While we took our time to set off this morning, unfortunately Sheila wasn't feeling great--she had some stomach issues that had started from the previous night. Clearly she'd eaten something that hadn't agreed with her the day before, likely some random item on the ground in downtown Nashville. In typical dog fashion, she can be very quick to chomp on something, and while we try our best to keep an eye out, it's not always avoidable... Hopefully she'll feel better soon.
After lunch, we drove back to the hotel where Martynas was staying to pick up and his work colleague, Antanas, who had both arrived for the book conference in Nashville. Antanas had written and self-published a sci-fi book that Martynas had translated into English, called Master Version 1.1, and it had won best sci-fi book at an awards ceremony the previous night, and was also a runner-up to the best book overall!
Lane Motor Museum
Our first stop was the Lane Motor Museum, an automobile museum that has a collection of over 500 mostly European cars, with 150 vehicles displayed on any given day. Martynas and Antanas went in to see the collection ($15 a ticket), we were most impressed by the massive land/sea tank at the back of the building, whose wheels alone were taller than us!
Honeytree Meadery
The Honeytree Meadery is a craft meadery, which produces its own mead using environmentally sustainable processes. While craft breweries and distilleries are common, it's rarer to find a craft place for mead, so we shared a flight of 9 different craft meads to try, which the small goblets placed on an adorable stand that held 3 glasses each, with a label attached at the top that listed the meads we were trying.
Some of the meads were very unique--including a wildflower mead aged with ginger root, and another steeped in fresh lavender flowers and lemons! As a general consensus, we liked the meads where we could taste the honey in the drink, and we finished all the craft meads, with some of us feeling slightly tipsy by the end of it!
Back to Broadway
We dropped Antanas and Martynas back at the hotel in Nashville where Martynas had already stayed the other night. Meanwhile, we found free parking near the Nissan Stadium that's home to the Tennessee Titans football team and a short walk back to Broadway.
Later in the evening, we walked across the pedestrian bridge to cross into Broadway, glad to have a somewhat cool breeze after sunset. Sheila sadly still wasn't feeling great, poor puppy! We met Martynas and Antanas for dinner in a restaurant in a side street from Broadway, before they headed out to check out the nightlife. Sadly, they'll both be flying back to Lithuania tomorrow, so it was our last catch up with Martynas... *sob*! Our week hanging out flew by too quickly, but we're so happy that Martynas made a cameo appearance during our road trip around the country!
A 4am Alarm
Heading back to the RV parked by Nissan Stadium, we noticed as we crossed the bridge that there were bright lights shining onto the vehicle, which is a positive from a security standpoint. We went to sleep, but were awoken at about 4am when Sheila started barking. Michael got up and looked out, where he noticed a couple of cars--one that was parked, but another had a person get in and immediately drive away. Could it be that Sheila had heard people approach our vehicle, and had, like a great guard dog, barked to scare them away and alert us of what was happening? Clearly something had provoked her, so we thanked our wonderful Sheila that nothing had occurred.
Route Map
