This weekend, we got to visit Bunny for Parents and Family Weekend at her college! We’ve been there before, but it was fun to see some of her favorite things and check out where her classes are!
We got to go to “Donuts with the Dean” while we were there, visit the campus Starbucks (I think we’re calling it “Starbies” now), walk all the way to the top of the hill, and attend a volleyball game (we won!). It was a beautiful day, to boot, and we had a really fun time!
We even got to have Zaxby’s, which is a real treat for me!
The most special thing to me, besides seeing her (of course), was getting a picture of all the children. I know she hasn’t even been gone for a whole month, but I was really happy to get a new photo of the Fab Five together.
I’m not going to lie…Thanksgiving feels like a long time from now, but that’s when we get to see her next!
Belleville, IL to Bowling Green, KY; 267 miles. IL, IN, and KY
I’ve done “Road Trip Wrap-Ups” before, but never one quite this epic (I even created a hashtag for it, if you’re wondering where the blog post titles came from)! For the next two weeks, I’ll be taking a day-by-day look back at our amazing summer vacation to Washington D.C., Myrtle Beach, SC, and Orlando, FL! A journey of a thousand (or three thousand) miles begins with a single step, and the first hop was a short and familiar one…we drove to Ryan’s parents’ home in Bowling Green, KY, which would serve as the true launchpad for our road trip. The drive wasn’t too long, and we got to enjoy Zaxby’s for dinner, which is a rare treat for us!
Up next: One of the longest drives of the trip, through mountains, with failing brake rotors. Not exactly a vacation highlight!
Our travels this summer might not yet be back to what they were in pre-COVID times, but we did actually go somewhere this year! Since we weren’t quite as busy as we have been on previous vacations, I’m just going to take a look at the whole trip instead of going day-by-day.
On Monday, we left for a short trip to Bowling Green, KY. Any visit to Bowling Green includes a meal from Zaxby’s. Fortunately, we have always done carryout, so that wasn’t even any different from our usual dinner.
On Tuesday morning, we drove into Nashville to visit Cheekwood Estate and Gardens and see the Nature Pop! Lego exhibition by Sean Kenney. Both the sculptures and the estate were breathtaking!
We also drove down to the Cumberland riverfront to get a look at the Nashville skyline.
We were going to get lunch at Hattie B’s, one of the locations in Nashville known for hot chicken, but the line was unbelievably long, so we went to Chaney’s Dairy Barn and had ice cream for lunch instead!
Our day ended with a beautiful double rainbow!
On Wednesday, Bunny and I went with her grandparents to tour Western Kentucky University, where she is planning on attending after she finishes at community college:
And on Thursday, we visited the Aviation Heritage Park in Bowling Green, where we saw not only an authorized replica of Marine One, but also an aircraft flown by every astronaut who walked on the moon!
We also had an early birthday celebration for Bunny that night:
We were up early on Friday morning to head home, but we did stop for donuts at the Donut Bank on the way:
It was a little challenging coming up with fun things to do outside in the summer heat, (I wanted to go to a Bowling Green Hot Rods game, but between the temperatures and the fact that I’m still a little hesitant to be in a big crowd, even outdoors, made me table that for the time being), but we found something to do every day, and it was so nice to get away for a bit!
