Road to Nashville

We're changing it up today and Bryce is making an appearance on the blog to tell you all about his recent trip to Nashville, Tennessee. Enjoy!

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A ten-hour drive was all it took to have me arriving someplace warm, well at least warmer than it was in Wisconsin. 

I met Kobus and Teresa about 12 years ago when I was working in South Africa. They have since moved to Nashville (actually Lebanon - a satellite town of Nashville). We have visited them at their previous Tennessee house in the past and I wanted to be sure to see them again on this trip. It didn’t work out for them to make it up to Madison as Teresa had a family emergency that she had to attend to back in South Africa and Kobus was recovering from knee surgery, so flying and driving were out for him.  We weren’t keen on a ten-hour road trip with a baby, so off I went alone for a guys weekend in Tennessee!

Bryce & Kobus

Kobus cooked up a storm, and we had a classic South African braai (i.e. BBQ-meat) with some buddies the first night, and on another night a loaf of awesome home-cooked bread with a traditional South African potjie (a pot in the fire layered with meat, onions, vegetables, more meat, port/wine and spices). It was one of my special requests that I remembered from my year in South Africa, and it tasted as great as I remembered.  We might have drunk a bit too much wine that night, but it was great fun.

South African Potjie

Freshly baked bread!

When out and about at shops, the southern accent was everywhere and I found it quite hard to understand. I had several instances where I was just forced to "smile and nod"; the person on the other side of the conversation could have pretty much been saying anything for all I could understand!  I have a feeling that one old woman was giving me a hard time about something, because after a smiling but indecipherable spiel from her, I made out "Arm jurst kiddn"... wait, did she just insult me and I was smiling and nodding like an idiot?  Oh well!

While I did the drive down in one go, I broke up the drive back up to Wisconsin into two half-days. I got off the road on the way back just as a wicked snowstorm was starting.  As soon as I found out that the hotel had a hot-tub, I was sitting in it watching the snow blast and howl horizontally outside the window.  It was much nicer to be inside and off the road for that (and in a hot-tub to boot)!  The snow had been cleared by the morning and it was smooth sailing right up to just before Madison, when it started snowing again.  Good timing!

I had a great time and Kobus really looked after me well.  Thanks a bunch, mate.  Can't wait to catch up with you both next time!