day 254 Tour de Nada

Saturday night, route has been scouted, plan has been made and it’s time for The Baswell’s to rock the night away in Nashville!

We show my Mom the Spoons Lady, Tootsies, Legends and several of other famous Honky Tonk spots. We pass by an Elvis on the street, I try and get my mom to take a picture with him, but she stops and looks at Elvis and says “um no I don’t want a picture, no offense to you, I am just not in the mood.” HA, it was hilarious; he was like, um ok.

There are a couple of events that are causing some traffic and this is some important information for the story of the carriage ride. I thought it was a brilliant idea to take my parents on a horse and buggy ride through downtown. They are always lined up along the street like cabs every night and I always pictured my parents sitting back, relaxing and soaking up some atmosphere amongst the neon moons. In my mind it was a good way to observe the city while learning a thing or two about the history. I skipped up to the lady sitting behind her horse and ask the details, $30 to take you on a figure 8 tour through downtown. Perfect!

We pile in and head out, it’s a gorgeous evening, they energy is electric, the music is coming from all directions and this lady sucks!!! I mean I gave my Mom and Dad a way better tour when I said, "there’s the river" as we were driving in. After she got done eating her hotdog and talking with mouth full, she took us down some side streets, "On the left we have the Hilton and on the right we have Sheraton" Yes thanks, we can read!  A few yards away, "On the left we have a building with a restaurant inside. I can't remember the name of it but it’s usually packed" Awesome. Then we find ourselves spending a good amount of time with a construction site on one side and a parking lot on the other, WTF, why?????

 This lady now is trotting down no mans land and taking up two lanes of traffic and pissing the people off behind us. We were actually cussed out by a guy trying to get around us. He called our fearless leader inconsiderate and rude for blocking everyone. I love a good ass chewing while riding in a buggy; it added just the right amount of fluffiness to our ambiance. I am just sitting there stewing with a smile on my face. I have never really been good at hiding my feelings and my poker face sucks, so I think my parents are catching on that I am furious. She then says she is gonna take us by the river; oh ok sweet, maybe the tide is about to turn and all this was a funny joke leading up to the real ride. Um nope, the river was code for let’s sit in traffic. Oh ok, did you not see the long line of traffic that has been sitting there all night do to the "Taste of Nashville" on the bridge?! We are seriously sitting in traffic in a horse and buggy. We kinda saw the river as we turned the other way and head back to the starting spot. She stopped the horse and said that will be $30, my dad handed her $40 and she just stuffed it in her pocket and assumed she was getting a $10 tip. Um no, I told my dad not to tip her (coming from a former server, that’s saying a lot) but Dad ended up giving her $5 and the Tour de Nada was over.

 We were all kind of shocked, we decided the only thing left to do was to get some ice cream and reflect on what just happened. We are standing in line at the ice cream parlor and my Dad turns around and says "I feel like I just got bent over........and it really hurt!" HA

We sat down and had a good laugh over the ridiculousness that just occurred. We are good sports and made the decision to make it a funny memory and not cool memory.