Our 2021 Southern USA Road Trip!

New Mexico, USA

This past summer we took a once in lifetime cross country road trip to celebrate Emma graduating university. We spent the entire year leading up to our trip planning every single detail. We had allotted one month for our entire trip, so you can imagine the planning it took to put our dream into fruition. This is article will be the first of a new series documenting our trip. You're probably wondering where this trip took us, so let's take a quick look at our route.

We had nine major destinations on our route: Nashville, New Orleans, Grand Canyon National Park, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sequoia National Park, Las Vegas, Bryce Canyon National Park, and Arches National Park. Anyone who has embarked on any type of road trip knows that there are many small stops along the way which really make it a journey not just a trip. That being said we wont leave any stop out because they all contributed to making our trip so memorable. Now with out further edu... our first journey from Hartland, MI -> Nashville, TN.

Nashville May 17th-19th, 2021

Day one of our trip saw an early morning departure from Hartland, Mi as it is roughly an 8hr drive to Nashville and we wanted to get dinner and check out some live music before calling it a day. The drive itself was uneventful there is not much to see on I75 south through Michigan and Ohio. We were making great time and were excited about the night ahead, unfortunately we ran into some heavy traffic near Louisville, Kentucky. We thought that if we got off the highway it might be quicker... we were wrong. Our detour turned a 8 hour trip into 10 hours. The drive through the Kentucky country side was beautiful and we encourage everyone to detour off the beaten path because you never know what you might find, and that's what road trips are all about. Eventually, after many meandering turns we made our way back to the main interstate and continued on our way to Nashville. For those of you who are not aware, Nashville is the country music capital of the world, and Hunter is a huge country music fan so this was a must see destination for us. Once we arrived and settled into our hotel we decided to walk a few blocks to the main strip in Nashville called Broadway. Broadway is a country music fan's dream come true, everywhere you turn there is live music and incredible neon signs. That first night we walked the entire strip from Bridgestone Arena (Home of the Nashville Predators) to the Cumberland River. With so many food options it was hard to choose but we decided on one of the few restaurants with no live music as we planned on checking some music out after dinner. As we were finishing dinner the sun had set and the entire strip was light up with neon lights and is truly an unbelievable sight. Like many things on our trip photos did not do it justice. Nicknamed the music city for a reason it was not hard to find a bar with live music. This night we decided on Jason Aldean's Kitchen + Rooftop Bar. We made our way up to the rooftop bar and it was like nothing we had ever seen. As you walk up the staircase you are greeted immediately with the bar in the centre, the stage and dance floor to your right and the two-tiered rooftop patio to your left. Us being freshly 21 we hemmed and hawed before ordering a couple drinks at the bar and making our way to the stage to check out the live music. This particular night the performer was a cover artist and taking requests from the audience and we were able to witness a wide variety of country music. The rooftop patio offered a beautiful view on Broadway lit up, and we tried our best to get a good picture but it turned out to be quite difficult.

After a long day of travel we called it a night and headed back to our hotel. A huge positive was how safe we felt walking at night with Nashville being such a big city. The next day we had an action packed day filled with the Country Music Hall of Fame and live music at Kid Rocks Big Ass Honky Tonk & Rock 'N' Roll Steakhouse. We started our morning off with free hotel breakfast because we obviously wanted to save as much money we could so we could do as many cool excursions as our budget allowed. After that we made our way over to the Country Music Hall of Fame which was only a few blocks away from our hotel. The Hall of Fame was super cool as it had displays of all the big stars from the past and present, along with a three story wall filled with every gold and platinum country record ever! The highlight for us was the room with plaques of the Hall of Fame members, the room had this powerfully quiet presence about it that we found super cool. It was special to be in the presence of all of these country music legends.

After the Hall of Fame we headed out in search of some lunch. It was a goal of ours to try the foods that each destination was known for, and Nashville is known for their hot chicken sandwiches. After a tip from a friend we decided on Hattie B's Hot Chicken, and apparently this place is not a well kept secret. We waited about 20 mins in line just to place our order, and we got lucky and found a place to sit as we waited for our food to come out. Their original hot chicken sandwich lived up to the hype and was definitely worth the wait... until we had to go to the bathroom later... then we regretted the sandwich, but that's a conversation for a different time.

Next we made our way to Kid Rock's and hunkered down there for the remainder of the afternoon and well into the night. We were treated to some unbelievable performances and we had the best view in the house right above the stage with an unobstructed view of the artists. This was everything we hoped for and more when planning our visit to Nashville.

We loved every second in Music City and definitely recommend a trip here even if you are not a country music fan. Our only regret from Nashville was our timing... the night after we visited Kid Rock's Morgan Wallen made a surprise performance! But we had to move onto our next destination (where Emma was most excited for) New Orleans, Louisiana. Like any good roadtrippers we came prepared with snacks and food that we could prepare so we would not have to stop as much in order to get the most time at each destination. It's the little things like us making sandwiches in a parking garage that we will forever cherish about this adventure!

This concludes this chapter of our journey. We hope you enjoyed learning of our adventures as much as we loved reminiscing about them! Hopefully we see you at the next leg in New Orleans!

Sincerely,

EH