Off to the races...San Marcos, TX

We loaded up Friday afternoon and set off from Houston to San Marcos. The drive wasn't horribly exciting, but at least it was lush and green farmlands. It only took about three hours for us to arrive at our high class lodging establishment, the Econolodge of San Marcos. Niels and his dad, Siggi, had chosen the most affordable place in town since we were only staying for a night and everything else seemed overpriced. We all laughed as we pulled up to a very outdated and run down looking motel, but figured we all had flip flops for the showers and I have brought my own pillow, so it couldn't be that bad for a night.

After putting our bags in our rooms, we met up for dinner with two friends who were also staying at the same place and going to the track the next day. The most happening place in town was Texas Roadhouse, so we decided to join the crowd. Believe it or not, we waited 45 minutes to even get a table! Who knew that was even possible at Texas Roadhouse? I certainly didn't. We enjoyed beers, peanuts, and conversation about cars at the bar until we got seated for a meal that was surprising good. Since we were staying at such a nice establishment, once we got back to the motel from dinner we decided to put down the tail gate and enjoy a round of beers in true redneck fashion. It was a really fun group of people to be around, especially for someone who loves cars like I do. We called it a night after an hour or so, since we were meeting at 7am at the coffee shop across the parking lot for breakfast.

We arrived at 6:55am at the coffee shop, only to find it not open til 7am. We were able to look over the menu in the drive through while we waited and knew exactly what we wanted when the employee unlocked the door. After eating some breakfast sandwiches and getting coffee, we loaded up the trucks and headed to the track. I was so excited, I could hardly stand it. We got there around 7:30am and the parking lot was full of super cars! We had already unloaded Siggi's Porsche GT3 down at the grid when we got into town the night before, so all we had to do was get settled in and go to a driver's meeting. I obviously wasn't actually going to drive, but I figured the information that they would be discussing would be interesting and relevant if I ever get the chance to drive on the track in the future.

It wasn't much past 8:30 when the meetings were over and we were realized that spending our day sitting on the asphalt with a high of 90 plus degrees and high humidity wasn't going to be very pleasant. They had a pop up tent that we had opted not to bring with us to the track, but Siggi and I realized there was no way we were going to live without it. I took the truck into town to Walmart and found a sunshade to bring back to the track. Once we got it set up, things were substantially nicer and we were ready for the day!

Niels was instructing at the event, so his schedule was such that he was out with students for most of the day. Siggi was actually signed up as one of his students though, so at least they got to go out together on the track. Right after lunch was one of Niels' breaks, so we were able to take the GT3 out on the track. I was a little hesitant to go right after eating, but i put on some jeans and shoes, found a loner helmet and got strapped in! The adrenaline rush was unreal, I had such a great time. There was one hill on the track where I couldn't stop giggling every time we went down it. It was an incredible experience and I cannot wait to go out on a track again.

After a long day of watching the guys have a blast driving their cars, we packed up all our stuff, loaded the trailer and set off for Houston. The mix of the sun and heat was a perfect recipe for an early evening nap in the car for me, so I slept until I woke up as we pulled into the drive at Siggi's house. We got our stuff out of the truck and trailer and got cleaned up for dinner. Suzanne, Niels' stepmom, made us a wonderful dinner with help from Tim, Niels' brother, and his girlfriend Brenda. It was the perfect way to end an amazing day!

The next day we relaxed by the pool and worked on Niels' race car, a '79 Porsche 911. We took the race car and trailer back to storage and stopped at Whataburger for a late lunch. It is rare for me to crave a burger, but occasionally I get that strange urge. Everyone from the South raves about Whataburger and compares it to In-n-Out, so I decided I had to give it a shot. It was so delicious, the building was spotless, the employees were clean and polite. I definitely didn't regret my choice to try it! All of the events came together to create the perfect summer's day and a great way to end my trip! That evening we pulled all of our stuff together one more time and drove back downtown to Niels' house. I booked my flight home for the the following day and said goodbye to Houston for another time.

The trip was such an unbelievable experience! I'm such a lucky girl to have gotten the opportunity to go!

And so the story continues...the last part of Nashville and back to Houston

Not sure quite when or why I fell off the blogging horse, but I obviously did.

Where was I? Okay, so the Grand Ole Opry was an experience of a lifetime (well I actually hope it's not my last time to see it in this lifetime), but it is certainly something I will never forget!

The next morning after the Opry I was at breakfast at the B&B and got some advice from the others about what I needed to do for the day. After the discussion, I ended up deciding that the Country Music Hall of Fame was on the top of my list, along with touring downtown Nashville on foot for the remainder of the day. There was a sweet couple from Pennsylvania who had stayed there both nights and I had gotten to know them fairly well over breakfasts. Fortunately, they offered to give me a ride downtown with them after breakfast to avoid the heat and having to pay for a taxi. They parked a block away from the Country Music Hall of Fame, which was the perfect location for me to embark on my adventures for the day!

The Country Music Hall of Fame is an architectural masterpiece, not quite to the level of Gaudi I'll admit, but it is an interesting building no doubt. It is shaped like the clef symbol in written music from an arial perspective. From the ground at the entrance though, it resembles the keys of a piano. There are some pictures below of the outside, inside gallery area, some of the neat exhibits at the museum, as well as the view towards downtown Nashville from the front steps. I chose to do the platinum tour of the museum, because it included an audio tour of the 3 story museum as well as shuttle and tour of Studio B on Music Row.

I had an hour to kill between when I arrived and when my tour of Studio B was scheduled to depart, so I decided to make my way up to the top floor of the museum. The museum is loaded with informational plaques about the roots of country in bluegrass, the transformation of its sound to include a more rock n' roll style like Elvis, as well as the steel guitars and twangy sound from its start. They had boots, clothes, hand-written lyrics and even Elvis' "Solid Gold" Cadillac which was painted with a special paint that was comprised of crushed diamonds and gold and had gold leaf mirrors and accents. I barely made it through the top floor in the hour and set off to Studio B.

Studio B is studio where Elvis recorded more than half of his tracks, where Dolly Parton recorded many of her legends like "I Will Always Love You", and many more hits were made. It is just this small building amongst many fancy recording studio that fill up Music Row. The original piano and microphone that Elvis used in many of his hits is still in Studio B. Now the studio is owned by a real estate mogul in Nashville, but run as a non-profit, so no tracks are made there unless they have a historical reference. I believe Carrie Underwood and Reba McIntyre recorded over an old Elvis song there sometime in the past year. After Studio B, I went to complete the rest of my tour through the museum. They had walls of the records for every artist that hit gold or platinum status who had been inducted into the Hall of Fame. It took me over an hour to finish the last two levels of the museum, but I thoroughly enjoyed all the artifacts I got to see and information I was exposed to at the museum.

From there I walked a few blocks to downtown Nashville and down to the river. It was huge and had a neat sculpture on the other side that you can see from most of downtown. I grabbed lunch to get out of the heat of the middle of the afternoon, then walked about 10 blocks to the State Capital Building. Not exactly sure where or why in the history of Tennessee there was an excess of money, but I have to believe that there was. They built a replica of the Parthenon from Greece that has a museum in it. Then the actual Capital Building is absolutely gorgeous, stone/marble everywhere with elaborate light fixtures and beautiful woodwork. It was really neat to see two different Capital Buildings on my trip to compare and contrast them.

After touring the Capital, I walked down to the Frist Center of Visual Arts. The actual building was the old Post Office for Nashville that had been redone for the museum. The first floor had "The Golden Age of Couture" exhibit, which was full of vintage designer gowns, dresses, and accessories from the last decade. Upstairs there was an exhibit of Chihuly, who does masterpieces of blown glass that are at least 20 feet wide, 25 feet long, and 15 feet tall. It was incredible to imagine how anyone could come up with the concept for a sculpture of that size and then even more amazing to think that it is all made of hundreds of individual pieces that are placed in an exact order to make the piece come to life. It was definitely worth stopping by the Frist to see the exhibits!

Nashville was such a beautiful city, I couldn't get enough of it. Eventually I decided that it was time to head back to the B&B from downtown. Once I got to the B&B, I grabbed my laptop and walked back to the Frothy Monkey Coffeehouse to enjoy an early evening iced tea on the patio and book my flight for my next adventure. Niels and his dad invited me to spend the weekend at the racetrack with them in San Marcos, TX outside of Austin. For any of you that don't know me that well, I am unusually obsessed with cars for a 23 year old women. I couldn't pass up an opportunity to go to the racetrack, seeing as I had never even been to a racetrack, so I booked a flight back to Houston that was scheduled to depart from Nashville the following morning.

As travel always goes, our plane was late to arrive by an hour. Once we got all loaded like cattle into the plane, they determined that the air conditioning wasn't working, so they had to get a maintenance crew to fix that. Then to top it off, the maintenance crew realized something was leaking from the hydraulics, which resulted in us getting loaded off the plane like cattle and waiting another two hours for an extra plane to take. All the delays set me to arrive in Houston right at 5pm, which was just wonderful considering that would be the height of rush hour. Poor Niels offered to pick me up, which resulted in him spending a combined three hours in traffic for the whole ordeal. Finally, we arrived back at his house and got things pulled together to head to racetrack the next evening.