An unexpected trip?

Out of the blue, my college roommate, Mike, emailed me to see where I was at.  He's visiting his sister in Nashville.  Robbin from BCBSFL in Jacksonville is also in Nashville, so if I can work out a few details, I may be driving down to Music City tomorrow.  If so, I'll add to this update.

I did in fact end up driving to Nashville yesterday.  The drive was going well until 40W split off 65S/40E.  I'm not sure what kind of construction or accident was up ahead, but coming to a virtual standstill actually forced me off the interstate at a very convenient downtown exit for getting to The Flying Saucer.  http://www.beerknurd.com/stores/nashville.  I met Robbin and Scott Thomas who worked at Blue Cross with me, and we had fun dishing the dirt on some former co-workers and on Blue in general.  Had some excellent beer.  There was Murphy's stout on tap, which is very similar to Guinness, but I actually like it a bit better.  I also had Stone IPA, which was the best IPA I've ever had (sorry Sierra Nevada) and something called Brooklyn Brown ale, which was a very nice nut brown ale.  Robbin and Scott needed to head home to take care of their rabbit, while I stayed downtown to meet Mike and his family.

We met at Jack's BBQ near 4th and Broadway, which was about 6 blocks from where I was.  I just walked, and I have to say, I've never seen so many street corner musicians in all my life.  The food was good, and Mike and Margaret's kids were cute, but pretty tired from a day at the water park and not sure what to make of me.  After the BBQ, we walked down to Mike's ice cream, a coincidence which made the kids smile.  From there we headed to a park that has a replica of the Parthenon, of all things in it.  It's made of concrete and not marble, but still, a replica of the Parthenon was pretty cool.  We were actually close to the campus of Vanderbilt while we were at the park.

From there we headed back to Mike's sister, Meg's house.  She's located near Oprieland, and has a house with a huge deck overlooking the Cumberland river.  It's really nice.  We just hung out and took it easy.  Meg's dog, Cooper, didn't know what to make of me, and if he hadn't heard me talking for a while would start barking at me.  He even barked at me this morning after I changed shirts.  I guess I looked different.  Avery and Naomi had gotten used to me at this point, and would talk to me this morning.  They headed out about 11:30 to see a great aunt who lived in a convent and I headed back home.

It's probably been 9 years of so since I've seen Mike, the last time was when he was in Louisville on a business trip when I still worked at Humana.