Nashville Winter Wonderland

For Christmas, Luke surprised me with a Weekend for two get away to Nashville. We haven't gone on a vacation since Fall 2005 so it was well overdue. We started making reservations at the first of the month, some of which were nonrefundable so we were going no matter what. The beginning of last week I started keeping my eyes on the weather so I could plan accordingly. I was shocked to see SNOW and ICE on the forecast. Every day I checked the weather to see if the forecast had changed and every day it was the same.

Since our biggest expense was our Hotel and it was nonrefundable we decided we were going no matter what. After all, we wanted this weekend to be about resting and what better way to rest then to be snowed in at a hotel right?!?! We loaded up the 4 wheel drive and headed to Nashville on Friday Morning before the bulk of the storm hit. We started our vacation at Opry Mills Outlet Mall because our Hotel check in wasn't until 3. We enjoyed a WONDERFUL Lunch at the Aquarium Restaurant before hitting the outlets.

While the snow steadily fell we did a little shopping. I was able to snag Miller 15 articles of clothing for next winter from the Children's Place for $42.00!! Most of their winter clothing was marked down to $2.99 each. On top of these great prices I had a 15% off coupon. That makes each item around $2.49!! This was defiantly one of the highlights of my trip.

After checking into our hotel we started to make plans for the next couple of days. All our original plans were canceled due to the weather, but one of the few places not affected by the snow was the Opryland Hotel which was located about 1/4 a mile from our hotel. Due to our lack of options we made dinner reservations and off we went. I was surprised to find the hotel a GHOST TOWN!! We spent the rest of the day walking through the beautiful atrium's at the Opryland Hotel and enjoyed a wonderful meal at Ristorante Volare. After touring the entire hotel we decided we wanted to come back the following evening for Dinner.

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Up until the time we went to the Opryland Hotel the weather was not that bad. Just a lot of snow and very little was sticking to the roads. After spending several hours touring the hotel and enjoying dinner, the scenery had changed. Snow was covering everything and sticking to the roads. Thank goodness for Valet parking at the hotel ,that was validated by our restaurant, otherwise we would have never found our vehicle in all the snow that fell while we were in the tropical atrium's. By Saturday Morning 4 inches of Snow had accumulated. On Saturday the tempts stayed below freezing all day and the snow turned to ice which made for dangerous roads and parking lots.

We did not take many pictures this weekend. We are not crazy about corny pictures of just one of us posing beside something, and everywhere we went was a bit of a ghost town so we didn't have many opportunities to have someone else take our pictures. Therefore very few pictures. We did take a couple pictures of the parking lot at our hotel. {I know that is a little Corny} Here is Luke's truck on Friday afternoon. A light dusting and very little on the pavement.

Here is a picture of the parking lot view from the 4th floor on Saturday morning. Everything was covered in Snow. The parking lots were ok at this point but as the day went on the snow began to change to ice.

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Saturday morning was a LAZY one. We bummed around all morning watching TV and playing cards. We headed back to Opry Mills around 11:30 to eat lunch. We ate at the Rainforest Cafe and then we were hoping to catch a movie but the theater was closed so we decided to take a drive and ended up at Cool Springs for the afternoon. We were probably a little CRAZY for getting out. The roads were hit or miss. Some were very clean and some looked as if they had not seen a plow. After safely making it to Cool Springs we did a little shopping and headed back to Nashville.

By this time is was time for dinner so to the Opryland Hotel we went. Old Hickory Steakhouse was by far the BEST MEAL of the weekend!! Luke ordered a Cowboy Bone-In Rib Steak and I had the Pan Seared Georges Bank Diver Scallops with Foie Gras Pinot Noir Reduction and we shared some Loaded Red Bliss Smashed Potatoes and Broccolini with Hot Bacon Vinaigrette. The waitress treated us to some of the best cheese cake ever due to the fact that we braved the weather to dine with her.

We hit the road soon after breakfast on Sunday so we could take our time traveling and be able to make it home by Lunch. We meet my parents and Miller for Lunch. Miller was SO HAPPY to see us. He kept leaning over to give us loving while we were eating Lunch. After Lunch we headed home to let Miller play in the snow that had accumulated in the back of Luke's Truck. Miller had a blast playing in the nearly 4 inches of snow.