Celebrating birthdays before COVID-19 usually meant a trip to a exotic location with a list of restaurants and locations to try out. But of course, in the year 2020, things don’t look like they usually do. Flying is pretty much out of the question for me, and eating in a restaurant and doing touristy type of things still isn’t that safe to do right now.
What’s a person to do?
I wanted to help celebrate my love’s 49th birthday, and we both wanted to do something special, just the two of us. After a little back and forth, we opted to do another road trip to another Tennessee city—Nashville. It’s a 4,.5 hour drive from St. Louis and had a lot of potential for a difference vibe and scene.
We opted once again for an AirBNB (our preferred way to lodge while traveling since we want to come into contact with as less people as possible because—Coronavirus), and found a cozy and modern one bedroom guesthouse in Nashville that had all of the amenities we needed.
[ Read We Went Walking in Memphis: Taking a Road Trip During Covid-19 ]
This option also gave us the ability to cook our meals since it had a full kitchen, and we could celebrate as grand as we wanted to.
It was important for me to try to make his birthday as special and as memorable as possible. It’s not every day that you turn 49 years young!
I made the bungalow a festive environment and hung birthday fare up on the walls to help liven it up. We also toasted to his biological new year with La Fête Rosé (Black owned wine company), mini donuts, cupcakes, and a steak dinner I prepared in the modern kitchen.
Of course, there was also presents.
We made sure to step out a little and see some Nashville sights (masks on and only off when we took photos when no one else was by us). Music City has plenty to see and do and has murals on almost every corner. It was fun finding the murals and posing in front of them.
Isn’t he FINE?
We also did a lot of Netflix-Hulu-Amazon Prime-HBO Max and Chill, too. It was just what we needed to ring in his birthday while staying safe and sound during the still-in-play pandemic.
Despite the fact that we couldn’t do what we originally planned earlier this year, we were still blessed to be able to spend his birthday weekend together in a different city.
We’ve got it so good.
Our road trip to Nashville was just what the doctor ordered. More memories were made and I am more in love with him now than ever.
I previously shared tips on how to road trip during COVID-19, so I won’t rehash it, but I do want you to keep a few of these items in mind if you are planning on hitting the road:
Use Google to scout out the scene
I knew that Nashville had a bevy of murals for us to see and document, so I looked on Google first to see what they looked like and where they were before we went out. It helped us navigate as well as decide which murals were what we wanted to photograph.
12th Avenue had five of them in a few blocks radius, so that really helped us plan.
Ask a local
Ask a local or frequent visitors their opinions on what to see and do. Also, always get food advice from people who live in the city. They know the best spots and hole-in-the-wall places.
Shop before you leave
I bought all of our celebratory items before we took our trip and packed up the car with essentials like paper plates, cups, paper towels, etc. Most Air BNB’s had cookware, plates, cups, utensils, etc., but it’s always good to bring your own.
My boyfriend says that this was his best birthday ever, and I have Nashville to thank for all of that. Thank you Music City for being such an amazing host.
We will be hitting the road again in a few weeks, so I will be bringing you more COVID-19 road trip shenanigans.
Do you have any road trips planned in the near future?
Save for later:
It looks like you both had a good time. Those murals look amazing. We are about 8 hours away from Music City. Maybe we should visit.
We had a great time, but we always do. It was an amazing trip.