Last weekend I continued my birthday celebrations by going on a road trip to Nashville, Tennessee with my friends Sarah and Kyla in pursuit of warmer weather, tasty biscuits and most importantly, unchartered vintage and thrifting territory. Luckily one of my blogger friends, Rae of Say It Ain't So, lives in Nashville and provided me an extensive guide to her home city and I also met up with 2 other bloggers during the trip (more on that in my next entry).It takes approximately 8 hours to drive down to Nashville from Chicago and we drove through southern Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky before hitting the Music City. Of course the feature of any great American road trip is the kooky and kitschy places that you encounter along the way-- in this case a huge outdoor store somewhere in rural Indiana that specialized in cement yard art. Of course we had to pull over and take photos!
Sarah (left) and Kyla (right) sitting pretty in a pair of hand chairs/sculptures.
Kyla riding side saddle on a buffalo.
We all agreed that the dinosaur would be the best addition to a yard (if we had one).
The foxes were really tempting!
Instead of a traditional hotel, we booked a reservation through Air BNB, Kyla and I are posing in front of "The Casita", our home for the weekend. Our accommodations consisted of a one-room cabin that had heating and a/c, beds and a desk. It was located in the backyard of a hip couple's home in West Nashville.
Sarah and Kyla outside The Casita before we headed out to The Nashville Flea Market. We only made it to the last hour of the flea market on Saturday but went back on Sunday morning so I'll share the photos of the flea in the next post.
If you're ever in Nashville, I highly recommend the iconic Loveless Cafe. It's a restaurant just outside the city that has been serving delicious biscuits, ham, fried chicken and other Southern culinary delights since 1951. The original owners' last name was "Loveless" but the cafe changed hands several times over the years. There used to be a working motel until 1985 but since then the rooms have been converted into shops and the Hams & Jams Country Market.
When we arrived at Loveless, we were quoted a 2 hour wait! To pass the time we explored the Hams & Jams market where they sold souvenirs and treats like candied pecans with bacon.
There were many opportunities for photo ops at Loveless, including this old tractor.
Sarah is sitting outside the on-site smokehouse.
Loveless is renown for its biscuits and thankfully a platter of them came with our dinner! Sarah ordered the fried chicken supper and Kyla and I shared a bbq pork plate and a fried chicken dinner. The sides, macaroni and cheese and mashed potatoes, were pretty basic but the fried chicken was fresh, juicy and crispy and the pork tender and slightly smoky.
Of course we all instagrammed our trip, I was amused to see Sarah's intagram photo of her meal besides her plate. Meta!
After consuming all that delicious food we headed back to the Casita to turn in early. There are many more photos to come of the rest of the trip-- in the meantime be sure to check out Sarah's blog too for more photos and video.