Bloggers Mark McPhillips, ‘20 and Daniella Maney, ‘20 embarked on a road trip this summer with their friend Samuel Piller, ‘20 before coming back to Conn. We will publish a series of posts about what they experienced along the way.... (Read Post 1)
Today began just as the day before it did: Dani, Samuel, and I awoke on the floor of my friend David’s apartment. We were a little achy from our sleeping accommodations but, again, we were just grateful to have a free place to stay.
David had to leave pretty soon after we woke up because he was expected at work. We said our goodbyes and then stayed in his apartment until we figured out how we were going to spend our final day on the road. We had tried to go to the tourist-friendly street Broadway in downtown Nashville a couple times before and failed because it was too late or we kept getting lost. Now, we figured we should try once and for all to experience Nashville tourism.
We got back in the CR-V and plugged Broadway into the Waze app. It brought us to the street with no problem but we could not find any parking. We drove down a few blocks and finally found a spot—without a meter! We went back to Broadway and immediately found a souvenir shop to fulfill Dani’s and my postcard needs. The shop was a success but Dani wanted to find something for her niece and felt this shop did not have what she was looking for. We went further down Broadway and stumbled upon yet another souvenir shop. We went inside and waited for Dani to find something she felt was adequate for her niece. She eventually decided on a bucket hat with the words “Nashville: Music City” embroidered on the front.
After our souvenir adventures, the three of us headed back to the car. On our way, we stumbled upon a sandwich shop that looked really good so we stopped in to try some more Nashville cuisine. The sandwiches we had were much better quality than the Hot Chicken we had the night before and we had some newfound faith in the food of Nashville.
We made our way back to our car after getting lost for a few blocks and got back on the road one last time. We had a long stretch of driving ahead of us: from Nashville, Tennessee, to Charlottesville, Virginia, 8 1/2 hours. In all honesty, I don’t think the three of us minded too much because we were going to switch off and we also were cherishing our last drive together.
We stopped a few times to get snacks and gas, as usual, and stopped at Wendy’s eventually for dinner. Around 12:30 a.m., we arrived at Samuel’s house. It was pitch black and we stepped through his front door. It was silent and we realized that his parents had already gone to sleep. The three of us made our way down to the basement, where Dani and I were going to retire for the night, and spent our final night together watching a very funny movie called “The Heartbreak Kid.”