Cities I Would Like to Visit

For those who don't know me, I've lived all over the U.S. I've lived in 7 states throughout my life, some great states (like Tennessee) and some random states (Utah and Idaho). Because of my travels, I have a passion for seeing new cities and different lifestyles and cultures.

There are 2 cities on my "must visit" list right now. They are Charlotte and Austin.

Charlotte, NC

I keep hearing great things about Charlotte. It is slightly larger than Nashville probably because it has more corporate headquarters there, Bank of America and Wachovia are both headquartered there. It is also the home of NASCAR, which I am a fan of. It has two major league sports teams - the Charlotte Bobcats basketball team and the Carolina Panthers football team. It is still considered a Southern city, but it is also on the East Coast. The international airport in Charlotte is the 11th busiest airport in the world, that's pretty busy! Charlotte also has the Amtrack trains that go through the city... something Nashville does not have. Compared to Nashville, it is slightly cooler in the summer and slightly warmer in the winter, but it does average 4 inches of snow per year. There has been a republican mayor ever year for the past 21 years.

Doesn't this scene in downtown Austin look familiar to anyone from Nashville?

Austin is the Live Music capital of the world, not to be confused with Nashville being the Music City capital of the world, its a very distinct difference. I first found out about Austin a few years ago when Austin was on Real World. The city seemed pretty cool. Austin is even larger than Charlotte and has a very large population of young adults due to the fact that the main campus of the University of Texas is in Austin. MSN recently ranked Austin as the "Greenest City in the US."

I'd still love to go to Boston, NYC and San Francisco (I lived there when I was young but don't remember it).

Where in the U.S. do you want to travel to and why?

One thing Nashville is missing is...

Major League Baseball.

This weekend, after a fun time in Salt Lake City, I decided to extend my layover in Chicago to see a Cubs game. What a great decision! One of my favorite things in life is to go to a daytime baseball game at a sold out stadium. I arrived in Chicago at 11:30am and was at the game by 1:30pm. Luckily I was able to meet up with some friends and family.

The Cubs played Pittsburgh and won 4-3. It was a pretty quick game so since my flight didn't leave until 9:25, we headed out to the bars on Clark street. I took my cousin to some places she had never been to before and it was good to hang out with her.

Nashville has the Nashville Sounds triple A baseball team which is the minor league team for the Milwaukee Brewers. I think they average 2,000 people per game. It can get fun if you decide to go on a Thursday night when they call it thirsty Thursdays and they have cheap beer. There are a bunch of young people there and everyone has a great time... NOT watching baseball.

I'm not trying to bring baseball to Nashville, mainly because I don't think we have the population and business headquarters to support a baseball team. On any given weekday game, I don't think anyone would show up to a game in Nashville. There would not be enough corporate sponsorship.

So when you're in the mood for a great game, take the cheap Southwest flight to Chicago, or make the short drive to St. Louis or Atlanta.

Oh, by the way. It was 55 degrees in Chicago on Saturday. Too cold for the middle of May!

Steeplechase 2K8

If you are from anywhere that does not have horse races once a year, or somewhere other than the south, the Iroquois Steeplechase is a culture shock. For those who went to SEC school football games, you may not have been as shocked. For me, the day started at 8:15 a.m. and we made our way into the infield by about 10 a.m. We were all dressed in our linen and seersucker and the girls had their summer hats on.



Steeplechase is not your typical "race around the oval track" horse race. Some of the races can be up to 3 miles long, with jumps and hurdles. Good Night Shirt, Steeplechase champion from 2007, gave a repeat performance and raced through the finish line first on Saturday.

We had a great tailgating spot. We set out cornhole and washers (a St. Louis favorite) and had some great food and drinks.

Unfortunately, since we were in the infield, and not in the luxury boxes, we didn't see many celebrities. But we did see Dr. Travis Stork. Remember him? He was the bachelor on Bachelor Paris in 2005/2006. Dr. Stork, now a resident of Breckenridge, CO, lived in Nashville during his residency at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He hung out with our group at Steeplechase for a while, probably because we had cute girls with us. I think one girl was going to get a ride home on his motorcycle!

Dr. Travis Stork talking to the ladies... and some guy.

Overall it was a great day. We all mentioned how we didn't mind paying for the cost of the ticket because all proceeds went to the Vanderbilt Children's Hospital.

What a great event to have on a great Springtime day. It would only be better if MTV's Realworld showed up!

Only in Nashville

Only in Nashville can you go to lunch at Cheeseburger Charley's and be in the way of an Alan Jackson music video shoot. Of course everyone was dressed up in their most country outfits, some of them were laughable, but some looked pretty normal...!

What is your "Only in Nashville" story?

What's up KC what's up?

Jump on it, jump on it, jump on it!

So I was in Kansas City this past weekend. It is your typical mid-western city and I'm pretty sure it is larger than Nashville. It has a pro-football team and baseball team, but luckily, the deal fell through for them to get the Predators. For now, they have a new arena downtown, without a sports team to fill it. Neither the football stadium or baseball stadium is downtown, so they have to do something to draw KC residents and tourists to the heart of the city.

There's a trend in a lot of cities right now to build a restaurant and bar district downtown, in order to attract tourists and people from the suburbs. Many of these are built along side rivers, and they are called City Walk, or Board Walk, or something else. Since KC does not have a river, they built their new Power and Light District next to their arena. The power and light district has a wide variety of restaurants and bars, from fine dining seafood, to bull riding country bars. They have a piano bar, trendy bowling alley, micro brewery and whiskey lounge.

I went to the P&L district on both Friday and Saturday night. They have the area roped off and only people 21 and up are allowed in. This way they can let people walk around outside with drinks.

I think all of KC was there on Saturday night. The district attracts all kinds of visitors, so there's a wide variety of people, but it gets really crowded.

The entire place looked very manufactured though. It did not look natural. I am willing to bet that KC's P&L district will look very outdated with vacant bars in 20 years. It will need a complete makeover.

St. Louis is currently building a Ballpark Village of some sort, around the new Busch Stadium. Great idea, but again, I don't think that the designers are looking into the future.

In the past, Nashville has had one of these manufactured areas, and it did not work. 20 years ago, Metro Center, just north of Nashville, was a new office park with shopping and restaurants. I think I remember going to a comedy and magic show there with my parents. But I only remember going once or twice, and then all of the sudden, it was gone.

Nashville has upgraded its downtown tourist district and it does not look manufactured at all. It looks very natural. No, you can't walk around with drinks, but we don't want it to turn into New Orleans... or do we?

Maybe Sir Mix a-Lot should change his song and include Nashville in it!