensive and not worth it. By the end of the week, we'd learned that scalping is a legal thing in Tennessee and were told to keep an eye out for tickets that way. We stopped by the arena on our way to dinner that night just to see, but we couldn't talk anyone down lower than $60 a ticket. We went by at 7:22 (for the show that started at 7:30) and still managed to find some tickets! We talked the guy into selling them to us for $45 and we were in!

Jake Owen, who is a sexy, sexy man, was opening for Keith so I was stoked to see him. And really, Keith is an incredible performer and I was thrilled to be getting to see him again. This tour was called "Get Closer" and definitely for a reason. Keith spent a ton of time out in the audience, bringing people up on stage, and really interacting with everyone. He's incredible really.

There was most definitely no better way to conclude this incredible trip.
I fell in love with Music City and can't wait to go back.