Virtual Adventures of Nashville, TN

Right now the world feels like it is both in a standstill and out of control. From governments trying to decide what’s best for it’s people, healthcare workers trying to keep their heads above water while caring for the sick, moms and dads juggling work and home schooling their children for the first time and millennial’s loosing their hard-won, multiple part time jobs. Teaming up to stay apart is unnatural at best but it is the secret ingredient to overcoming this chapter.

Something that I have loved from individuals that are choosing to do their part and stay home are those who still give out their talents so freely. From actors reading children’s books to my favorite cello player yo-yo ma playing on Facebook live. Everyone see’s the need to somehow still make this world a better place and in my efforts towards this exact direction, I wanted to keep sharing my adventures with you!

So without any further ado, let’s go on a virtual adventure in Nashville, TN….

Let’s travel!

 

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I don’t know about you but there is just something about heading down south and wanting some feel good food. I’m not sure if its the southern ties or the cravings that come up during a roadtrip, but we were all about making our first stop in Nashville about a plate of chicken and waffles! To help us achieve this we stopped at a restaurant called Sambuca and tucked in.

After filling our bellies we opened our Airbnb app and pulled up the address to our new home away from home. The name of our place was called The Nomad Pad and its interior design definitely highlighted that feeling. To my delight, as well, the home even had its own Instagram page @thenomadpad, and they even featured some of my photography of their place. 

What did I say! ^ stunning place and I highly recommend booking with The Nomad Pad when you go to Nashville! 

And as nice as our new home was, you do not simply come to Nashville to stay inside, you must wander! First we went to one of my favorite coffee shops in the whole city, Crema. I ordered a Spanish latte while Jacob ordered a Mocha and we took a second to sit down at the bar. This coffee shop is a gem from their delicious coffee and merchandise to their lounge areas to work or play. You are guaranteed to see countless creatives and business types hunched over their laptops working away and groups of two or three laughing at someone’s tale.

Thinking about this now, during a time of isolation, warms my heart.

After sipping on our coffee for a short while, we got up to walk around the city. My favorite thing about Nashville is the amount of beautiful murals painted along its walls and walkways. You can just feel the heartbeat of this creative city with each step you take. I personally wish that more cities would follow in Nashville’s footsteps because street art is more than graffiti or tags- it is a culture all in its own. It’s speaks of the real people living and working in the area.

My favorite mural ^

While we walked we would take detours and step inside local shops, had goo goo eyes over delicious looking foods in the windows and talked about what all we would like to see and do during our time there. Walking and talking in general has always been our “thing” as a couple. So to be able to travel together and do our thing in new places has my heart the most happy and, just like that, checks off one of the items on my Nashville to do list.

What’s this list you might now be wondering? We’ll here it is:

Nashville To Do:

• Get coffee from Crema
• Buy a new plant baby
• See the murals around Nashville
• Walk hand in hand with the love of my life
• Try some “made from scratch” pop-tarts from Milk and Honey
• Find the Colosseum (aka what I call Nashville’s Parthenon)
• Eat ramen.

And speaking of ramen, that brings me to where we will have our official first date night in Nashville! Our ramen place of choice is none other than Otaku Ramen. This ramen house is so so good in the ways of giving me both butterflies in my stomach and ruining all other ramen houses for me for the foreseeable future. To put it plainly, Jacob and I got the same amount of food in our bowls and only one of us finished their whole bowl… or should I say, her whole bowl.

After Jacob rolled me out of our hot date, we had a chilly walk, drove around the city, got stopped in traffic that was leaving the Grand Ol Opry House and found ourselves back to laying on our new bed counting our blessings.

Saturday, Day 2

With the dawning of a new day it was now time for my favorite time of day, Brunch! While out and about the day before you might have caught on to me saying that I had a crush on some tasty looking. Well it was now time for me to get my hands on them. 

Taking a short drive over to the gulch area in Nashville, we found our seats at Milk & Honey. Everything we ordered was both delicious and gorgeous from various eggy concoctions, coffee drinks and, finally, two flavors of handmade poptarts! One had a strawberry jam filling and the other had chocolate and hazelnut whip. 

After brunch we wanted to go find one more mural and that’s the iconic “I believe in Nashville” mural and to stop at one of my favorite florist and gifts shop Bloom Flowers. Little did I know that Jacob was about to become an influencer….

Please tell me you got a little laugh out of this selfie central!!

Next we were on to Bloom Flowers gift shop! This shop has so many different indoor plants you can buy, they can make you a flower arrangement in house or you can pick up various stationary. While I looked around the shop I found and bought myself a cactus!

As luck would have it, I married a man who supports my love of plants and he married a woman who supports his love of local BBQ! We got my cactus wrapped up and ready to go, jumped in the jeep and headed over to Mission BBQ. We ordered something smokey and smothered in amber goodness and had ourselves a little picnic in the Centennial Park.

The rad part about being in this park was the gorgeous backdrop of the Parthenon. Such an odd, classic beauty resting on a green lawn near the heart of the city. But I enjoyed it because it drew runners, cute couples and families to its steps and grounds. Or maybe because it was such a gorgeous day, I’ll let you decide.

Thank you beautiful Nashville for having us! And thank you for coming along with me! I hope I have encouraged you, made you laugh, scratched your travel itch or inspired you to make some delicious food while on your staycation. Please stay happy, healthy and hydrated!

-Kriss

 

Boulder, Colorado

Finally on Our Way

The Colorado talk started at the very beginning of Jacob and I’s relationship. It was on our first date, at a coffee shop no less, where he told me about how he lived there and how that time changed him and his life. And as we became more serious in our relationship, I knew that one day I would visit this awesome state. Now here we are nearly two and a half years later!

The fact that I had yet to visit Colorado was kinda surprising to me. I have been very lucky to be able to travel a lot so far in my life but Colorado was a state that I can’t say I’ve visited until now. There is no reason for that other than lack of time or resources, because I’ve been very captivated by the state and the grand scale of nature that it provides in abundance. And if you read my previous blog, Plant Lady, you’d know that I’m a bit of a nut about nature.

So on the morning of May 25th, I was a excited heap of my a girl. Our flight wasn’t until that evening so I made myself busy in hopes that time would fly by. I packed my bag, shout out to all of the last minute packers, with everything I would need, double checked my just packed luggage, deep cleaned the house, snuggled our dog as much as he would allow, yoga sequence, googled locations to visit and once everything was done- I waited.

Traveling is always a bit of a multi-step process, am I right? So for us it looks like driving an hour to the airport, the usual airport steps of checking in, plane ticket, security and more waiting, sometimes flight delays, hoping your flight neighbor isn’t too nosey about your life or a loud sleeper, getting off the flight, finding your rental car company and if you’re really lucky- driving another hour plus to get to your end location. And that right there was our day!

After everything worked out so well, I made a friend in my flight neighbor Drew, we got our subaru rental and by dinner time we made the hour and a half drive to our cabin location in the mountains near Boulder, Colorado- the last to arrive to the party. And boy was it a party!

Staying at the cabin that weekend was all of my in-laws. On one branch of the tree was four generations while on the branch of the tree that I married into, I was one happy leaf to be there. It’s hard for all of us to come together at one time because the family all lives between roughly six different states from one side of the country to the other. The weekend was going to be a great time just because everyone was there.

Waking Up to the Mountains

Sunday morning was our first morning of the trip and the slower morning of our time with the family. Jacob and I were put up in an East facing bedroom where I had a front row seat to seeing a Colorado mountain for the first time.

We slept with the window open so at around 4 in the morning some far off noise woke me up and from that moment on I was awake for the day. I dug out my journal and got set up for the sunrise. And when it came, the room blazed alive with the rays of the sun and my heart felt every bit of it. The view awoke my memories of Tolkien novels with quotes about mountains and adventure while my soul felt the hope and strength of Jesus Christ.

I was humbled by the size of the mountains because of the beautiful symbolism of life, journey, hurdles and victories that they represent. And in that moment where I was under fluffy, down blankets feeling the cool breeze of the morning while my husband was fast asleep next to me, it’s as if everything fell into place. Surely this moment was the confirmation that this trip was going to mean something to me and to everyone in that house.

Adventure Awaits, but coffee first.

Around ten that morning, the ball started rolling. With most everyone awake, the house was quickly filling up with activity. Coffee was made to help fuel breakfast prep and early conversations about the days plans. Half of the group would walk down to the town called Nederland, just ten minutes away, while half would go into Boulder.

I was all over both ideas but with only having time for one, I chose Boulder with the boys. Jacob, his older brother Jeremy and two cousins Michael and Jon plus myself got into the subaru and took the winding road down to Boulder.

With it being Memorial Day weekend the streets were buzzing. From a carnival to live music to vendors and their tents set up around the shopping areas, there was a lot to see.

We first opted for walking around the shopping areas to wander around quirky finds and relax in roof top bars. Goodness knows that I wanted to buy all of the things but I carried on with the group knowing that I’d find some awesome souvenirs later.

After a full day on the town, we all drove back to the cabin and tucked into a night of snacks, card games, old SNL episodes and rest.

Memorial Day

This year on Memorial Day it wasn’t just different because we were in another state, it was different because half of the day was spent celebrating the stars and stripes by being at the Boulder Boulder 10k race and cheering on all of the runners in the family. For months Jacob and various family members trained for this run. At a point I too was training for it but because life was full with finishing up my degree, I had to put off my race day for some other time in the future.

I didn’t get that many pictures that day because it was was a bit of a mad dash for everyone involved. We woke up at 5 a.m., got ready for the day, everyone had to pack up because we wouldn’t be coming back later and head out before 6 so the runners could get dropped off and warmed up for their start times.

I felt incredibly and hysterically out of my element with all of the different types of stretches and strategies, energy supplements and wardrobes surrounding me- I mean I also was wearing jeans and a sweater while everyone else seemed to be head to toe spandex. But I, also, couldn’t have imagined being anywhere else. I was beaming with pride for Jacob. When he finally made his last stretch of the 10k, I just saw it all on his face, determination yet exhaustion. It yet again made me sure of the man I chose to do this adventure called “Life” with.

After the race, we all joined together one last time for a family lunch, rounds of hugs and promise’s of “see you soon”‘s.

Next on the blog is the part two to our Colorado trip! This leg of the trip will be lived out in Colorado Springs, Colorado with lots of ideas for hiking, eats, drinks and shopping. Stay tuned and if you haven’t already, sign up below for future email notifications for new posts and updates on my blog.

-KrissCross