Russ, Brennan and I are exploring another part of the country. It’s school vacation week and we are ready to relax!
First stop, Nashville, Tennessee! 
Now, when I say relax….I should say, ‘our way to relax’ because we tend to be very active on vacation. Day 1 involved renting bikes and exploring parts of the city we may not have seen walking on foot….including a trip to the ‘American Picker’s’ television show’s store, Antique Archaeology.
We love this show….so we were quite excited to see the store.
Bike rentals are new to Nashville and I think it’s a great way to get exercise and view the city.
We also roamed around the streets and checked out all the ‘honky tonk’ bars, shops, old store fronts…lots of cow boy boots and hats!
Lots of old buildings too, like this one…
The food in Tennessee was seriously rich and often fried…so we fit in a few runs and included some stairs to work off our dietary indiscretions. 
Then we road tripped –about a 5 hour drive to Asheville, North Carolina.
Asheville is known for the Biltmore estate, great cultural vibe and breweries. We of course, did a little beer tasting. The little red door above was a little mouse door just randomly placed on a brick wall …how cute is that?
But the highlight of our trip was our zip lining excursion. We visited Navitat, a great zip lining adventure located right in the mountains.
We completed 11 zip lines and walked across some wobbly bridges. 
Yes, I am afraid of heights…but somehow like I like these ‘out of the box’ activities.
Here I am repelling off the platform. 
It’s been a great week away. No recipes to share this post as I am away from my kitchen!
But as we have tried to stay focused on our vacation and time together, it has been extremely difficult in the aftermath of our home city of Boston’s recent devastating events. I was born in Boston, attended college in Boston, and did my hospital training at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, one of the many Boston hospitals that cared for many of the bombing victims.
Please pray for the city that I am proud to call home.
Cory
Great vacation pictures! Asheville & Nashville look like a lot of fun : )
Here in Boston, things were . . . I can’t really come up with words. Thankfully, all of the surrounding communities and law enforcement officials responded to the situation and did a really great job keeping everyone safe yesterday without further violence after the tragedies this week.
katescarlata
Hey Cory, I can only imagine what it must have been like in Boston this week. My heart was in Boston… I hope we now can regain a sense of peace and start healing.