Rolling on down the highway

Headed out of our hotel around 9am and headed down the highway.  Two minutes later we were in Illinois.....wow, that didn't take long.

First stop was for coffee.....Paul hadn't had his first cup yet and that was a necessity.  We drove for about 5 miles and found the St. Louis Bread Company (looked just like Panera).  I decided to grab a little something to eat before we started on the long drive and they had a Cinnamon Crunch Bagel that looked interesting.  We got it toasted with cream cheese and OMG>>> the best bagel I ever had and Paul agreed with that assessment as well.

Our first stop along the way to Nashville was going to be in Metropolis, Illinois.  A tiny little town in Illinois that had something interesting that made it worth stopping there.

A couple of hours later (after a pit stop in a small town to pick up some beef jerkey and use the facilities).....we were there to see it in person!

 We got lucky......there wasn't anyone around it when we got there....

so we had all the photo opportunities we wanted!

 So we spent some time taking tacky tourist photos

 And we had a good time doing it too!

 I didn't need to call Superman.....I was already married to my Super Man!

 We visited the gift shop and picked up a souvenir shot glass for one lucky recipient, although we didn't want to take the time to go through the museum.  Guess you need to be a die hard Superman fan to enjoy the museum.

 It was time to say goodbye to Superman and Metropolis and head on down the highway once again.

 It was a gorgeous sunny (and hot day) with lots of beautiful scenery to enjoy

 I was going to try and take a picture of each Welcome to XXXXX state sign we passed, but it was difficult and sadly this one is the only one I got.  We were in Kentucky!

We stopped for a Mexican food lunch in Clarksville, Tennessee and then wanted to hit the highway again for the final destination to Nashville.  While we were eating lunch, we were on our cell phones looking for a place to stay.  We wanted to be within walking distance of all the music in downtown Nashville.

We found a downtown hotel for the two nights we were going to be there, but unfortunately it was just a little too far for walking.  That's okay.....the hotel had a free shuttle that would take you where you needed to go.  First thing for us before we hit Broadway Street was to take a nap.

 The nice thing about Nashville is there is TONS of places with live music that begins at noon and doesn't end until 2am.  We hung out in a couple of places for a little bit and then found this place.

 The band was awesome!  We stayed here until they were done (which wasn't long enough for us)

 Once they finished, we needed to find some dinner and some place to listen to music while we ate.  And it had to be someplace that wasn't playing country music

 I tried to get this guy to go and eat with us, but he said he was "all shook up" and couldn't make it.  We found a bar that had two levels, so we sat and ate a quick bite and listened to........country music (lol).

It was about midnight and we'd had a long day......time to catch an Uber and head back to the hotel.  Tomorrow was going to be our only whole day to do some sightseeing and we wanted to get a fairly early start.

But so far, our Nashville trip was fun!