127sale, episode 2. In which we arrive in Nashville and find our way to the 127 corridor.

Have been spending a lot of time looking through photos of our trip.  It was one of our first trips with a digital camera (I resisted for a long time) and I went kind of crazy.  Pulling the rental car off to the side of the road, I couldn't help just breathing in the clean air and looking around at the lush scenery, but, of course, we stopped to shop.  

These quilts were for sale.  Now, not every sale was as picturesque as these, but there were enough of these moments to make this a special adventure.

We started off by flying to Nashville, a city we had never visited.  We picked Nashville because it was close enough to the 127sale (100 miles) for two Texans who are used to driving a couple hundred miles for a good time, and because we thought it would be a kick to go to the Saturday night show at the Grand Ole Opry.  The show was a great experience, with lots of favorites from our childhood, closing with two exciting performances from newly-crowned American Idol, Carrie Underwood.

opry.com has lots

of useful info for planning

a trip and buying tickets.

Before anything else, though, we hopped in our rental car and found ourselves at The Loveless Cafe for lunch (and biscuits).

Did I mention the biscuits?!

This meatloaf masterpiece of a lunch was no accident.  We try to avoid accidents when traveling, of course, but I plan EVERYTHING.  As soon as I realized we were heading to Nashville, I knew we had to go to the Opry and I knew we had to go to The Loveless.

When I'm planning a trip I do my research and start making lists.  Eventually the long list of destinations is broken up by day and then reservations and calls are made.

Like I said (unless I haven't

said it yet), I'm a planner.

We headed north to Louisville on I-65 to spend an afternoon and evening exploring that beautiful city.  The next day, on a Thursday, we drove about an hour east to meet up with the famed 127 highway just south of Frankfort.

And this is where
our story begins.

We weren't sure what to expect.
We had seen the specials on HGTV, but no one ever really talked logistics.  Were we going to see signs?  Would there be sales just off the road, or would we have to drive around looking?  Well, it didn't take long before at least one of those questions would be answered.

There was a sign

and we pulled over.

A small house, a few small tables with some household items, and some tools in a box.
Naturally, we told this friendly woman our entire life story.

She was surprised at how far we had traveled and assured us that there would be plenty of sales if we stuck to the 127.  Which we did.  For 143 miles.  For 3 days.

And for 17 biscuits.

More on what we found along the route next time.