dispatch from nashville :: day 2

A fun day in Nashville! I really like this city!

We started the morning with a run. From our hotel we went to Centennial Park where there is a replica of the Parthenon, then we cut through the Vanderbilt campus. It  was a great route for seeing the area of town known as Vandy.

We had breakfast at the 1808 Grille (where we had dinner last night) and then headed to a laundromat in the Hillsboro neighborhood to do some laundry. Real glamorous and fun, huh?

The highlights of the day came at lunch and beyond. For lunch {first highlight} we ate at this great little cafe and coffe shop called The Frothy Monkey. Then {second highlight} we met with Brad of Pierce & Co, regarding the interior design of our new condo. We went room-by-room, practically piece-by-piece looking at tear sheets of furniture and rugs to see what we like. We made some decisions on fabrics and some tentative decisions about colors. After our meeting {third highlight} we walked around the block to have dinner at Burger  Up in the 12South neighborhood - a delish fancy burger place with an emphasis on local foods: local meat, local cheese, local veggies, etc. We shared an amazing cucumber, zucchini, spring onion, goat cheese, and cider vinegar salad. John had a beef burger and I had a veggie (quinoa and black bean) burger. We both had a lot of the homemade ketchup and honey mustard. For dessert we shared a homemade open-faced ice cream sandwhich made with Jeni's salted caramel ice cream.

After doing a little touring around town in the car {we saw some great neighborhoods with beautiful older and new homes and a neat "hip" restaurant area called The Gulch}, we ended up back at the Hutton Hotel. Mocha had been out and about with us all day and she was glad to get back to the hotel. John and I were pretty tired, too.

Tomorrow we are going to go on a run out at a trail and then get on the road to our next stop! Only two more cities to go before we arrive in Miami/Coconut Grove!