I dreamed of going to Nashville, we went, and now we’re back. We spent a week in Nashville going to CMA Fest, hanging out with some very cool people and seeing the Tennessee sights.

We started the trip out with a visit to the Grand Ole Opry. We didn’t even go to the hotel first — straight from airport to Opry. That’s the way to start a vacation! It was a great lineup including Montgomery Gentry, Luke Bryan, Whispering Bill Anderson and Carrie Underwood. We were way up in the balcony because we delayed too long on buying tickets, but it was still incredible.

Sorry about the poor quality of the videos in this post — they were all taken with our little point and shoot Canon digicam, which isn’t a very good video camera.

The next day, we headed out to Greer Stadium for the City of Hope Celebrity Softball Challenge to watch some country stars and pro football players try to play softball. It was hot and there wasn’t much shade, but it was still a blast.

After the softball game, I got sick of lugging the SLR and lenses around in 95+ degree heat, so most of the rest of the pics were taken with the digicam. Sorry! The next day is when the festival really got under way. But first, we met up with Michael and Kari from Mad Dancer Media for lunch. After that, we got to go to the taping of the CMA Close Up show at the Ryman Auditorium, which will be on GAC next month. They interviewed Gretchen Wilson, Randy Travis and Taylor Swift. They were all very entertaining and nice. Taylor was, of course, the biggest reason we went, and she didn’t disappoint a bit.

The nightly concerts kicked off that night with a whole slew of awesome performances including Montgomery Gentry, Kellie Pickler, Luke Bryan, Jewel, Taylor Swift, and Sugarland. They were all incredible, seriously.

Over the next few nights, we were blown away by a whole bunch of other amazing acts including Miranda Lambert, Lady Antebellum, Faith Hill, Keith Urban, Rascal Flatts, Carrie Underwood, Little Big Town, Rodney Atkins, Trace Adkins, Randy Travis, Sara Evans, and Dwight Yoakam. Alan Jackson was a big highlight for me.

Friday was a very fun day. First, we went to the Miranda Lambert fan club (Ran Fans) party. Not only did we see a great acoustic set by Miranda and get to meet her and get a photo, but we got to meet her dog Delilah! Then we met up with Russell for the first time and he took us over to a listening party for Faith Hill’s upcoming Christmas album. It sounds awesome — if you’re into Christmas music, you’ll definitely want to pick it up when it comes out. At the party, we got to meet Sandra (oh, and Faith too ).

On Saturday, we got to meet Taylor. She was very sweet, especially considering how long she’d been there (and how many more hours she had ahead of her).

We also got to check out (and hold) the famous guitar from the Our Song video.

Sunday night after the nightly show, we headed over to meet up with Russell and Sandra at the Lady Antebellum fan club party. We both already loved Lady A, but they truly blew us away with their performance at the party. WOW!!! After they played, we got to meet them and get a picture.

Monday was an awesome day. Russell picked us up and showed us all around the Nashville area. We got to see so much cool stuff, I can’t even list it all. But one highlight for me was eating lunch at the Loveless Cafe. I usually don’t even like biscuits, but I’ve been craving those Loveless biscuits ever since we left!

We also got to see the WSM tower, which was really neat.

That evening, Russell and Sandra took us to dinner at a great local place. The two of them really went out of their way to make our trip special, and we can’t thank them enough for it!

All in all, it was one of the best trips we’ve had in a long time. If you’re into country music at all, I definitely recommend trying to go to CMA Fest at least once. It’s hot, there are a lot of people, but it’s an experience that can’t be replicated anywhere else.