Taking the Nashville L - 03.27.25-03.28.25

After a late Wednesday night out filled with live music and networking, I took Thursday morning to rest. At this point, the exhaustion of exploring, learning, networking, and traveling had finally taken its toll on me. I appreciated the slow day with our, Avery and I, only goal to attend the Nashville Predators hockey game against the St. Louis Blues. 

Avery and I are big hockey fans, and we love to visit new stadiums. We made sure to get to the game early to explore all that the stadium offers and we were not disappointed. The stadium is in a prime location, in the heart of Nashville’s downtown. We bought ourselves a Smashville puck along with delicious food that was reasonably priced. This game featured a bobblehead giveaway for the first 10,000 fans to arrive at the game, and we were within that range and received a Jelly Roll Bobblehead. While the bobblehead was exciting, it was even more exciting to find out that Jelly Roll was in attendance at the game. The game was exhilarating with the Blues having a comeback victory over the Preds 3-2, making it the Blues eighth straight win. 

After the game, Avery and I went to Jelly Roll’s Goodnight Nashville and Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk Rock N’ Roll Steakhouse. We did not stay particularly long at either bar as we were starting to feel sick with cold symptoms and called it a night. 

The next morning, Friday, was our last day but it was certainly not our best as we were now sporting full on flu symptoms. We stayed in our hotel room until it was time to check out then we dropped our luggage off with the valet to store it until we would depart from Nashville later that evening. Avery and I had the whole day to enjoy Nashville, but we were severely under the weather. We did go on a walk around the city where we saw the Tennessee State Capitol building and Painter’s Alley. Along our walk, I got myself an acai bowl and Avery got a pastry. For our meal, we ate at the Assembly Food Hall. I ordered a salad, and Avery ordered the same burger that he had on our first night in Nashville. With a few more hours left to kill before our flight, we went back to our hotel to hang out in the top-level conference area. 

After spending a few hours resting on the top floor, it was finally time for Avery and I to go to the airport to fly home. Our travels were relatively smooth, and we made it back home safely.

Our trip to Nashville and the Smoky Mountains was one for the books. Avery and I had a wonderful time exploring so many new things together and I look forward to our next trip together!