Picture it..Philadelphia: 2026.

A middle-aged woman and her family sit immobilized in their truck, swarmed on all sides by an undulating sea of yellow. Unable to progress even an inch, frustrated and effectively paralyzed, there seems no way forward until the woman bravely flings open the door, jumps headlong into the surge and puts on her best traffic cop persona…left arm straight out, right arm motioning forward to the line of cars caught in the wave of…bees? Big Bird impersonators? No, it’s…mostly drunk Ecuador fans!!! Hundreds of them. It works. The crowd parts, the vehicles slowly accelerate and…VICTORY! We pass safely through the swarm of Ecuador fans and slide into a blessed parking space against the back gate.

We and 67 THOUSAND! of our closest friends attended the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament in Philly on Flag Day this year to watch Cote D’Ivoire and Ecuador battle it out on the field. Ecuador’s fan base showed up strong, comprising roughly 80% of the fans. ¡Si se puede!

It was a night to remember. Partially because attending a World Cup Game has been on Ben’s bucket list forever, but mostly because you never forget the feeling of being pressed tightly on all sides as you’re swept towards the entrance of Eagles Stadium in a crush of hot, sweaty humanity with the soothing sound of vuvuzela horns puncturing your eardrums every forty-five seconds.

After a long day of traveling and traffic (now with hyper-aggressive Maryland drivers!) and trying (mostly successfully) not to give in to claustrophobic hysteria, we made it through the gates! No longer pushed and prodded at every turn by complete strangers, we breathed a little easier and went up the steps of the stadium to stand in line to gratefully fork over 65 dollars for three bottles of water and two pineapple NUTRLs.

I am not a sports fan, typically, but it was easy to get caught up in the anticipation and excitement of the game. Ecuador had incredible support but zero goals, unfortunately. C’ote D’Ivoire eventually scored two points and won, and the energy in the stadium visibly deflated.

We escaped the parking lot with merciful speed and headed back to our Air Bnb, where we wandered around the promised safe streets of University City after 10 pm on a Sunday to score some pizza from a restaurant glibly titled “The Homo Hut.”

We headed home the next morning, and promptly proceeded to pack for our next adventure: Nashville!

We usually take a week-long vacation with my parents every summer, and we try to choose a different location. Nashville has also been on Ben’s bucket list for quite awhile, so we decided to give it a try. Back in the car with lots of snacks and the second Harry Potter book, we took off yet again. Ten hours and two Buckees later, we were high on a hill, relaxing on the porch at the log cabin we’d rented for the week, gazing at the Nashville skyline in the distance.

What can I say about the city of Nashville?

Let’s find out.

First of all, I think every one of those Ecuador fans from the week before traded their jerseys for cowboy boots and Stetsons and were just waiting for us to get there. People everywhere. Noise everywhere. Drunk people lazily peddling mobile bars up and down congested streets with country music blaring. Crowded shops and crowded restaurants. More people. More noise.

I’m starting to think I’m not a city person.

Anyway, the positives:

Nashville has a gorgeous zoo.

A short trip to Franklin, Tennessee knocked off yet another bucket list item: a trip to the Dave Ramsey show complete with complementary cookies and a latte! We even got to take a picture with Dave and his daughter, Rachel.

Franklin also has some great shopping and a charming, small-town Main Street, USA vibe. We had a late appetizer/craft-cocktail lunch at Culinary Dropout. Highly recommend.

There was a cute distillery with live music five minutes from our Airbnb and the owners took us to the back and let us try one of their new concoctions for free. The other patrons consisted mostly of a Dukes of Hazzard fan club (complete with a General Lee in the parking lot). I can’t say that I get the hype, but they were fun to talk to.

Cheekwood Estates is nice if you like really old houses and extensive gardens, which I don’t. They did have a cool art gallery display on the top floor of the mansion on loan from the Frist Museum.

The Grand Ole Opry was fantastic. There’s just something about seeing people shine in their element, doing what they love and were obviously born to do. We saw the Brothers Comatose, Emily Ann Roberts, and 86 year-old harmonica aficionado Charlie McCoy, among many other talented performers.

I would go again if we ever happen to be in the area. So fun!

Another day we ventured down to Leiper’s Fork, which is an artist community with cute boutiques and cute boutique prices. I bought a cucumber. The countryside was gorgeous and boasted sprawling farms and mansions galore. Chris Stapleton lives there but sadly he didn’t get a chance to meet us. We went to another distillery where they gleefully charged us an arm and a leg for flight of five of the worst whiskies we’ve ever tried.

We took my parents back to Franklin on the way back from Leiper’s Fork. We wandered through shops and ate lunch at Puckett’s, and then got super excited to see one of MasterChef heroes’ cookie shops! Sadly, Whitney wasn’t there, but we did score a cookie out of the deal.

All in all, we had a good time (mostly because we always have a good time together) and we saw some cool things and beautiful places. I don’t know that we’d repeat the destination, though.

And that brings me to this:

One last dishonorable mention must be made.

We usually try to hit an amusement park on vacation so Audrey has something to get excited about, but since there were no Six Flags or Wally Worlds in the vicinity we thought a day trip to a local lake would be a fun alternative.

It was not.

J. Percy Priest Lake looked beautiful in the pictures, but that’s only because the photographer skipped over the sad, junky playground equipment. He shot around the unkempt man smoking a Black and Mild, bleakly questioning every life decision that had lead to this point. He edited out the trash strewn artfully over the grass and parking area. And he forgot to show the scale of the roped off swimming area, which was roughly the size of a large bathtub. It was, in the words of Oscar the Grouch, a dump.

We tried to keep a positive attitude. We had driven half an hour. We had even taken a small detour and stopped to buy beach towels at a sorely understaffed Dollar General. We could stay for a little bit. Terrified smiles plastered on our faces, Ben bravely opened the door of the truck. The smell of rotten fish and desperation hung thick in the air and I’ve never seen Ben move so fast as he jumped back in the truck and slammed it in reverse. How were people swimming there and just pretending like they weren’t blanketed in the stench of a thousand corpses?The dust flew behind us as we got as far away as fast as we could. New towels be darned.

And that, my friends, is the story of our very exciting summer vacation.

Where should we go (or not go) next year?

Ang