You guys… this trip was amazing!  I’m back from my cross country road trip and I have to say I’m glad to be back.  I mean I had the best time but I was gone for 12 days and that is a long time to be away from home.  Now that I’m still a little stuck in West Coast time I’ve been giddy while editing all the images from the trip.  I got a lot of images from the trip because I was determined to try photo journaling.  I kept going around announcing to everyone “Don’t mind us, we’re out of towners” as I photo journaled everything.  Oddly enough sometimes I feel kind of weird bringing my big camera around and taking pictures of every day life things… seriously it’s true!  People tend to look at you a little weird when you’re taking pictures of your diet coke with a DSLR.  This trip I just decided to own it and using the excuse of needing to photo journal helped me break out of that shell.  I just kept thinking I’m a tourist and I’m going to do touristy things so what if people stare.  New goal… act like a tourist even at home.

This sounds stupid to act like a tourist at home, but being a tourist on this trip freed me to not care what everyone around me was thinking.  I loved it and I loved photo journaling!  I’m terrible at real journaling (even though I’ve always wanted to be the type of girl that was loyal to it), mostly because I forget to write and because I don’t know what to say in a diary.  Photo journaling was perfect because I could just snap away to grab all the memories, including my diet cokes, menus, etc. etc. etc.  I didn’t have to wait to get home and find the perfect time to sneak away and write, I could just journal while still being social.

In any case let’s get to Nashville.  I loved Nashville!  We got there on Thursday night, ordered Mexican food delivery and sat around a living room catching up.  The next day Elysia and I woke up and putzed around town.  We went to lunch, went into a few shops and then head downtown.

Downtown Nashville is very cool because as you walk around there is music playing everywhere.  We walked down Broadway and even though we were told it is very touristy, I still loved it.  Tons of honky tonk shops and bars with music playing everywhere.  Boot stores and everything you would expect to see in a southern country town.  We also stumbled upon a candy store “Goo Goo’s” which is apparently a staple in Nashville, needless to say it was delicious.

Later we met up with Sarah Catherine, went to a local brewery, Jackalope (yumm) and then head to the pedestrian walking bridge that leads from the football stadium into downtown Nashville.  We saw Nashville all lit up at night and even saw their ferry boat floating down the river.  Honestly Nashville reminded me a lot of Richmond, the way the river ran right through the city and how there are these cool little towns that seemed just like The Fan.  The best part about Nashville besides the music, was the people.  Everyone was incredibly friendly and welcoming.  They welcomed us as tourist, gave us directions, told us places we had to see and treated us like their everyday neighbor.

Here are some of my photo journaled moments from Nashville… next up, New Orleans.