Let's All Meet in Nashville!

A couple of weeks ago, I drove up to Nashville, TN to visit my old coach Buffy. I'm getting to the point where I think of Buff more as my good friend than my old coach, but nonetheless I drove the 10 hours to go visit her. In addition to the opportunity to visit with her and her family, I especially wanted to visit since Sasha and Maaria (old teammates) were going to be there. Sasha lives and works in London, so it is a rare occasion that I get the chance to see her by spending just a few hours in the car. I hadn't seen Maaria in years either, so I was more than excited about the trip.

I arrived in Nashville late Friday night just in time to say hello to everyone before we all hit the sheets. The following day, we were all awoken bright and early by Buff's very rested children. In an effort to show Sasha a thing or two about Nashville, we all decided to head downtown and take a Duck Tour. This was a pretty neat experience until we got less than a mile away form the water and the vehicle decided to die on us. I guess it's good that we hadn't gotten in the water yet. Plus, we got a downtown tour and got all of our money refunded because of the break down.


When the duck tour was safely over, it was time to head over to the tennis courts so that Buffy could teach her Saturday group. Sash, Maar and I took this opportunity to hit some tennis balls ourselves. It was really fun to hit around just for fun, since the last time we were all on the same court together it was a lot more intense of an environment. We then headed back to the house for a cook out. Eric (Buffy's husband) made some fantastic vegetables and meats on the grill.


Sadly, in our old age, us girls were pretty tired at this point and thought for a moment about ditching the idea to go out on the town. We had, after all, just spent an hour making signs for the Easter Bunny. However, with a little push from Eric and a strong desire from Sash to see some live music, we finally made it out. We started by going to a place that had a 5 person band playing "old school" country music. The band wasn't quite as entertaining as some of the folks in that place, but the music was enjoyable too. We then moved to a bar that was supposedly known for it's intentional "trashy" decor. We weren't too impressed with the bar, but the music there was pretty good. After that we decided to call it a night.


About 6 hours later, we were again woken up by excited kiddos. Since it was Easter Sunday, they were excited to see what the Bunny had brought them. We had a slow morning and got ready to see Maaria off, as she had the earliest flight. After that, Sasha and I came out of retirement to play Buffy's number one High School team. It sure wasn't pretty, but we did pull out the victory and we had a lot of fun. We quickly grabbed a variety of Popsicles from the Mexican Popsicle stand I fell in love with on my last visit to Nashville.


After that, it was time for me to head home. It was a long and tiring drive back home, but I made it safely with the help of Iain, who was forced to stay on the phone with me for a couple of hours.