Road Trip Days 4 & 5

Nashville to Rochester


Monday morning, Annie and I left our hotel at around 7:30 am, it was the last leg of our cross country excursion and we had 11 hours to drive. Because we were only going to be in Nashville over night we didn't have very much time to explore the city like we wanted. Instead, we decided to drive past the Grand Ole Opry on the way out of town and save the rest of the city for another time.

After weaving in and out of small, maze like roads that tangle around the Opryland hotel,we finally saw a sign that said "Grand Ole Opry". The historic theater was nestled beneath several large trees, right next to a "Dave and Buster's" restaurant.

It was a little disheartening to see such a landmark being exploited, but by now I have come to expect it. If there are going to be tourists there, you should also expect a wax museum, a Hard Rock Cafe and a Ripley's believe it or Not. So we took our snapshots from the car and moved on.

Only a few hours down the road was the city of Louisville, KY (pronounced Loo-UH-vuhl). Not trying to postpone our arrival time in Buffalo, we decided to visit only one spot and then move on. The Kentucky Derby had only been 2 days earlier so we decided to stop by Churchill Downs and see what all of the fuss was about. The stadium is huge, much larger than any of our photographs could do justice. We pulled up to the front, next to the newly unveiled statue of Barbaro and grabbed our cameras. This time we actually got out of the car.

After taking our pictures we hopped back in the car, me in the drivers seat and began a nine hour drive to Buffalo, only stopping for gas and to grab some fast food in Cincinnati.

The drive was really beautiful, especially in northern Kentucky. Rolling hills trimmed with tall green trees and a handful of barns scattered randomly throughout. It was probably the best scenery we had seen all week and my 8 hour shift behind the steering wheel went much quicker than I had anticipated. In fact, I would have driven the entire 9 hours, but Annie insisted that she drove the last hour into Buffalo.

We arrived at Annie's sister's house around 8:30 that night. She made us a delicious dinner with Chiavetta's chicken and corn on the cob. After catching up for a couple hours, we went to bed.

I still had an hour to drive to Rochester so we planned on going out to breakfast the next morning and then parting ways. Me to Rochester and Annie back to California that night. For breakfast, Annie's sister Kari took us to a restaurant called "The Pancake House". I ordered something off of the menu called a Dutch baby, which I was told was like a German pancake. When it finally came out I didn't recognized what I ordered and it definitely didn't look like the German pancakes that I had at IHOP.

It was a large concave crater of egg and bread filled with butter, confectioner's sugar, lemon juice and fresh strawberries and covered in a thick strawberry syrup. There is no way that you could go wrong with a combination like that, it was awesome.

After breakfast, Annie emptied a few of her things from my car and I set out to Rochester. The drive was a little less than an hour to my apartment and it felt like half that. I unpacked all of the stuff from my car and only had a few minutes to rest before I had to get ready for work.

Annie and I had a lot of fun driving across the country together. We knew that another opportunity like this may never present itself, so we should jump on it and see as much of the country as we can. I'm really glad that we did. There is so much to see in this country that is constantly overlooked and it is waste of our time on this earth if we don't take every opportunity to see it.

Brett