back from Nashville

So Nashville was a fun trip. I mostly went to spend a few days with my brother and sister-in-law. It's been many years since I spent more than an afternoon with Bro, and I'd never spent any meaningful time with SiL. On Saturday, Bro had to work, so I ended up spending the whole day hanging out with SiL. It took a couple of hours for us to get comfortable enough with each other to really talk, but once we did it was great. After picking up Bro from work and making dinner, the two of us stayed up chatting until well past midnight. One of my main goals for the trip was getting to know her better -- she is family now, after all -- so I'm really glad that worked out.

Things to remember from Nashville include: family style Southern dinner at Monell's -- literally (you sit at a table of 10 or more people, they bring out the food, and everyone passes it around); deep fried Cajun at Wilma Kaye's (the hush puppies were divine!); lively Irish music at Mulligan's, a favorite hangout of my brother's; visiting the full-scale replica of the Parthenon (didn't get inside, though, too many field trip munchkins running around -- I just sat on the steps and communed with Athena from a distance); music and comic shopping at The Great Escape, a used everything store that Bro calls "the eighth wonder of the world".

Then Sunday we went up to Mammoth Caves in southern Kentucky. A great experience -- we went almost 400 stairs (Bro counted) down a sinkhole, walked steadily uphill through an older, drier cavern, and then saw the Frozen Niagra flow wall formation, which was really impressive. I stupidly forgot to bring a camera, so I hope I get a chance to look at SiL's pictures.

Okay, back to real life now.