Chelsea Bird

Our first full day in Nashville was a bit of a doozy — we knocked off tons of places off of our “must-see/experience/eat” list, so I thought I would break things up a bit and share the second half of day 1 with you now — which included a stop at

Third Man Records

! Scott and I are both big fans of Jack White, so we knew that stopping by his record store/recording studio was a must. The shop itself is pretty small, and we weren’t really prepared to stay for the studio tour, but it was neat to see a few pieces from The White Stripes history (like the legos from their Fell In Love With A Girl music video). After looking around the studio for a bit, we decided we should heat to the 12 South area of Nashville next for some lunch and more exploring. 

Edley’s BBQ:

When it came to BBQ, this Nashville landmark came highly suggested! After parking down at

Sevier Park

(which was also such a beautiful place) at the end of the 12 South neighborhood, we made our way to Edley’s for lunch. Scott was stoked to finally have a taste of Southern BBQ, and this joint definitely didn’t disappoint. We had pulled pork, beans, coleslaw, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese AND friend pickles — yep, we totally went for it! Everything we had was delicious — even the vinegar based coleslaw that I was a little hesitant about! 😉

Whites Mercantile

: After lunch we made our way through the shops around 12 South, and White’s Mercantile was up first! I loved every inch of this store — from their home decor, kitchen wares, clothing and even puppy pieces, everything was beautiful and I could have taken the whole store home with me! 

Imogene & Willie

: I feel like our trip wouldn’t have been complete without visiting Imogene & Willie. Of course I had seen this premium denim shop all over Instagram, and let me tell you — it’s just as charming in-person as it is in pictures. We, sadly, didn’t walk away with anything from I&W, but a pair of their custom denim jeans is now on my wishlist!

Las Paletas:

 Another charming treat shop that we had been recommended in 12 South! Paletas are pretty common here in the Southwest, but Las Paletas really knows their stuff and had some great flavors — Scott had avocado and I had the melon, both of which were delicious!

After exploring 12 South for a couple of hours, we headed to

Crema

for a little pick-me-up. We’ve only heard good things about this Nashville staple, and it made for the perfect place to sit, take a break and also meet a few friends — which we did — accidentally, that is! I’ve known

Karysn

and

Collin

Dupree for a few years now, so it was so neat to run into them at Crema. They moved to Nashville a few months back, so I had a feeling that we might bumped into each other, but getting to sit and learn more about them from outside of the computer (or really — phone) screen was such a treat. They’re doing amazing things right now with their business,

Bliss Branch

, and their music project,

Fortunes

, so definitely keep your eye on them in the coming months!

The coffee at Crema simple and delicious — Scott had an Ethiopian Pour Over and I had a seasonal citrus latte. 

After our coffee stop turned coffee date with the Duprees, we headed to

Pinewood Social

for dinner! I’m sure you’ve all seen photos of their famous bowling alley before — and truthfully, that’s what brought us in! After dinner, though, we decided we were both too tired to play a game and called it an early night after a day of running around the city. Nashville really treated us well this day, and we were excited to have another few adventurous days in and around the city! 

Umm, how was our trip already almost a month ago? Promise to wrap things up here on the blog shortly, but I hope ya’ll have a great rest of your Sunday evening and an amazing Valentine’s week! Do you have any big plans? We have a busy week with work, but plan on celebrating our love over the weekend! Talk soon!

-Chelsea xo

Just over a week ago, Scott and I returned from our Nashville getaway. We had a lot of people asking why we chose to head to Music City during the coldest time of the year, but our reason was simple — it was our second wedding anniversary and we wanted to celebrate our love in a new place that we could experience together! Aside from that, Nashville has been on our list of places to visit for quite some time. They have an amazing and growing coffee culture, tons of music history, delicious BBQ, neat shops and so much more — so why wouldn’t we want to visit such a unique place? Well, your guess is better than mine, but we bit the bullet and booked our tickets and an AirBnB all in one evening after we found a couple of deals that we couldn’t pass up. Fast forward a month or so later,  and we were sitting on an airplane headed for the South– well, not before having a layover in Denver on our way there, which gave us the best view of the snow we’ve seen all winter.

Once we landed in Nashville, we grabbed our bags, picked up the rental car and made our way to our little home-away-from-home for the rest of the week. We stayed in a charming, little house in East Nashville, which was the area we figured we would spend most of our time in (and was also fairly centrally located to everywhere else we wanted to go). The house was just as it was in the pictures, and although it was dark when we arrived, I knew it looked like a cute, cozy and safe place to stay during our getaway. If you’re curious, we stayed in this

Cozy and Eclectic Mid-Century house

 and would defiantly recommend it! Anyways, after bringing our bags in, giving the house a good look through, we piled back into the car and headed to

Mas Tacos, Por Favor

— one of the restaurants that we were most recommended!

Mas Tacos

:

This teeny, hip Mexican restaurant was tucked away off a side-street not too far from where we were staying. We had the guac + chips, chickens tacos, and the sweet potato tacos which were SO delicious! Scott and I later thought it was kind of funny that the first thing we do once we land in the South is go eat something that we could easily find at home, but going to Mas Tacos was definitely worth the trip.

Barista Parlor

:

Coffee felt like a must after our long day of flying and a yummy meal, so we drove to the OG Barista Parlor for a shared latte and some time planning out what the next day would look like. We knew we wanted to check out all three Barista locations, and since this one was pretty close to Mas Tacos, we decided to head there first. We ended up going to all three locations, but I’ll share more on the other two later!

After we finished our latte we called it an early night and headed to bed so we could be well rested for our first full day in Nashville. I’ll be back soon with more of our adventures, and maybe even a winter packing essentials list soon for our time in the cold! Happy Monday, sweet friends!

-Chelsea xo