"Well, if you're going to blog again, you need to tell the people about Nashville"

 FINE, ALLYSON. But I'm not putting up ALL the pics! Just a few.

I'll spare you the boring travel details and I will gloss over the part that this was the first time I'd flown in 30 years to tell you the first thing we did when we landed in Nashville on that Monday.

It was not "go check out some live music" or even "check into the AirBnB." Rather, the first stop in Nashville: Urgent Care.

Ben did something to his knee in the weeks leading up to our trip. In typical Ben fashion, he just slapped a brace on it and hoped for the best. What he GOT was an allergic reaction to the brace that only worsened in the air. So we picked up the rental car and headed for the nearest Urgent Care. An hour later, he was given a referral to a dermatologist. Neat! We then broke our "no food we can get at home" rule and went to the first restaurant we saw, which was a Panera. 

Then we went to the Opry Mills Mall because our AirBnB wasn't ready yet. While there, we discovered that this was the home of the Nashville wing of the Madame Tussaud's wax museum. Of COURSE we stopped in.

Giving Bob Dylan the side-eye.

Playing a duet with Stevie Wonder in a picture Ben made me pose for.

I also came really close to knocking over the Elton John figure and got creeped right out by the talking (!!!) Darius Rucker figure.

Then we went to the Gibson Garage to look at guitars we'd have to sell our house to be able to afford, checked into our BnB, got some groceries (we ate most meals out but cooked our own breakfasts) and were pretty well in for the night.

Tuesday was a pretty busy day - we took a trolley tour through Nashville. We stopped at several places, including:

The Ryman Auditorium

And the Musicians Hall of Fame

We also ate at famed Nashville chicken place Hattie B's, where I forgot that most cole slaw has carrots in it until I had finished half my serving. Whoops. Then we walked up and down Broadway for a while, popped into a couple of bars for some live music. We stayed the longest at one called Legends, where we saw an up-and-coming country singer named Ryne Brashear. We're not really country music folks but he was really good!

Then we were off to Bridgestone Arena for our first NHL game. 

The Predators lost to Calgary in overtime, but it was still really fun.

Wednesday we celebrated our actual anniversary with a trip to the dermatologist for Ben. He had seen his telehealth provider on Monday night and the dermatologist pretty much told him the same thing. Then we went to the Parthenon, which was super cool. 

(not pictured: the Percy Jackson movie props I wasn't actually supposed to take pictures of.)

Then we went back to downtown Nashville to the Johnny Cash museum, which was SUPER COOL, you guys.

We also ate lunch at the attached restaurant, which was really delicious and had some awesome live music.

That evening we found ourselves back at Bridgestone Arena, this time for a concert: Journey and Toto. We were initially only interested in Toto (Steve Lukather is one of Ben's personal guitar heroes), but we ended up really loving Journey too. 

The next day, Ben dragged me to a bunch of vintage guitar shops to look for a birth-year Strat. Unfortunately, 44 year old guitars are pricey. So he ended up buying a newer guitar. At Guitar Center. Which we have in Peoria. Okay, Ben. But I'll give him the fact that the vintage guitar stores were neat. We got some pizza for lunch at a little place near our BnB, then went to the post office to mail our souvenirs home. Little life pro tip from Kris, here: If you're doing strictly carry-on and don't want to check a bag on the plane, mail your souvenirs to yourself.

Then it was dinner at Chuy's, which counted as our anniversary dinner. Because I was NOT going to let my romantic 20th anniversary dinner be a soft pretzel I crammed down my gullet between Toto's set and Journey's set. So delicious.

The next morning we got up early and set off for home. 

All in all, it was a great trip. I got to explore a city neither of us have ever been to. I got to drive down a highway that was NOT littered with construction (the joys of living in Illinois). Plus I got to spend a lot of time with my favorite person on the planet.

20 years down. Here's to an eternity more.