NOLA to Nashville, TN

August 11, 2018

New Orleans, LA to Nashville, TN

Drive Time: 10am – 7:30pm

Morning

Today we leave NOLA to head to Nashville. We repacked the car to have as little as possible in it and have everything we could in the roof rack bag. We are just expert packers at this point and got it all packed, loaded, and tied on in under a half hour. We both were a little “groggy” this morning and didn’t want to eat so we just figured we could eat snacks on the way. Jason took a few minutes to photograph the inside of the house so we’d remember.

This part of the country was so lush with greenery on the sides of the road. Massive vines draped everywhere and over everything. Definitely different than our drive out west. We saw some sugar canes which is a major crop down here.

Lunch

We drove through Mississippi and Alabama and stopped in Tuscaloosa, AL. We looked online for a place to stop and eat and Jason’s deli came up. How could we not stop there? We assumed it was a small Mom and Pop place, but upon our arrival it was more like a Panera Bread of the south.

I got a panini that had spinach, avocado, and tomato. Jason got a grilled zucchini sandwich which looked really interesting too. They amazingly had a vegan vegetable soup that was incredible! Loved it! We got wild hibiscus iced tea and that was perfect for this hot day. We sat under a tree and had a picnic. The dogs played and rolled around. This park had a playground structure that was MASSIVE, probably 40-50 feet in the air.

We left Tuscaloosa and finished the trip to Nashville. Tonight we will be staying at an actual hotel that is dog friendly about 30 minutes south of Nashville in Franklin.

Aloft

We’ve stayed in 10 different locations at this point, and this is the first hotel. Aloft is a dog friendly hotel and we were super impressed. We arrived around 7:30pm and Nashville was already drunk 🤣. There was a man outside who was definitely upset about something and when I went to check in his partner was frantically asking the hotel not to call the police on him. She just asked for 10 minutes to pack upstairs and she’d get him out of there. I was like uhhhh what’s happening?? Haha 😆 The receptionist was amazing and they got us checked in quickly. They even gave us a little doggie bag that was full of cute items! A zip up water bowl, a bone shaped doggie bag dispense with dog bags, a frisbee, and hand wipes.

We get to the room and it was amazing. Huge bed, cool glass shower, and the set up was different than most hotels.

We totally forgot to get pictures of this room but I was laughing at an all white bed in a dog friendly hotel. We have two black haired dogs, sooooo sorry Aloft! Haha

By the time we showered and got ready, we decided to just hang out in the hotel tonight. The pool was open til 11, the hotel had a pool table and a bar with food. And we were basically told there was a concert in Nashville tonight so it was going to be crazy in town. The pups got to stay with us so they were happy too! We grabbed a few drinks and got to playing games at the pool table. The bartender informed us they only had 3 options for food this late at night so I slightly panicked. But low and behold, one was vegan buffalo cauliflower bites! What are the chances! They weren’t fried either so I didn’t feel guilty at all. As you can see the dogs basically stayed under foot the whole time. I made a bet with Jason that I could beat him in overall games won, the loser having to take a shot. Well I lost 😂. So I took the tequila shot like a champ! We started talking to another couple who wanted to play pool now that we were off the table. She was from Cape Cod! We talked about our road trip and they said they had wanted to buy a camper soon. Of course we totally encouraged them and told them of our whole trip. They invited us to follow them to the next bar they were heading to across the street (which was dog friendly). Jason really wanted to swim first before the pool closed so he went and changed and I brought the pups upstairs to rest for a minute. Well by the time Jason got upstairs after the pool the 3 of us were asleep on the bed so we never did meet up with our new friends.