The View From Wisconsin
Just a random set of rants from a Sports Fan from Wisconsin.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Back and Cold
Gotta love my "welcome home" moment from Nashville: It started snowing as we hit Rockford on I-39. That was probably the worst part of the trip to Nashville.
Here's a bit of a summary of the weekend:
Here's a bit of a summary of the weekend:
- The drive down was a little wet, and a little long (as usual).
- The room we got at the Franklin Days Inn was a handicapped room, with a huge bathroom. I mean HUGE. Bigger than our bedroom at home. It was big enough that you could have put a jacuzzi-sized tub in it and STILL have room left over to feel comfortable. Too bad the shower wasn't that big. The tub/shower had more bars in it than the front end of a Hummer.
- The fridge in the room didn't seem to want to work when we got settled in. It turns out the unit had a defrost timer on it, and the knob controlling the temp was broken. I had to play around with it a few times to get it to keep things cold.
- While looking around Franklin a bit, I had one overwhelming question: What is it with mall sprawl down here? There's the actual mall (Cool Springs Galleria), and then there's a bunch of mini-malls and strip malls and out buildings that are just all over the place around the mall itself.
- Two must-dos when in middle Tennessee: eat at the Waffle House and Cracker Barrel. We managed to do that on two separate days (lunch Saturday was at Waffle House, and dinner Sunday at Cracker Barrel). The one thing I was surprised about was the price of the steak and eggs platter at WH. Normally, that's one of the cheapest dinners out there - not here and not this time.
- The Preds/Kings game was great. I had a bit of sadness in realizing all the people who weren't there (I hate getting old). This is going to be a team that will struggle all year, but they've got the talent to be able to win hockey games.
- Pre-game, we were over at the Hilton Sportsgrille restaurant to meet a few friends; while heading into the place I ran into Raitis Ivanans as he was heading out and over to the SC.
- The funny part was after the game, we stopped at the Wendy's near Cool Springs Galleria – and there were about a dozen cars in the drive-thru wanting their free Frostys. The lady at the window said that we were about the 64th people coming in to redeem tickets for free Frostys.
- Sunday was family day, and we drove out to Lebanon to see Sarah's Aunt & Uncle. On our way over there, we swung around to the Opryland area, basically to check out a potential future lodging option over at the KOA. It was great to see Sarah's cousin's kids - though, again, when you see someone who you last saw in diapers asking her mom if she can go driving...
- It's always sad to put a place you love in your rear-view mirror. But really, did we have to get snowed on as we got back into Wisconsin?
Copyright © 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, Joseph Houk. All rights reserved.
