4th of July in Nashville

Date: July 14, 2018

Author: astottler

I know the 4th of July was a while ago at this point, but we’re just going to roll with it. My parents were here for the 4th, and we had a really fun couple of days!

Of course, as soon as they arrived and when I got off work, we headed to Tailgate!

This time, we tried their cauliflower crust pizza! It was good, but honestly a little too cheesy for me; I prefer their regular GF crust!

We lucked out with the weather for Tuesday. It was on the cooler side (low 90s), so we did all the outdoor Nashville things.

We went downtown and walked the pedestrian bridge, visited Goo Goo candy, then drove by the parthenon.

Before too much sweating, we broke for lunch at Edley’s BBQ, my favorite of the BBQ I’ve tried thus far. I got a salad with smoked turkey on top. It also had smoked gouda, and it was delicious! A great way to get my BBQ fix while getting some greens in.

While in 12 South, we took the iconic picture and visited Jeni’s ice cream. I’m obsessed with the gooey butter cake flavor.

Next, we headed to the Belle Meade Plantation for a historical tour of the mansion and wine tasting.

I really enjoyed learning the history of the family that lived their. They had a huge horse business (it wasn’t actually a plantation) and basically owned the entire area. I love seeing a taste of what life was life in a different time and place.

We all enjoyed the wine tasting as well. I was able to try all whites. Tennessee wine is a lot different than CA wine. Very similar to Missouri wine. Fruitier, but refreshing.

After the tour, we spent a little time at home with the kitties before driving down south. This happened.

Yes, my mom and I both went home with our first pair of cowboy boots! Apparently this is what a month in Nashville does to me.

We went down to Franklin (30 minutes south of Nashville) for dinner. This was the meal I was most excited for. We visited the Honey Tupelo Cafe in Knoxville when I lived there, and I remember it being SUPER good (Southern Food). I also remember the amazing looking table biscuits. I was super strictly GF at that point and couldn’t try them, so now that I’m healthier, I was especially looking forward to those. They did not disappoint.

We also got some smokey veggies to share (including okra).

For my meal, I got a salad with goat cheese, blueberries, grilled chicken, and sweet potato puree.

After dinner, we planned on going to see some fireworks at Tailgate, but we severely underestimated how big of a deal it was, and when we saw the line of cars attempting to park blocks away, we gave up!

On 4th of July, I slept in and then took a spin class at KrankFit. It was America themed, and a fun way to start the holiday! My parents and I met up for an early lunch at Frothy Monkey. I got a salad with grilled salmon and goat cheese.

Then, we walked across the street to Five Daughters Bakery so my mom could try the 100 layer donut. We split a maple donut.

As temperatures were climbing into the mid-90s, we decided to cool off and see a movie that afternoon, which was definitely a good choice!

Before heading out for the night, I had to put Jackson’s festive bandana on and take some pictures. He’s the cutest.

For my mom’s birthday, I promised her a brewery tour in Nashville. I didn’t account for how many breweries would be closed, or would close early, for 4th of July! We had to change our plans a little bit, but Nashville (especially the Gulch) has no shortage of breweries to choose from. I think our favorite of the day was one that wasn’t even on our radar before!

First up: Southern Grist. These beers were super interesting. They had a lot of interesting fruity beers.

We then stopped for dinner at ML Rose, a burger joint. My mom and I split a chicken burger with cheese that tasted remarkably like an actual cheeseburger (in a good way!). Then, it was back onto the tour! We raced over to Yazoo (one of the main Nashville breweries) to split a beer before they closed for the night. We got the Dos Perros, and it was one of my favorites of the evening!

After Yazoo, we drove half a mile away to New Heights, a brewery we found just based on proximity (although it turns out I had tried one of their beers before). My mom and I got a flight with all kinds of interesting things, including an Aztec chocolate, a non-dark coffee beer, and a raspberry s’wheat tea.

We ended up getting a glass of the Swheat Tea to share.

Our last brewery was Tennessee Brew Works, which I had actually been to with my sister.

Finally, it was time to head downtown!

It was definitely crowded for 4th of July, and all of Broadway was closed off for a giant (free) concert. All of the rooftops were packed! I took my parents to some of my favorite spots. We were at a bar and suddenly everyone left, so naturally we followed them out to see why. The fireworks started! The fireworks show was awesome. It was set to music, it was so close, and it went on forever! At least 45 minutes! We were all very impressed!

We spent the rest of the night enjoying all that Nashville has to offer!

They left the following evening, so we spent the day not doing anything too crazy. We went to a coffeeshop for lavender vanilla lattes and a GF pineapple carrot muffin for me.

And then spent some time with kitties.

Finally, we went to an early dinner at Hattie B’s, Since it was still early and we weren’t super hungry, I ended up with lots of delicious leftovers!

It was so nice having them here to see my new city!

Red, White, and Blue Everything (4th of July)

Date: July 8, 2017

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

I know we’re a few days out from 4th of July now, but I swear I haven’t had a minute to recap my 4th of July! It was a pretty relaxing day, with emphasis on red, white, an blue!

Of course, my morning started with a Crossfit workout.

We did a simple but longer workout, with the option of having a partner and splitting it up:

50 squats

400m run

50 push ups

400m run

50 pull ups

400m run

50 wall balls

I chose to do it alone…and started regretting that decision during the pull-ups! Honestly though, my pull ups need so work, so builds character?

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After a sweaty workout, I relaxed on the coach with sparkling water and a mid-morning baseball game. Perfect way to spend a holiday!

On the way home from my workout, I picked up some food for the day, including apparently bad goat cheese. I was going to have some for lunch, but it was rotten. What the heck?? It wasn’t past the expiration date!

For an early, light lunch, I had a single serve bag of rice cakes (current obsession) and a salad with peach and burrata.

After the game, i spent a few hours relaxing with a book and a kitty, which was fantastic.

Then, mid-afternoon, I went to a BBQ with some of my high school friends.

I got to play with my friend’s puppy, drink beer and eat delicious food, and lose a water balloon toss.

I came in time for the dinner I envisioned earlier in the day: red, white, and blue salad!

I’m already obsessed with Blueberry Burrata Salad, so I figured why not throw some raspberries in and make it patriotic? This salad would also have been delicious with goat cheese in place of burrata.

We also had grilled corn, because #summer.

Of course, I also had to make red, white, and blue banana bread. It’s just my basic banana bread recipe, but with white chocolate chips, raspberries, and blueberries stirred in. It’s also possibly the most delicious banana bread variation I make.

For fireworks, we weren’t feeling too ambitious, so we walked to the top of our street with Chloe to where we could see the whole Bay, and were able to see a couple of different fireworks displays from there.

Here’s the obligatory blurry fireworks picture:

It was a nice low-key holiday!

I Feel So American

Date: July 4, 2016

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Happy 4th of July everyone! Hope you all had a fabulous weekend. I’m checking in with the latter half of my first weekend in Tennessee.

Let’s start with Sunday.

I started by hitting up Knoxville’s only spin studio, Turbo Cycle.

It was one of the classes where your stats appear on the screen, and this always makes me work harder! It was a tough and fun class. One thing that I didn’t love was that I didn’t have my own spin shoes. I’ve never actually used any other cycling shoes, but they didn’t make the cut of what to put into my crammed suitcase. Apparently mine have pretty thick and sturdy soles, so the shoes I used for that class made me a little nervous for my foot since I could feel the pedal more beneath me, but I was careful and it was ok.

Afterwards, I went to another highly rated coffeeshop to cool off with a decaf iced latte and to finish my book.

Back in my room, I made lunch.

Sweet potato noodles, spinach, cheese, guacamole, and BBQ chicken.

After lunch I walked down to World’s Fair Park with a new book in hand and explored the area.

After a while I decided that the ~95 and humid weather was not as pleasant in the shade as I was hoping, and headed back for a low key afternoon with my book and some netflix.

My outing that evening was froyo. It’s 5 miles to the nearest froyo! Worth it.

My 4th of July felt extremely American. My most American yet (although this one may be a close second). I’m in the South, my friends.

I started my morning with Crossfit, which was a Hero WOD.

Adrian

Seven rounds for time of:
3 Forward rolls
5 Wall walks
7 Toes to bar
9 Box jumps

Forward rolls? Not a thing for me. I did the sub, which was flutter kicks. I was able to knock out toes to bar pretty well. I’m getting stronger there at least! Box jumps? I did them! I used a shorter box (I think 18″), and was super careful. They felt good. I forget to mention it, but on Saturday I “did” my first burpees since my foot. I say “did” because I stepped forward and back. But we’re getting there my friends!

The Crossfit gym is decidedly un-airconditioned, so I was sweating buckets almost immediately. Lunch was a much needed green smoothie, plus a fuji apple chicken salad from Panera.

I spent the next few hours reading and doing laundry, before making the drive into the countryside to visit my college advisor’s lake house.

As a happy land dweller, I usually avoid water, but I was persuaded to spend some time in the lake, thanks to warm temperatures.

(Apparently Nike makes bathing suit bottoms that are shorts. This is my ideal!)

My floatie of choice was a paddle board. I’ve always wanted to try SUP, but there was a pretty strong current and I had no confidence in my ability to steer away from it if I actually got up. I stood briefly while hanging on to the dock. Baby steps! I spent most of the time just sitting on it, enjoying the beautiful day and the water.

I felt so AMERICAN. Floating in a lake, drinking a beer, eating ALL the appropriate BBQ foods.

I had a great time, and left in time to make it through the small and windy country roads with some daylight left.

It started to get dark right as I got back onto a main highway, and I saw a few fireworks being shot out a ways away. There is something so amazing and beautiful about seeing fireworks when you aren’t expecting to.

I made it back by around 9:30, and contemplated walking down to where I knew there would be fireworks, where lots of people were headed.

I walked a little ways before deciding I wasn’t feeling it. Also, I thought my room my have a decent view of some fireworks (yay for the 11th floor!), so I grabbed a treat at an open market (A candy bar. American? Probably.)

I arrived to my room JUST in time to see this:

What a perfect view!

And now it is time to head to bed—lots of early mornings ahead!

What did you to do celebrate the 4th?

4th of July!

Date: July 5, 2015

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

Hello! I hope everyone had a fabulous 4th of July! I visited a friend in Monterey, and we watched the fireworks over the bay from Santa Cruz.

When I arrived in Monterey, our first stop was Carmel to visit the beach. The entire town of Carmel, including the beach, is incredibly dog friendly so I’m definitely brining Chloe later this summer when she’s old enough!

We stopped for dinner at a little cafe hidden inside a small shopping center off the main street of Carmel, and I had roasted chicken and the veggie of the day, asparagus, with lemon and thyme.

Since it was 4th of July, ice cream was necessary. We both got fudge ripple!

It was a beautiful day-pretty cool by the water but still warm enough to enjoy the fresh sea air!

Backing up a bit, Friday night I made red, white, and blue banana bread. This stuff is insane. I just use my regular banana bread recipe and throw in blueberries, raspberries, and white chocolate chips! I made it for the first time last 4th of July and knew I had to make it again!

In terms of workouts this week, it’s mostly just been Crossfit. I’ve been trying to get out the door for a run lately but it just hasn’t been happening. Since I don’t have a summer half marathon, the schedule and motivation is just not there right now! Additionally, my work schedule this past week made it hard to fit a run in. Such is life.

I apologize for the infrequent posting, but I promise a food+life update tomorrow!

What did you do for the 4th of July? Any patriotic treats?

Patriotic City, Patriotic Day, Patriotic Banana Bread

Date: July 6, 2014

Author: astottler

Categories: Uncategorized

How was everyone’s fourth of July?

I had a great one-I’m pretty much in the perfect place for it!

I kicked off the festivities Thursday night. I had planned to do a run club workout that evening but with heavy rain coming, I wimped out and stayed in my bed watching Netflix until the evening when I Metro-ed over to a friends apartment for movie watching and banana bread making. I’ve been hinting at red, white, and blue banana bread, so here it is!

I don’t have a specific amount of the ingredients, but I made my banana bread recipe without any sweetener and added about a handful each of blueberries, raspberries, and white chocolate chips. The only white chocolate chips I could find were mini, and they kind of dissolved in the baking process, but it was still SO delicious!

Friday morning I had intentions of going for a run, but I slept in because my sleep schedule is really off right now-it was much needed!

I met up with my friends to watch the DC 4th of July parade!

I don’t think I’ve ever been to a parade before! It was fun, and I took a ton of pictures, but I condensed them into a little collage so I don’t bombard you guys!

After the parade, we wandered around looking for a lunch place that was actually open. We ended up at a cafeteria where I had a chicken gyro sandwich.

Then, we walked a ways to get gelato. It was perfectly refreshing on a hot day! I had vanilla chocolate chip and dark chocolate.

After some downtime and some weirdly shaped sunburns (I always miss a spot! Or two…), we met back up at the National Mall for the concerts and the fireworks show.

Except we never found the concert. We weren’t particularly close, and a random weird band was playing on a stage between us and the big main concert. It was ok though-I was mostly there for fireworks!

I swear it was like a movie watching the fireworks with the Washington Monument in the foreground. You know-the end of one of those rom-coms? Just me? Ok…They were really good, and I definitely haven’t watched fireworks with that many people before! The amount of screens you could see from people taking pictures was crazy!

I don’t understand how people for such good pictures…mine sort of just looked like the Washington Monument was exploding…

After the fireworks, I experienced the madness that is the Metro on the 4th of July. The first station I tried to go to was so full they were sending people away. The next one was also insane but after waiting in hoards of people to get through the gates, I was lucky enough to be one of the few people to get on the first train that I needed. It was PACKED. And people just kept trying to get on, even as we got further from the National Mall! Even the station I got off at was being held up due to crowds. Crazy!

After a couple of rest days, I hit the gym hard yesterday. Since I missed a training run, I started with a treadmill interval workout. 1 mile at a fast pace, then 5x of two minutes at a past pace and two minutes walking. I haven’t done this in FOREVER, and traditionally I do it 10x, but I didn’t have time for that, or the endurance! It did go better than I was expecting though!

Then, I did a short circuit (like 8 minutes) of push ups, squat jumps, mountain climbers, and sit ups, before heading to a spin class.

The class was AWESOME. The instructor was good and the music was great. I really pushed myself at the end, and the only thing that kept me pushing was seeing the big guy at the froth desk totally rocking out to our music. So great.

Since this post is getting crazy long, I’ll finish up quickly. I got a Whole Foods green smoothie, which was kind of watery but that was fantastic because it was so refreshing!

That afternoon, I met a friend and went to the zoo. It was fun, and the pandas were so adorable! I was EXHAUSTED by the end though, and my feet were far from happy.

I went back, grabbed a guacamole salad at SweetGreens (with blueberry basil lemonade-not a fan though) and planted myself on the couch with a movie.

Such a fun couple of days, but I’m ready for a low key day today! The only thing I have to do is a 6 miler!

How was your 4th?