Hello Friends! I’m editing this post to note that the proposed Nashville Meetup for this year is cancelled, because I moved away from Nashville. 
When I proposed the Meetup, I had no plans to move, but sometimes life takes unexpected, but exciting new turns. I’m now in central Illinois, and will therefore be moving the Meetup to my new home.
Here’s a new thread to plan for and discuss the new Meetup!
Hotel Options
Hampton Inn & Suites
Holiday Inn Express
Residence Inn
Nearby Restaurants (in walking distance to the hotels)
Tito’s Mexican Restaurant
Soulshine Pizza - and tamales!
Umi Japanese Restaurant
Benchmark Sports Pub & Eatery
Whit’s Frozen Custard
Coffee & Coconuts
Sonic, Panda Express, McDonald’s
Restaurants a Short Drive Away in Historic Downtown
Puckett’s Grocery (don’t let the name fool you, it’s a restaurant) - Southern foods
McCreary’s Irish Pub
Mellow Mushroom - hippy pizza place with vegetarian/vegan options
Frothy Monkey - cafe food & coffee
55 South, Red Pony, Grey’s on Main, Cork & Cow - all fancy & a little expensive
Meridee’s Breadbasket - cafe & bakery, breakfast & lunch
Biscuit Love - breakfast & brunch with Southern biscuits
The Grilled Cheeserie
Hop House TN Taps - pub foods, tapas & charcuterie w/local & regional beers
Triple Crown Bakery - adorable bakery that offers tea, coffee or hot chocolate service
Ruby Sunshine - brunch
Craft Stores
The Quilting Squares Indy fabric store between the hotel & MistresssJennie’s house
Stitchers Garden - HUGE fabric selection, in Brentwood, TN, 1 town over from Franklin
Bliss Yarns - Indy yarn store in Brentwood, TN
Third Coast Clay - paint your own pottery
Fun Things to Do
SOAR Adventure Tower
Nashville Zoo
Adventure Science Center
Opry Tour and Ryman Tour
The Factory - shops, boutiques, food, Farmer’s Market on Saturday, get a selfie with Rusty, and an insane donut at Five Daughters or ice cream at Jeni’s (non dairy options!)
Wander around Historic Downtown Franklin
Masters & Makers Trail - visit 4 of 5 locations to get a free tee shirt from Franklin Visitors Center
Hmmmm will be considering this for sure!
October/November dates would be cool, or Feb/March dates. Honestly though, I am pretty flexible as I don’t have kids and don’t travel for holidays and all that jazz.
3rd January - 26th January 2023
That’s my summer holidays from school.
How long do the meet ups usually last for?
But maybe realistically September 18-30 2023 if you end up having another one in the Pacific Northwest??
Right now, I can only say off-hand for mid-June next year for sure. I’m not sure when Spring Break is off-hand, usually early March, but weather can be iffy. But, it’s a doable long weekend for me, maybe.
I’d be driving down so probably not Jan-March to avoid snow, otherwise I’m flexible.
Yeah, I was wondering what the weather would be like in Nashville then… that’s why I added some dates for later in the year too.
If might actually be nice in Nashville then, it’s Chicago and most of the drive down that potentially wouldn’t be great.
Winter in Nashville can vary wildly. While we don’t get much snow, we do occasionally get a tiny bit. The more dangerous thing is ice storms. We get one or two per year. Northerners like to mock the South for freaking out and closing everything down for 1/2" of snow. The thing they don’t get, is that there’s no infrastructure here to deal with the snow. No plows to move it, no salt and sand trucks to make the roads safer. And since Southerners don’t drive on ice often, it gets dangerous fast. So we basically just have to sit home and wait for the ice to melt.
That being said, winter is pretty mild here most of the time. Our lowest temperatures are usually in the teens, with highs in the 30’s-40’s/.
I am quite interested and will see how the timing shakes out before I can commit. I think this year would be less likely for me.
Can utterly relate to this. Moving from a place where EVERYTHING SHUTS DOWN for the tiniest bit of snow to a place where winter is winter so “snow days” just really aren’t a thing (and oh, how I miss them). Not only is the infrastructure issue a real and true thing, but snow is really different in different places and the vehicles and tires people have are different. A half inch of snow in Portland, Oregon for a Portland vehicle with a Portland driver is not even remotely close to what an half inch of snow is like in Montana with a formerly-Portland driver in a formerly-Portland vehicle or Montana vehicle. And ain’t nobody in no car going to make it on ice.
I grew up in NH, which definitely has winter, maybe not as much as Montana, but certainly rough. I remember keeping a shovel in the back of my station wagon in high school, and digging my car out at the end of a school day, after 12" of snow fell during classes, and a plow buried me further. Then this past winter in TN, we got just under inch of snow, and some ice before and after it fell. Everything just closed for 3 days. I couldn’t walk the dog, and we couldn’t get out of our driveway, even after the snow on the streets melted, because our driveway is in shadow, and stayed iced over an extra 2 days. We had to salt the steps with my kosher cooking salt.
This sounds soooo amazing!
Yay!! So exciting!!
I’m not sure timing on this one will work out for me, though. We just booked a trip for spring break of next year (week of April 3 here) to a certain FL destination that will require all of my financial resources! 
This is the UK. We have weather, it breaks things.
And snow… we can’t handle that.
To be fair, we don’t really get good snow where I am. So, we are not used to dealing with it.
To be fair, the UK has trouble with high temps, too! 
A few years ago there was a heatwave and a friend in Nottingham was soooo miserable and talked about the office shutting down so we finally did the Celcius to Fahrenheit conversion. It was something like 85F which is… not that hot by most-places-in-the-US standards! Of course, it’s baffling when someone else finds extreme something that is within your own normal, but of course we quickly adjusted our reaction.
I’m in!! So excited & hope this works out!
My schedule is fairly flexible, so as long as I know dates in advance, I’m good.
if this happens during my vacay late October I’ll def stop by! driving to Florida, but wouldn’t be able to stay!
Same here.
I suppose those in hot temperatures have adapted their buildings to the heat. I was in the UK during the 2019 heatwave and at home in the Netherlands it was even a bit hotter. At those temperatures public transit starts breaking down because the trains aren’t built for it, fridges and freezers in supermarkets can’t keep up. Our buildings are built to retain heat, not to cool, no one has A/C.
Our climate is mostly about quick changes. It could be sunny/rainy/snowy one minute and the opposite kind of weather an hour later. We can have four seasons in a week.
I am pretty flexible. I wouldn’t want to drive in bad weather. In November I am in complete Christmas mode and wouldn’t want to spend any money on me. It all goes to saving for Christmas from Oct to the big day.
