A brief history of time: The Nashville Shuffle

My car has been a hot topic in the Traylor house for quite some time. It seems like I was constantly reporting some clank or rattle to Bryan and then one day, in the Costco parking lot, it just wouldn't start. We took it to the shop and had it evaluated. While my poor Trailblazer spent the night at the hospital, Bryan and I made some tough decisions at home. (Tougher for him than for me). Later that week we spent almost an entire day looking at, pricing, and finally test driving Chevy Acadias. After the test drive we settled on a Yukon and I drove it home that night.

This left us with quite the dilemma: Two licenced drivers, three cars.

Meanwhile in Alabama Bryan's sister and her family were experiencing a dilemma of their own: Four licenced drivers, three cars.

I think you can see the solution: A car shuffle, in Nashville.

The Nashville Shuffle.

Bryan kept my Trailblazer and sold his Hyundai to his sister. The only problem now was how to get his car to Alabama and him home again. After some googling and mapquesting we realized that drive time to Nashville Tennessee has a difference of about 45 minutes for the Alabama Maynards, the Kentucky Traylors and us, the Indiana Traylors. Bryan's parents had no interest at all in who drives which car, but the pull of all four grandchildren in one place at one time was just too much. So, we made a little family vacation of it.

We stayed the weekend at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel. If you've ever been there I don't need to say more...if you haven't then there's no way I could describe it. All, but four of these pictures were taken inside the hotel.

Morgan shows off her beautiful smile...Jack shows off his mean eyes.

I left Morgan in charge of my bag and camera and came back to about 15 self portraits. I considered posting the worst one, but was disappointed when none of them were bad.

Guess there's no need for photo shop when you are 16 and gorgeous.

Jack and the lion head fountain. According to the map of the hotel the lion head is 15 feet tall and made of solid gold. If you look closely you can kind of see it.

Aunt Cammie was showing Jack and Lilly something, but Lilly just couldn't resist posing for the camera.

One of the three thousand waterfalls that Lilly wanted to have her picture taken in front of.

Matthew shows off his mean eyes.

I have no idea what these two are talking about, but I'm pretty sure someone is getting an earful.

The hotel was huge and the stroller didn't offer the greatest view, so Jack was content to spend much of his time atop his Uncle Ed.

Jack bought a small car in the gift shop and thought the floor just outside of the gift shop would be a good place to play with it.

The last time that we stopped in Nashville on our way to Alabama we bought the kids each a pair of cowboy boots. Obviously, we brought them on this trip. I tried to get a picture of Lilly and Jack in their boots, but as you can see, Jack can run a lot faster than you would think in cowboy boots.

Trying to sneak away down the stairs.

Just relaxing and watching some cartoons after a busy day.

Matthew learning some specifics about Thomas the Train at breakfast.

It wasn't an easy task, and this is one of about 20 pictures, but we managed to get a picture of all four grandkids together. Yes Grandma, we'll send you a copy.

Ballet by the fountain.

Just taking a little walk with the Daddy Guy.

It may surprise you to learn that there are so many bridges in the Opryland Hotel, but when you have a real river running through your establishment a bridge or two becomes necessary.

After the Maynards left the Traylors all took a trolley tour around the city of Nashville.

This is one of the trolley stops, Nashville's capitol, made to mimic our nation's capitol building in Washington DC.

Jack slept through most of the tour, but wanted to get out and have his picture taken in the grass too.

Later, in downtown Nashville we came across the King. Lilly was less than impressed with him.

She was, however, ecstatic to see a huge replica of her own red cowboy boots and insisted that we take a picture of her with it.

We can't be sure because no one kept an accurate count, but we think that Jo allowed my children to throw about $20,000 worth of pocket change into the fountains around the hotel.