Road trippin' down south

Last weekend I took a short little trip to Austin, TX and Nashville, TN. My company had a vehicle in Austin that needed to be driven back to Virginia and while we could have paid a transport company to ship it up here, I thought I'd better go down and take care of it myself. I love Austin -- it's great restaurants, fun night life, live music and eclectic art scene. My company also has a condo there, which they are selling, so I had to take advantage of the super cool pad one last time. This is the view from the condo's 28th floor balcony. You can see why I wanted to visit there one last time before they sell the place. In another life (where I have lots of money) I have a sweet place like this.I flew down to Texas with a co-worker and after two days in Austin, we loaded up the car and started our long journey north. The first day we drove 14 hours through Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee, finally arriving in Nashville around midnight. After a good night's sleep, we wandered around Music City for a day, listening to all the live music pour out into the streets. We enjoyed the music, looked in some of the shops and ate some delicious southern BBQ. I had pulled pork on corn cakes with plenty of coleslaw and BBQ sauce. YUM!

Of course, for me, a trip wouldn't be complete without a visit to an art museum or gallery. I visited the Frist Center for the Visual Arts and saw an amazing exibit of paintings on loan from the Cleveland Art Museum. Here are two of my favorites from the exhibit.

La Vida by Picasso

The Red Kerchief by Monet

Walking down the street in Nashville, I came across a rather unique gallery - Nashville's Smallest Art Gallery. It is just a glass case on the side of the building. I loved these paintings by Ryan Hale.

After enjoying a brief day in Nashville, we hit the hay early so we could leave at 3 a.m. the next day. I was excited to pass though the rest of Tennessee and a large part of Virginia. My favorite part had to be the Smoky Mountains which were so breath taking that when I saw them, I screamed. We passed through them in the early morning just before sunrise and the hills were covered in a thick fog that hovered above the rolling mounds of green. They truly looked smoky, almost to the point of sultry, like a smoky nightclub with an air of mystery. Unfortunately I remembered to pull out my camera after it was too late. This was taken somewhere near the Tennessee - Virginia boarder. My trip through the south was definitely too short. Someday I will plan a proper trip there and take time to visit the Grand Ole Opry, Smokey Mountain National Park, Texarkana (just because I like the name) and other random towns full of interesting people, rich southern soul food and beautiful landscapes. Oh, and I promise I'll take more pictures next time. I am sad that I didn't get a real picture of Nashville or the long country roads through Texas. Next time.