Like I said…it’s been a minute. Let’s back up.

A few weeks ago I went to my first BBQ joint in Nashville, Martin’s. I went to the downtown location. I got a turkey platter.

It was good! Not my favorite style of sauce though. It was thin and vinegary. Good, but not what I consider to be the classic. There are a lot of different BBQ places with different styles of sauces around here, and I feel like it all comes down to personal preference. I also tried a 100 layer donut from Five Daughters Bakery, which is basically a hopped up cronut.

I got the salted chocolate. It was good, but it was SUPER rich and a little too salty in my opinion. I promptly went home to nap with my cat after eating this.

On my last day off without visitors, like 2 weeks ago, I went to a random event I saw in a magazine while waiting for our tour at the whiskey distillery. It was called “Breakfest,” basically a breakfast themed music festival.

It had performances from bands/lead singers of groups I loved in my youth, so this was quite a blast from the past!

A lot of the food lines were really long, so I actually ended up just getting a really delicious beet juice, and later a GF chocolate cookie.

I didn’t stay for the whole event my any means; I was there from 9am until just after noon. It was definitely a fun event to randomly find!

The next day, one of my best friends from back home came to visit me! She had been in town visiting family, and since I was working a long day, she arrived at my place hours before I did and bonded with Jackson. This is a really big deal because he’s SUPER shy with people that aren’t me, so the fact that they were snuggling and playing melted my heart! She sent me this picture; he looks so happy!

When I got home, we went to Tailgate for GF pizza and sunset beer.

We did a ton on our first full day! I went to 6am Crossfit (it’s hard to fit my workouts in on the days I work long hours so I have to try and do a lot on my off days), and then we went to Franklin Juice Co. for açaí bowls for breakfast!

Mine had the açaí base with granola, bananas, blueberries, strawberries, hemp seeds, and honey.

We explored 12 South and had to take the picture.

Then we went downtown to walk the pedestrian bridge.

After that, we stopped by the Parthenon.

For lunch, we went to the Nashville-must, Hattie B’s, for hot chicken! This was my second time there, and this time I tried the grilled hot chicken (mild because I’m a baby). It was delicious, and also made great leftovers to go in my lunch salads!

This location happened to be right next to Bobby’s Dairy Dip, a soft serve place I had seen on several lists of things to do in Nashville. Naturally, we had to try it out!

We both got dipped swirl cones! They were delicious but definitely high risk…so much dripping and mess!

After a little bit of downtime and a trip for the bookstore, we went to dinner at EIO, another place on my list. It’s healthy-style. I got a salad with beets and delicious rotisserie chicken.

That night, I had to take her out on the town.

We ended up getting stranded at one bar downtown around midnight because it just started pouring like crazy, out of nowhere. There would definitely be worse places to be stranded!

After a late night, we rolled out of bed early for Goat Yoga! We went with Nashville Goat Yoga, which is in Brentwood. It was a blast. Goat yoga will never stop being awesome.

If you ever get a chance to do goat yoga, DO IT.

After class, we headed to brunch at FIDO, a place I went when I visited Nashville 2 years ago! I got buckwheat blueberry pancakes with cheddar grits. I think they were my favorite grits in Nashville so far!

We took a break for naps before debating what to spend the afternoon doing. After some waffling, we decided to check out the Cheekwood Botanical Gardens, and we were both glad that we did! They had a really cool exhibit going on throughout the grounds and in the top floor of the historical mansion.

The plastic animals were made out of 100% recycled material, and were partly intended to promote awareness of recycling, which we thought was really cool. We debated trying to see more of the grounds, but the rain clouds looked incredibly threatening, and about 5 minutes after we drove off, the skies fell!

Our next stop was dinner. We went to Edley’s BBQ in 12 South, and I had a turkey platter. This place came highly recommended and I liked it a lot!

After dinner, we of course had to stop at Jeni’s ice cream. I got the watermelon buttermilk frozen yogurt (so good and unique!) with milk chocolate.

Sadly, she had to leave the next morning, but it was so fun to have her!

After my trip and race, I’m back to what I suppose is my normal routine for the next week and a half, so here’s what I ate!

For breakfast, I had leftover cheesy mushroom quinoa (with excessive kale) and some cherries.

In terms of my workout, as promised, I have a lot of cross training in front of me while my plantar fasciitis stops flaring so I went to the gym and did a spin workout on my own. It was a good workout, but not my best playlist ever. After my workout, I met my mom and sister on campus for lunch at my local cafe.

I started with a cappuccino (decaf).

And then my mom and I shared a couple of dishes.The first was called Beverly Hills Chopped Salad, and was mixed greens, olives, avocado, gouda, chicken, and asparagus tossed in a balsamic vinaigrette.

The second was an arepa filled with gouda cheese.

Before dinner, I went to my favorite yoga class and stretched out my tight muscles from the race. I think going to yoga more should help my plantar fasciitis-the stretching felt good and the one legged poses really made it apparent how weak the little muscles in my ankles and achilles are.

For dinner, we made a barbecue chicken salad. My dad grilled chicken with some of the new BBQ sauce we got in Napa, and we served it over a salad with corn, red pepper, tomato, onion, and avocado in a simple lime juice and olive oil dressing.

Plus some tortilla chips on the side!

For something sweet, I had the last of a container of caramel ice cream with caramel sauce from Napa. I didn’t get a picture, but I want to take this moment to share with you the best ice cream ever (although this wasn’t the kind I had last night because it was long gone).

This stuff is AMAZING but I’m pretty sure you can only get it in CA since Straus is a local dairy. Their dairy is the most amazing, creamiest, smoothest ever-the yogurt is amazing-and my favorite ice cream place uses their dairy. So it’s no surprise that this ice cream is ridiculous. SALTED toffee pieces. This is by far my favorite store bought ice cream.

And that’s what I ate!

What’s your favorite store bought ice cream?

I never plan rest days. I’ll go right out and say it. I tend to be a little overambitious/overexcited about my workouts that I plan for the week, but I know this about myself. (For example, any gym workout I make for myself almost never gets completed because I quickly realize it would take me like 2 hours to do everything…oops.)

I don’t plan rest days but they happen. They happen when I need them, be it because I’m feeling tired, like I need a break, or because something else fun comes up and I simply don’t have time.

Since I like my workouts, if I really don’t feel like doing them, it usually means I’m ready to rest. For example, today I was planning on going to Crossfit or spin, but neither really sounded that great to me, and getting there/back/showering was a logistical nightmare with my touristy things I’m doing today, and it’s been a bit of time since I’ve had a full rest day, so that’s that! I listen to how I’m feeling to decide on rest days.

Since I’ve abandoned you guys a bit lately, I’m not going to go photo dump crazy, and will focus on the highlights.

I ran out of time to make banana custard over the weekend, so during the week, I’ve been whipping up a quick microwave version where I just pour some stuff in a bowl and hope it doesn’t overflow in the microwave. Delicious with some sunflower seed butter!

Another food highlight was a giant veggie-filled lunch. I had the typical green bean salad, plus a crazy amount of cumin roasted cauliflower. It was a monster amount because I couldn’t find any bags/tupperware to put the extra in so I had a whole thing of it. It was great.

Last night, I went out with a friend to a barbecue place, and then a pie place. We got adorable little corn muffins with delicious honey butter, and then for my meal I had BBQ chicken.

In terms of pie, I had apple sour cream, and it was delicious-especially the crumble topping!

The real event of the night though was doing the monuments in the dark. They were just amazing. I am going to truly miss this place.

Although I don’t think anything beats the monuments at 5am when no one is there!

On the plus side, I get to see my kitties in just a few short days!

What is your view on rest days?