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Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee
It’s a pretty cool thing when your mom and mother-in-law are friends. It’s even cooler when you get to take trips together! The weekend before Thanksgiving 2018, my mom decided to rent a cabin in Sevierville, Tennessee, and invite all of us to come up and celebrate the holiday together. Matt and I both completed our undergraduate degrees at The University of Tennessee in Knoxville (go Vols!), so we are both very familiar with nearby Sevierville and Gatlinburg, both of which are situated in the Great Smoky Mountains of east Tennessee. Gatlinburg is about a three-hour drive east from our hometown of Nashville, Tennessee. To start our trip, we set…
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Mexico Beach, Florida
I recently read the book Florida by Lauren Groff, who describes the title state as “an Eden of dangerous things.” Perhaps unintentionally, I read this book while I was in Florida for New Year’s Eve this past December. My husband’s family very graciously invited us to join them the week after Christmas at the beach house they rented in Cape San Blas, Florida. Cape San Blas is located on the Florida Panhandle in the Gulf of Mexico, surrounded by the nearby towns of Port St. Joe, Mexico Beach, and Panama City. An Eden of dangerous things. As someone who spent many childhood summers in Florida, I never considered Florida in…
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Crossing the Cook Straight with Sounds Air: New Zealand
Kia ora, friends, and let me tell you a little about the Cook Strait! The Cook Strait is the body of water separating the North and South islands of New Zealand. It is well known for many things, but two particular facts stick out in my mind: it’s one of the most beautiful ferry crossings in the world, but it’s also one of the roughest ferry crossings in the world. As we planned our honeymoon in December 2017, Matt and I decided that we absolutely had to do the ferry crossing, since all the guidebooks labeled it a “New Zealand must-do.” The ferry crossing goes from Wellington in the North…
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Park City, Utah
I love watching the Winter Olympics. I love figure skating, curling, skiing, snowboarding, hockey, luge, bobsledding, and especially ice dancing. Because of the intensity of the excitement I get to experience every four years, I’ve made it a semi-informal practice to visit the sites of Olympic Villages when I’m in a city that has hosted the Games. So far, I’ve been lucky enough to see the sites of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and the 2012 London Summer Olympics. Next on my list? Pyeongchang, South Korea, which hosted the 2018 Winter Games. In early December 2018, Matt and I took a short weekend trip to visit our favorite Utahans who live near…
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Moments of Bravery
I’d like to give a warm and sincere thank-you to all my new (and not-so-new) readers as I transition into a new blogging sphere! Thank you for your support. If you’re new to this space, hi, hello! I’m Elise, a twenty-seven-year-old Nashville-based lawyer with a heart for serving others. If you read my Instagram bio (which my beloved millennial generation knows to be a definitive guide to a person’s essential self), you’ll encounter three descriptors: Advocate, Adventurer, Atrévete. [1] A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with someone that went a bit like this: Friend: I want to travel, but the whole idea of it makes me anxious. What if…
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Salt Lake City, Utah
How many of you are window seat travelers? If I don’t get a window seat, I am usually pretty petulant during the flight as a result. It may seem strange, but some of my favorite trip memories are getting that first astonishing glimpse at the place you’re visiting. I could spend (and have spent) hours watching landscapes change through a plane’s window. In fact, books are completely wasted on me during flights because I spend the whole time glued to the window. It’s such a grounding experience that gives you such a strong sense of where you’re headed. Ireland is bright green, dotted with farm animals and stone ruins; Phoenix…
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Boston, Massachusetts
“When I think fall, I think Boston,” Matt told me when I asked him where he wanted to go during Halloween weekend. “Tell me why you think that,” I insisted. “You’ve never been, right?” “I don’t know,” he replied with a shrug, “I just think Boston screams fall.” And with little more to go on, Matt and I booked our Halloween trip to Boston. The city, with its colonial charm, historic neighborhoods, cozy cafes, and blustery autumn weather, did not disappoint. On our first day in Boston, Matt and I, along with our best friends Kelsey (of Kelsey Prater Photography) and Saxon, began our excursion on Newbury Street downtown, where…
