Five Days Of Nashville
I’m back in the saddle this week as Sassy Susan and onto my/our shenanigans in Nashville a few weeks ago.
So about 10 days after arriving back from Japan, Robyn and her science bestie, Liz, had to travel to Nashville, Tenn. for their HOSA International Leadership Conference to represent Georgia in the medical inventions category on the world stage.
Let me tell you this “liitle project” that was their brainchild at the start of their junior year as part of the Samsung Challenge grew into a monster over the course of two semesters. They researched, gathered data, and created a medicated neck patch that calms headaches. Samsung liked it—it made it through the first round of cuts on its way to nationals as one of the top eight projects in Georgia late last fall.
By January, it was named “the” top project in Georgia by Samsung and onto the third round of the challenge. By this point it had earned their school $15,000 in Samsung technology equipment and themselves new personal laptops which meant I don’t have to buy her a new one for college next fall. They didn’t make it into the top 10 national finalists but had a great run.
By this point, their HOSA advisor had advised them to submit the project in the medical inventions category for the State Leadership Conference in Atlanta. Then TSA came calling, wanting them to enter it in the new biotechnology category at its state conference. Anyway after fairing quite well at HOSA SLC, they knew in March they were onto Nashville this summer.
The STEMies were given a choice of flying or driving to the conference. I volunteered to drive them and Liz’s parents were thankful. With the drive only being four hours with gaining an hour when there, you know I’m up for a good road trip. The event was five days Wednesday through Sunday, but the advisor wanted them there by Tuesday eve. I debated whether I would stay the entire time or just drop them off, stay a day or two and drive back to get them.
I asked Jacob was he going with us. He wasn’t in favor at first because he would be missing three days of football practice while hanging out with his mom and two girls. After I explained that they would be in one location competing and us in another doing our own thing, he was amenable. So when he decided to go, I decided we would stay the entire time and make a vacation of it. Plus, I hadn’t spent any significant time in Nashville like I had in Chattanooga, Asheville, or Memphis. The most time spent there had been a day or two while en route to somewhere else.
The girls were staying at the Gaylord Opry Resort, which was quite fascinating, but I knew we wouldn’t be staying there. I have seen what stays look like for the normal guests when a conference is at your location, and it ain’t pretty especially if there are mostly kids running around. So I booked a quaint hotel just two exits and 10 minutes away.
I also booked the girls and Jacob a tour of Vanderbilt University for Tuesday afternoon, before the conference started as I didn’t know what their schedule would be like one it began. Anyway we set out early that Tuesday, before full daylight. We picked up Liz and played luggage tetris for a bit—three chicks with several luggage pieces and the project aids got tricky. Ohh, Jacob had luggage, too.
After making it through Atlanta morning traffic, it
Thursday Jacob and I headed to the Frist Museum and spent a good part of our day there. We headed over to the Food Assembly Hall and had some Prince’s Hot Chicken. My son loves chicken and loves spicy, so it was right down his alley. It has a Hattie B’s but we eat there a lot in Little Five Points. Prince’s had the best lemonade and the collard greens tasted like my mom’s—definitely a winner. I loved that the food hall had live performances too. There were live performances everywhere all over the city, up and comers, Atlanta could take a beat from Nashville on that. We sauntered downtown for beat before heading back to catch my hotel happy hour.
Robyn called during our escapades to say that she was running around the Gaylord chasing down pins from exotic places during the pin trade. She was looking for the “East Asian boys” because she wanted pins from South Korea, China or Japan but said they were not to be found probably because they were jetlag sleeping from their 15 hour flight. She never got an East Asian pin and with good reason.
Apparently they were a hot commodity and some were offering to pay for said pins upward to $500. I imagine the “East Asian boys” went home with a nice profit from the conference. Anyway, she did manage to get a real lei from the Hawaiian HOSA and was very proud about that because they were in limited number.
Friday Jacob and I trekked back downtown, where parking comes at a premium, so we shuttled that time. We had a double decker bus tour planned in the 95 degree temperature. Of course we sat on top and it was hot but it felt fine when the bus generated a breeze but not not so much when stopped in traffic. The tour took us by the musuem we visited the day before, the Nashville Parthenon (which I don’t get why it’s a thing and neither did our tour guide), the Country Music Hall of Fame (which was promoting Trisha Yearwood’s July appearance there), Taylor Swift’s top floor condo, the Capitol with dead bodies buried inside (that’s what the tour guide said), and the Tennessee Titans Stadium under current $2 billion construction (1/3 paid by each including the Titans, the state, and its taxpayers. The most interesting