Home Sweet Henry-Nashvegas

Day one started off with a little trauma. As many of you know my cartilage piercing has caused me lots of problems, but against many peoples advisement I have left my earring alone. This morning though, I woke up to a serious throbbing pain in my ear. Laura Langley, Morgan, and I (Laurel, of course, had not made it out of bed yet) all gathered around the mirror and tried to figure out the least painful way to pull my earring out of my ear. After much deliberation, the earring was simply pulled out. Then the day could begin.

We loaded up the rest of the van and to all of our surprise we were pulling out of the drive way by nine o'clock! And we left the drive way at nine thirty. Laurel's drive way is fairly steep so getting our overpacked van with four bikes on the back to go easily down the hill was quite a challenge. The scraping noise the bikes made as they hit the pavement probably woke the whole neighborhood. Once again much deliberation took place as to how to get the van and bikes safely down the drive way. Finally success.

We were off. The music was loud and Laurel drove slower than the speed limit. We got into Birmingham and got off at Katie's exit to see her for a few. She gave us a great goodie bag and laughed at our minivan (which we have named Evie). Then back to the road. When we hit Tennessee we took a picture with our first state visited and got many honks as we all piled out of the minivan.

Nashville has been so great! Emily and her family have been such a treat. She has been a wonderful tour guide to us tourist. She showed us all the hot spots, cute boutiques, restaurants, and even bravely took us down town. We even got to see Emily's brother, Will, preform at a function called Cellophony. He played the guitar, mandolin, and drums. We are now all hanging out at Emily's beautiful home. We are off again tomorrow bright and early.

Until then,

amh