…give or take.
On our (first) drive out to Texas, Zack and I made a pit stop in Nashville, Tennessee. There’s a few different routes you can take to get from Raleigh to Dallas, but we thought a night in Nashville sounded like a fun time, and it was literally the halfway point of our trip.
We’ve only been once before (on our move from NC to Los Angeles almost 9 years ago!) and all we did was take a quick walk down Broadway and watch the sunset from the John Seigenthaler bridge. (We were fresh out of college and on a strict budget with our big move out west.)
Here’s a few photos from that visit and can we talk about the photo quality of these. And those OG insta filters. Also every photo I took from like 2012-2014 was a square thanks to Instagram. Crying/dying over this.
Anyway, back to 2023. This time we decided to have ourselves a good ole’ honky tonk time.
We arrived around 5:00pm and our first stop was Tootsies Orchid Lounge. Absolutely iconic and so much fun. It’s bright purple (or should I say orchid?) so you won’t be able to miss it. It has 3 levels, including an open rooftop area, with different bands playing on each floor. Zack and I grabbed a couple drinks and headed to the top floor where we sang, laughed, and danced the afternoon way.
After leaving Tootsies, we walked down Lower Broadway and took in all the sights and sounds. Lots of sounds. So much live music in different bars and venues that we walked past – it was fun to sneak a look inside as we passed by.
We made our way to the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge for a view of the skyline before grabbing dinner at Assembly Food Hall.
The food hall was amazing and had so many options (their website says over 30 restaurants and bars!) plus live music.
We decided to try some fried chicken from Princes Hot Chicken (you can choose your spice level so we got HOT, and it was spicy and delicious) as well as some Carne Asada Nachos from Chilangos Tacos (10/10, two thumbs up, five star!).
Around 8:30ish we hopped back in our car to head to our hotel. I could’ve totally stayed there longer, but we were exhausted from our long day of driving and had to wake up early to hit the road again the next morning, but we had such a blast.
My second drive out to Texas was definitely not as exciting – my dad and I PLUS the cats and a car full of stuff that we didn’t pack into the POD…not exactly the recipe for a night out. Glad Zack and I were able to squeeze in a little adventure in the middle of our even bigger adventure!
– Courtney
PS – You can catch up on our move here.
hardys on holiday 