Colorado or Tennessee?
It is official. My husband and I are now completely moved to Tennessee. Goodbye to mountainous Colorado and hello to…spring. Honestly. We basically drove ourselves out of winter into a luscious and green spring. Now I understand the phrase, “April showers bring May flowers.” Like it actually rains places. Growing up in Wyoming was more like “April snow brings flooding and mud in May…” Hey, I love Wyoming. I’m just saying.
Anyways, all that to say that moving is the worst and thank goodness we are not planning on doing it anytime soon!
For a solid week it felt like nothing we tried was going to work, as is usual when you are moving your life across the country. A tree fell on our HVAC 2 hours after closing on our house, we found out days before moving that the POD we packed our stuff in never shipped so we had to move all our stuff into a Uhaul, we hit the biggest pot hole of my life and had to replace the tire and fix some other things, etc.
BUT we also got a lot of help from family, met very kind strangers along the way, and have been able to get settled into a place that feels very nice. We even have a yard. So it definitely feels like a win in my books.
Here are some things that I have noticed about Tennessee in my very short amount of time here (feel free to disagree with or counter any of these points!):
Although Nashville is a big city, it does not take a long time to drive to areas that feel like the countryside.
I noticed living in Denver that no matter where you drove in the metro area, it always felt like the city. Around Nashville, there are a lot of trees and rolling hills that help to block out parts of the city so that when you are in the suburbs, you get to enjoy the quiet neighborhoods. Which brings me to my next topic…
Houses, both big and small, seem to have more land in between properties. And there are significantly less fences!
This was also a shock to me because in Denver I always saw a lot of housing developments made up of townhomes or at least single family homes with very little yard space. I think a lot of people prefer that! Also, almost everywhere you go, there are fences in all the yards. Here in Nashville, it seems that it’s more common to have more yard space and less fences. I have to ask, how are people keeping their dogs from wandering? Does anyone know? I love driving around and seeing wide open spaces of green lawns and farms, though. It is beautiful and makes everything seem very open.
Non-major roads are a lot smaller than I am used to and don’t have much of a shoulder.
You better make sure you are paying attention or else you will plow over someone’s nice little mailbox. Driving in a truck on these narrow roads makes me feel very big...
I love meeting such friendly strangers throughout the week!
This point does come with a caveat. I had heard of how friendly people are here, so I had a bit of an unrealistic expectation thinking that every single person I met would be nice. I know, that’s naive. Also, so many people aren’t even from Tennessee, so there's that. BUT the nice far outweighs the sassy. I will say I have had more random and kind conversations with strangers here than in most other places I have been (to be fair, when you live in Wyoming, is anyone really a stranger??). I was even on a run the other day and a lady cheered me on. Now come on, who doesn’t like that?! And if you know me well, you probably know that I live for conversations with strangers. Sometimes I have to keep myself from leaving my info for waiters and waitresses just because I think we could be good friends (luckily my husband helps me to gauge if my friendliness is starting to come off as maybe a little creepy…)
Am I going to become a big bird watcher?
Literally as I am typing this, I see a bright red cardinal perched in a tree outside my window. Along the greenways there are so many nests to spot and all different types of birds that fly along through the trees. I could totally get into bird watching. Add it to the list!
I see some really cool murals…
I am very excited to get involved in the arts here in Tennessee. I already have the Tennessee craft fair marked on my calendar for May. Something that I really enjoyed in Colorado was the art scene. It always felt like there were so many ways to connect to the arts in the community and even different organizations to join or events to participate in. I have seen some cool murals around Nashville and hope to find opportunities to get involved when it comes to the visual arts. I haven’t yet made it to the Frist Art Museum, but it is on my list! If you happen to know about any art-related things for middle Tennessee, let me know!
Those are the big things I have noticed so far and I am excited to keep checking more out. Does your city or town have any fun quirks? If you have been to Denver or Nashville, do you feel differently about what I have mentioned?
If you have any areas in Tennessee that you think are worth checking out, let me know, and as always thanks for following along and for your support!
