"Ex-husbands for rent" (Billboard in Georgia)

How do we sum up Georgia in one post? We've seen a bit of everything. We spent a few days in Athens, GA, the lovely college town surrounding University of Georgia. It was a beautiful campus and town (especially the Greek houses!!) and unfortunately I have no pictures to prove it. We ate lots of good local food (crepes, ice cream, fried green tomatoes, etc) and watched a few world cup games at a fun local bar. We also toured a local brewery called Terrapin who recently distributes in NJ and PA!

HotLanta: I don't know what my expectations of Atlanta were but the few hours we spent there gave me a good impression. We walked around the Olympic Park and toured the Coca-Cola factory. I also learned that I would never like to have to switch over 7 lanes of traffic in 15 seconds ever again if I don't have to.


Helen, GA: I'm sure you have never heard of this town because it is approximately one block long but its modeled after Germany and every restaurant and store is themed to German ideas. We went to a glassblowing store which was really cool. However, the highlights were the Hansel & Gretel Candy Factory and the ice cream shop! Next time we're planning to go tubing in the river on such a hot summer day. Best kept secret in Georgia

Best of all on our drive out of Helen we passed this place called "Goats on the Roof" and did a little u-turn to go back and take pictures. Yes it is an Amish restaurant/ice cream shop that has living goats on the roof!

"Men are like waffles..."

Tuesday: Rest day in Murphy, NC
Today consisted of a little trip to Walmart (the only real thing in town) and a trip to this old-fashioned ice cream parlor where the 60 year old owner told us about how men are like waffles and women are like spaghetti (story for another day) and that someday when we’re older we’re going to want to move back to a small quiet town like this instead of the big traffic filled cities. Sign at ice cream parlor read “Unsupervised children will be sold as slaves”- Gotta love the south!

Travel Day = Food day

Monday! Nashville to Knoxville to North Carolina

Started our day at Nashville’s Pancake Pantry. Ate chocolate chip pancakes that were delicious and after downing 4 of them, made me feel almost sick haha. Will be heading back there in the future, unfortunately no celebrity sightings this time (Taylor Swift is known to frequent there with Taylor Lautner and Justin Bieber). We took a little drive through Vanderbilt’s campus and got Idaho and Nevada for the license plate game. We then got Alaska on our way to Knoxville (HUGE accomplishment!). In Knoxville we met up with my friend Lindsay and ate at Pizza Palace from the Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.” The lady that worked there gave us free onion rings because she said Guy Fieri loved them so much. We also got pizza of course. The lady told us they get visitors from Russia, Australia, South America, etc since the show aired.

Nashvegas! 4 days crammed into one post

CMA Fest 2010
Thursday:
Tried to get our feel for the city and the setup. We went to the convention center and walked around, saw a bunch of famous artists signing autographs and happened to catch/chase down Jake Owen as he was switching from one autograph booth to the other. I saw him perform later on the Riverfront as well, in addition to another band of hotties called Love&Theft.

Nighttime concert: Danny Gokey, Alan Jackson, Tim McGraw (don’t care how old he is, I’m in love), Jason Aldean, Lady Antebellum (I love Dave Haywood even though he’s the awkward 3rd man most of the time), and Carrie Underwood followed by fireworks

Friday:
Our day started on a mission to find the world cup opener of South Africa vs Mexico at a bar at 9am. Luckily these random girls gave us flyers for Coyote Ugly where we went, sat in front of the projector screen, was served a “breakfast beer” and were yelled at for not dancing on the bar(Jackie- this place had your name written all over it, even t-shirts talking about dancing on bars).

We won via a twitter contest passes to this secret concert of people we never heard of. The first performer was Jordyn Shellhart who is 16 and sang with her guitar, being dubbed the “next Taylor Swift.” She was really good, and we met her afterwards and got a picture and autographs so hopefully she makes it big some day. She was followed be Chelsea Field and The Band Perry.

Nighttime concert: Julianne Hough, Josh Turner (in love, I wish he would serenade me every night), Miranda Lambert, Keith Urban (my all-time favorite, although Nicole Kidman was there so no swooping), Reba, and Kid Rock

Saturday:
We watched Gloriana play at the riverfront stage then proceeded to a sports bar where we watched the US vs England world cup match with some soccer enthusiasts and even some Brits. This guy from England knew Villanova because he did an exchange program in Doylestown. Nighttime concert: Randy Houser, Easton Corbin (completely swooped again but he’s married), Billy Currington, Zac Brown Band (and they didn’t sing “Chicken Fried,” it was really upsetting), Martina McBride, and Rascal Flatts

Sunday:
Got up super early and headed to the Bridgestone Arena where Taylor Swift had rented out the arena for her 13 hour meet-and-greet. Her tour bus, guitars, and other things were on display and they did a series of contests to win wristbands to meet her. I was fortunate enough to win wristbands through a texting contest and got to meet her. We talked about Philly, Villanova (she was impressed by it, saying how it was a “really good school”), how rowdy NJ concerts are, and how she was still on her coffee high about 5 hours into the meet-and-greet. She then performed 4 songs and then continued meeting fans for a total of 15 hours. I took a nap and rallied for the nighttime concert.



Prior to the nighttime concert I went to Mike’s Homemade Ice Cream on Broadway, it was amazing for anyone heading to Nashville. The nighttime concert included: Justin Moore, Kellie Pickler, Blake Shelton (including a duet with fiancé Miranda Lambert), Trace Adkins, Darius Rucker, and Brad Paisley.

A little bit of So.Co. (Southern Comfort)

Today’s adventure started in Baltimore at 7am and technically ended at 6:50pm in Nashville (though this adventure is far from over). The Santa Fe has some bruises from an incident this past weekend but has been a trooper so far. And we couldn't have made it here without Jack's guidance (Jack Garmin that is)

Car games included:
License Plate game- 38 states, DC, 2 Canadian provinces, and government plates
CMAFest vs Bonnaroo game- analyzing out-of-state cars and determining where they were going (ex: 4 boys in handcuffs and a cop searching the car for drugs= Bonnaroo)

Food:
Dunkin Donuts
Sonic (obv)
Barb-B-Cutie (a good local discovery, apparently a Rachael Ray favorite, “barb-b-___” has become the new token phrase of the trip by prefacing random words with that phrase)


Sonic Above; Barb-B-Cutie below


Hotel:
My elite “gold member” status (courtesy of my dad) got my name on a welcome sheet at the desk but did not get us functioning keys… fair trade? Currently on key cards #8 & 9 for the room, neither is currently working. The girl at the desk luckily has a lovely southern hospitality attitude and has become our best friend.
Random middle-aged man in the lobby harassed us for not hitting the town yet.

Goals for the week:
Complete license plate game (at least continental US)
Party with Kid Rock?
Eat at an (or multiple) establishment(s) from “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives”