Joe's New Blog: A fun night in Nashville...

The girlfriend and I drove down to the Sportsman's Grille in the Village, a nice little bar-and-grill type restaurant right near Vanderbilt University. We met the girlfriend's friend from Stumbleupon, Dethmonger, and his lovely lady Fontanelle, for dinner and drinks after an interesting drive through town. I was trying to use the GPS to get us there, and it was something of an adventure. In large part, that's because I always seem to forget what's might right and what's my left when I'm under pressure to immediately say what direction to turn. Fortunately, though, we did make it there without getting in any accidents or anything. Once again, there was very little traffic on the road, which helped a lot.

It's always nice when you meet someone in real life who you've been acquainted with on the interwebs, and it's especially nice when those people aren't total freaks. In the case of Dethmonger and Fontanelle (* see note below), they were not only not freakish at all, but they were incredibly nice people, and the girlfriend and I had a wonderful time talking to them for an hour or so. We got an invitation to crash out in their living room if we happen to be back to visit Nashville, and we'll almost certainly take them up on it rather than stay at the Knight's Inn again.

Unfortunately, we didn't really have a whole lot of time to go visit a lot of the places they suggested this evening, because both the girlfriend and I are pretty tired. We did drive back through the touristy area of town, where all the honky-tonks and bars and such are located. It was something of a traffic jam there, which was about the first time we've encountered any real traffic on the trip. I snapped a few pictures of things out the window, but unfortunately we forgot to get a picture of our newly-met friends while we were enjoying dinner. We did get a little note from Fontanelle to give to Xian and Mike, who we should be seeing when we make our way up through Rhode Island.

Anyway, pictures of random buildings and stuff in downtown Nash-Vegas follow, and it's off to bed with me so we can get a decent start and try to make it to DC tomorrow...

Oh, and note that both Fontanelle and Dethmonger do have real names, but they don't have them posted on their blogs, so I didn't feel that it was my place to post them. If you're interested in their names, drop them a line and ask. They're good folks, and if you're nice, they'll probably tell you...

The Customs House near downtown. The girlfriend liked the architecture...

Different view of the Customs House, showing some of the neat windows...

I liked the double-spired AT&T building you can see in the background. You can also tell the circus-like atmosphere of the downtown by all the neon in the foreground...

The Sommet Center, where the Nashville Predators hockey team plays, and a general entertainment venue. Snapped quickly as we passed...

Just a little street scene, with some nice buildings in the background. (Well, I think they're nice, and it's my blog, so there...)

This is the stadium where the Tennessee Titans play football, but I'm not sure of it's official name. I think it's on the opposite side of the river from where we were driving...