About a month ago, I experienced a fun and quick trip to Nashville, Tennessee with my bandmates/good friends, Dustin and Ryleigh. The three of us - along with an incredible guitarist, Johnathan Locklear - were invited to play an acoustic show for The 8th Annual Josie Music Awards. Dustin and Ryleigh were also nominated for several awards - Dustin won the Songwriter's Achievement Award and Ryleigh won Vocalist of the Year Under 18 Award. That same weekend, I had to fly back to North Carolina to attend a close friend's wedding. Talk about a busy and chaotic weekend! As you read this blog post, you will notice the word ‘experience’ being used sporadically. There is a backstory to it which I will explain later on.
There is something about long drives that I do not enjoy. It is not a pleasant 'experience' for me to be glued to a seat for hours and also depend on Siri to guide me towards my destination. Plus, Siri spazzes out sometimes and she leads me towards the wrong direction which irritates me even more. Now that I think of it, Siri and I do not get a long, so maybe I should switch to Google Maps (just kidding, Google Maps sucks too). That being said, long drives and I do not mix well.
Other than bickering with Siri on a constant basis, I have learned to appreciate long drives when I have someone in the car to talk to other than Siri. Sure, there are advantages when I travel by myself like having control of the music and also leaving the A/C off (because I am a big believer the A/C consumes too much gas), but I get bored after traveling alone for about two hours. Being able to have deep conversations with the person riding next to me has made traveling more enjoyable for me. It is probably because we are all stuck in a car together for a period of time so we forcefully have to open up. That being said, if you are ever in a car with me for even a couple of minutes, be prepared to have deep conversations with me (sorry, not sorry)!
After nearly five hours on the road chatting with one another and listening to old country music, we stopped at a Buc-ee’s gas station to fill up our gas tank and stretch our legs. I did not understand why Buc-ee’s was so hyped up until I walked in the store for the first time. After walking inside, I was immediately blown away. Lemme tell you something, it was an ‘experience’. To me, Buc-ee's is like Cracker Barrel on steroids. If you can think of any southern goodies and knickknacks, I guarantee you Buc-ee's has it stocked on their selves. Whoever came up with the idea to open a large convenience store with a cute beaver as its logo, your sir or madam are a brilliant individual. When you first approach the store, you are greeted by a shiny beaver standing in front of the doorway. Talk about a perfect opportunity to take a cute souvenir picture to share with your friends and family (which is exactly what we did).
Originally I wanted to use the bathroom when I first walked in, however, I got a bit distracted by the variety of snacks they were selling. My true weakness is chocolate so if I see a wall of chocolate anywhere, I guarantee you I will gravitate toward that section of the store (which Buc-ee's did have a wall of chocolates). Let me just address that their bathrooms are located in the back, so they purposely want their shoppers to glance at their stocked shelves before anyone can reach the restroom first. To me, that is a brilliant retail strategy from the intelligent beaver people. Shortly after I saw several customers pour sodas into their plastic cups, I finally remembered why I entered the establishment to begin with. Immediately after that, I hauled my tail straight to the bathroom.
I Googled Buc-ee's and it says their beef jerky and briskets are highly popular to the customers. It is great that Buc-ee's has a demand for their food products, but I on the other hand did not come in the establishment for beef jerky or briskets. I went into to Buc-ee's to use their bathroom. My thing is if any store has a clean bathroom, you have my full support. Which Buc-ee's did. Their bathroom surpassed all of the gas station bathroom's I have ever been in! It was an ‘experience’. Dustin and I were greeted by 20 something bathroom stalls waiting just for us! Okay, that is definitely an exaggeration, but it was cool not having to wait in line at a gas station just to my business. I was going to take a picture/video of the bathrooms for you, but then I would have had a bunch of men staring at me wondering why I had a phone in my hand taking random pictures, better yet a video! To avoid the potentiality of being cursed at or even getting beat up inside a Buc-ee’s restroom in the middle of Tennessee, this blog post will have to do. If you are curious about what a Buc-ee’s bathroom looks like, you are going to have to 'experience' that on your own!
Now the moment you have been waiting for (hopefully). To give you more insight on why the word ‘experience’ became a staple on this trip, it had to do with an interaction Dustin, Ryleigh, and I had with a cashier in Chick-Fil-A. It was late at night, we just left Buc-ee’s, and we had been in the car for several hours, so we were searching for something dumb to laugh at. Ryleigh ordered a brownie and the cashier was startled as to why anyone would order a brownie from Chick-Fil-A. Pretty shocked about that herself, Ryleigh told the cashier the brownie tasted so good to not ‘experience’ it. The three of us made it into a silly joke because we believed the cashier was missing out on a great ‘experience.’ To be fair, Chick-Fil-A is also God’s “favorite” fast food joint, so why not ‘experience’ it? Anyways, we used the word ‘experience’ as a constant saying throughout our weekend trip. Any activity we did good or bad, it would be viewed as an ‘experience.’ If you are reading this post and saying to yourself, “well that’s a pretty dumb story”, all I can say is you had to be there to understand it because we were the ones who ‘experienced’ it (sorry)!
After being on the road for one final hour, we finally arrived at our hotel later that night. Even though we were exhausted, we could only sleep for so long. In the morning, the three of us had to be up and ready to rehearse for our performance. I will write about that ‘experience’ another day though! Till then, find yourself a Buc-ee's and 'experience' their snacks and bathrooms! Stay safe!
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