Austin

Cahl and I have never been to Austin before, so we decided to fly in a few days early to pick up the kids from summer camp. We spent Thursday checking out downtown, hitting up Buc-ees, and touring the State Capital building. That evening we caught a river cruise/bat watching tour, which was pretty awesome. Austin has a colony of around 750,000 female Mexican Free-Tailed bats, that all live together under 1 specific bridge. They all come out at night to feed, and it's quite the sight! They are so small, it is hard to get a photo or video of them, but it was impressive. I was pretty skeptical of doing a bat tour, but it was really awesome to learn about them, see them, and especially to listen to them communicate with each other. 

Friday we had a few hours in the morning to walk along the river walk trail, then check out the French Legation grounds. That was a really beautiful spot in town, and we loved learning about it. Then we headed over to the airport to pick up the rest of the parents coming to get all the kids from camp, and made our way over to the house we had rented for the night. 

New York

After only being home from Nashville for about 12 hours, we decided at the last second to book a trip to New York, to spend the weekend with Tristan before he leaves for Belgium. We spent Saturday hanging out in Clayton and Alexandria Bay, and had dinner on a sunset cruise down the St Lawrence river. It is such a beautiful area, and I can understand why people used to "summer" there! 

Sunday we spent most of the day in Sackett's Harbor, and driving around Fort Drum while Tristan showed us around. In the evening we had to drive back down to Syracuse, to catch an early flight home Monday morning. It was a whirlwind trip, but it was so awesome to be able to spend a few days with Tristan, since it will be a while before we see him again. 

Nashville

This week Cahl had a conference in Nashville, and I was able to tag along. We flew in Saturday morning, and spent the afternoon checking out downtown and Broadway St. We really enjoyed all the people watching, and hanging out on some rooftop bars to listen to all the live music. 

Sunday we spent the day riding the trolley tour around town. We had a lot of fun checking out the Marathon Motor Works (the old factory and original cars were so cool!), a farmer's market (I wish we had one like this where we live!), Centennial Park (the sunken garden was so pretty!), the Parthenon (incredible!) and Athena statue (a little weird, but impressive), Belmont Mansion and university (so much amazing history, and so beautiful!), Music Row (incredible history and stories!) Printer's Alley (really cool), and ended the day with some famous Nashville Hot Chicken (SO HOT!). 

Monday while Cahl was in class, I ventured over to the Johnny Cash museum and the Ryman Auditorium. The Johnny Cash museum was relatively small, but had so much neat stuff. I learned so much more about him, and seeing everything he did during his life was really fun. 

The Ryman was incredible. They started the tour off with a video presentation, which was awesome. It told the story of the Auditorium, and how it came to be, as well as all the history since. I really enjoyed walking through the building, and seeing all the history. 

Tuesday was Cahl's last day of class, so I spent the day at the Musician's Hall of Fame. It was almost overwhelming to see so much musical history, and learn so much about the behind the scenes of making music. I spent several hours in the place, and left feeling like I had only seen a small portion of it. 

We ended the day checking out the Gaylord Orpyland Hotel, then we caught a show at the Grand Ole Opry. The hotel is amazing, and I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Nashville! The inside is so beautiful, and it was fun to get lost on the walking paths. The highlight of our trip was tickets to the Grand Ole Opry, which Cahl gifted me for Mother's Day. We had fun getting dressed up, and had perfect seats for the show. 

Wednesday we had just enough time to head out of town to check out Carnton Plantation and civil war battlefield, before we had the head back to the airport. The plantation has been beautifully restored and preserved, and the stories of the family and people who lives there are amazing. How they opened their home to the soldiers of the civil war, and cared for them, was so touching. Especially the fact that the family carefully buried each soldier who died there, and has continued to tend the cemetery for them for all this time.