Hit the Road Jack

I do a bit of travel for my job…not too much but enough to normally keep my wanderlust in check.  For some reason though my trips tend to be scheduled in clumps, generally May and October end up being the busy months.  Well, this year one of my regular conferences moved from May to April and I shook things up a bit and decided to attend a new conference which has kept me on the road for all but two days out of the last 2+ weeks.  Last week I spent a few lovely days in Orlando and this week my conference just happens to be in Nashville.  Since my job does not require a ton of travel I do like to take advantage of scheduling a little extra personal time on some of these trips and doing some site seeing/shopping.

Last week in Orlando I had a couple of lovely days with my Aunts who spend their winters near Orlando.  I had done a bit of “Google-ing” prior to my trip hoping to scope some cool resale shops out but really did not have much success with my pre-trip research.  Odd since you would think Florida would be the perfect spot to find all kinds of vintage goodies.  Luckily the Aunts knew exactly where to go.  We saw some really lovely antique shops in Leesburg but let me tell you there were few bargains to be had…I found a couple but really had to work for it!  The places we went while were not great for finding bargains were great for seeing what similar items are really selling for in a retail establishment.  So all in all not entirely a loss, plus it really was fun to explore with my Aunts.

One of the highlights of my Orlando visit...sad but I really miss
The Waffle now that I'm in Boston

So here I am today, in Nashville.  I have been here several times and I’ve really enjoyed every visit.  It’s such a welcoming city and so much to see and do – I haven’t even scratched the surface.  I arrived on Sunday with a few antique shops on my list to see and really just open to find whatever else came.  My first stop however turned out to be The Hermitage, Andrew Jackson’s home.  This beautiful plantation has more of the original contents from Jackson’s residency than any other presidential museum in the country – pretty impressive considering we’re talking about over 175 years.  Even the wallpaper on many of the walls is original of that time!

Here is a link to their website The Hermitage I highly recommend spending a couple of hours on a lovely day touring the house and gardens!

One of the highest priority things on my list was to check out Mike Wolfe from American Pickers new Antique Archeology shop.  I did a bit of digging and found out that his shop is to be located in an old factory (Marathon Motor Works) that only produced cars from 1911-1914.  The building now houses artist studios, shops & even a brewery.  From what I could find online the Nashville Antiques Archeology is scheduled to open in April – couldn’t find a specific date, just April so I figured I’d take a chance and hope for the best. Today after my last meeting I plugged the address into my GPS and optimistically headed that way only to find…..I was out of luck.  They do not appear to be open as of yet.  As I’ve said before (and I’m sure I’ll say again) though sometimes it’s about the journey and this is how I have to look at this.  It was a beautiful building and really cool to see it and learn about the short life of Marathon Motors.  Next time I’m in Nashville though you better believe I will be planning a revisit and here’s hoping it will be well worth the wait!

Yet to be opened Antique Archeology Nashville-style

Tomorrow I head to Atlanta and I have so many fun things planned I can’t wait…several antique shop stops along the way (all mapped out of course), The Auction Kings - Gallery 63 Auction, Dogwood Festival, Steeplechase, dining at some of my old favorite haunts as well as visiting with some very special folks.

Some links for some of these awesome things:
The Dogwood Festival
The Auction Kings Galery 63
Top Chef's Richard Blaze's Burger Palace
South City Kitchen
Ballard Design's Backroom
Scarlett Scales Antiques
Serenite Maison