So with this awesome new little car, we wanted to make a road trip on our way back to Utah! My friend Aubrey lives in St Louis which is about 5 and a half hours from Cincinnati so we decided to go there first and it was SUPER FUN! The drive wasn't bad at all, either, which was nice (Especially because I had been mostly nauseous in the car with being pregnant, but it felt like it all went away during this road trip)!
We got there around dinner time and were lucky enough to catch Todd and Mandy when they were free! We met downtown at a restaurant called The Atomic Cowboy. It's like a Mexican/barbecue place and it was really good. It was mostly fun being able to chat with Todd and Mandy about medical school and have Jake be able to hear some people that really love what they do to get him a little inspired!
After we went to dinner, the three of us went to the City Museum. I didn't have high expectations for this place but it was crazy cool! Ralph and Tracey told us they went there one time while they were in town for a soccer tournament and they LOVED it. It's basically a huge adult playground. Jake had a lot of fun seeing how everything was made and trying to fit through all the tiny little crevices and I tried not to freak out and get sick when there were things involving heights. It's an exhausting, sweaty place but it was so fun!
We stayed the night and slept GREAT in Aubrey and Nate's bed (hahaha thanks guys) and then we spent some time at the St Louis zoo that morning before eating a a delicious thai place. The st louis zoo is so big and FREE! That was the best part . . . I've never been to a free zoo before?!?! Also there was a baby rhino. So cute.
From St Louis we headed to Nashville which is about 5 hours away - not a bad drive at all! We were excited to see the Smith family and spend some time in Nashville. It's a place we've both been to but we've never been downtown! It's a lot more like Vegas than I imagined. We drove down the "strip" a couple of times and it was so cool hearing a bunch of random country songs coming out of each bar and all these cool cover bands. We were driving around looking for a place to eat but because the eclipse was going on the next day, literally everything was packed. It was crazy. The first couple of restaurants we were going to had run out of food and we kept having to find a new place to go to.
We ended up at Mellow Mushroom because we were ALL STARVING and we didn't want to wait any longer to eat. Plus we all kept thinking about the amazing bruschetta that MM has and it was a done deal. We had to go. It was a fun dinner but when we got finished, everyone was ready to go to bed.
The next day, Monday, the day of the eclipse, we had a lazy day in the morning and were playing monopoly and eating chocolate chip pancakes. We stopped by the gas station and grabbed snacks and then headed to the pool. Nashville was in the line of totality and Heidi had previously grabbed us all glasses. Jordan set up his camera with some special paper so his lens could catch a picture of it and we waited. It was actually SO MUCH COOLER than we thought it was going to be. It pretty much got completely dark. The street lamps came on, the crickets started chirping. It was the coolest thing ever! We were all amazed. After that we spent some time playing in the pool. They were all trying to get two people on Jake and Jordan's shoulders... they could only last for like 3 seconds but it was SO FUNNY to watch. I'll have to get the videos from Jake's phone.
We went home and made sandwiches, dried our swimsuits, and packed up our bags. It was time to go which was sad but I didn't want to drive a ton during the night. We ended up driving to somewhere in the middle of Arkansas and stopping at a cheap hotel and sleeping. The traffic was SO BAD from all the eclipse traffic and people leaving Nashville so we were happy with completely missing it and just sleeping.
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