Nashville, y'all

May 18th-23rd 2014

 

Right after graduation, Johanna (aka Joey, an old friend from high school) and I began a trip we had been planning for years. Courtney, a friend of ours from elementary school moved to Nashville for school when we graduated and we had thought it would be fun to go and visit her. Only recently had we began seriously talking about this trip and making it happen. We decided this would be a fun post-graduation trip to celebrate our recent accomplishments!

 

As mentioned before, we literally left right after graduation on the 17th. After spending final moments with friends that day, we packed Joey's car and set out on our grand adventure at 1 am on the 18th!

 

We only stopped a few times during the 13 hour drive, and one of those was to get lunch and visit the St. Louis Arch. St. Louis is a funny place. As we attempted to get near the arch, we ended up in Illinois only to return to Missouri and spend another 30 minutes trying to get on the road below the bridge we were on. Good grief. 

We finally made it. 

Arch selfie! 

 



Oh wait- this is the sign for Nashville, IL. This sign gave us all sorts of trouble.

This is the real Nashville!

After 13 hours in the car, we were so excited to arrive in Nashville and see Courtney!

Joey and I had so many donuts for road trip snacks.. waaaaay too many!

The Parthenon: a full scale replica of the one in Greece

The trio: me, Courtney and Joey

Why do I always end up behind bars?

Love Circle, overlooking the beautiful city of Nashville 



For you country fans, on the way down from Love Circle

lives Rich from Big & Rich. Mount Richmore

Downtown Nashville



From the Cumberland River

Joey and Courtney

Look familiar?

While in Nashville, I got tired of my hair. With encouragement from Joey, I chopped it...

 So much hair gone!

 Courtney, Joey and I

You know you're in the south when..

Last night in Nashville spent on Broadway

Thank you, thank you very much!

And now for a shameless plug. Courtney is an awesome photographer. Naturally, we got volunteered to participate in her art. Check out some of her shots:

Get more information here:
http://www.courtneybaumphotography.com/

https://www.facebook.com/CourtneyBaumPhotography

On the way back from Nashville, Joey and I decided we have similar travel styles and have already started to plan our next adventure. Joey has a goal to visit one new country a year. We are going to head to the Great White North (Canada) later this year!

Nashville

My stats as of May 2014:

• 4% of the world visited
• Estimated mileage: 80400
• been to:
• 5 continents
• 11 countries
• 13 states (NE, SD, CO, IA, KS, MO, WV, WY, UT, NM, IL, AL, TN)

Bucket list update

In the past month I've been able to cross a few more things off my bucket list:

 

Eric puts on such a great show! I don't believe that any concert will ever compare.

 Meet someone famous

My favorite singer, Eric Hutchinson ♥♥♥ 

 Graduate from college

BA in Psychology, Sociology, and Health Systems

Up next: Creighton University, Accelerated Nursing Curriculum

Salt Lake City

April 2014

 

Lauren and I traveled from OMA to Salt Lake City, Utah (SLC). With the help of the Student Association, the Student Development Fund and the Psychology Department, we were fully funded to present our research at the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association.

 

Lauren and I began a research project in the fall of 2012 about Food4Thought, the backpack program I've been in charge of for the past 2 years. We have been diligently working through the research process (receiving approval from the necessary institutions; preparing, handing out and collecting surveys; entering and analyzing data in SPSS; and preparing a manuscript and presentation) over the past 2 years. We finally got all of the pieces together this past year, so you can imagine our excitement at finally finishing this project and presenting our information to the world.

 

Somewhere near SLC

The Great Salt Lake!

I tried to pay for my TRAX ticket with a $20, so I would have change.

Bad idea.. Little did I know I would get actual change. $18 worth of $1 coins.



This poster. Good grief. I set the tube down to buy my ticket and got distracted when I got all those coins. I didn't remember until we got to our hotel that we were missing our poster. Luckily, by the time we got back to the airport they were just getting ready to enter it into lost and found. Then, on our way back home I forgot to pick it up from the TSA scanners. Luckily (again), we had a nice TSA agent who did not subject us to a full body pat down. It's a miracle we still have the darn thing.

I'm not a basketball fan, but this is my favorite team. =]

Salt Lake City/ Park City hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics

 

The Devereaux House

Would you just look at that view. Just look at it. 

Salt Lake Temple in Temple Square

Beautiful flower garden at Temple Square



Mormon Tabernacle Choir

Lauren and I happened to be in town on the night that they practice.

Although we are not LDS, it was still a great experience to listen and take in Temple Square.

Hey, when in Utah..

View from our hotel

Lauren and I with our beloved poster.



SLC is dead on Sundays. We had all day to explore and were planning to take a bus out to Park City to check out the old Olympic Park, but didn't account for no buses on Sundays.

 

 

We ended up finding a free science museum and found our selves making tornados,

playing with a giant maze thing,

learning that we would weigh 24,800 billion pounds on a neutron star,

and took a trip to the moon.

But how did we end up on Mars?

Mountains

So many mountains

 

It's no secret that Lauren and I love food. 

We took advantage of our new location to eat different food.

 Menu at Good Dog Gourmet Hot Dog Emporium (notice the Chicago dog!) =]

 Mac Daddy hot dog

 Preach it, taco truck.

 Bollywood movie and Salt Lake City's finest Indian Cuisine.

baṛhiya

"Every pizza is a personal pizza if you just try real hard and believe in yourself."

Settebello's Pizza

 

We also ate Mediterranean at Spitz (Döner Kebab and sweet potato fries with the aioli sauce!!)

and gelato at Capo Gelateria.  

 



My stats as of April 2014:

• 4% of the world visited
• Estimated mileage: 78260