Opryland Hotel

On Sunday evening, our little threesome headed out to Opryland to see the lights and try to get some holiday pictures.  Opryland had JUST opened on Monday after being closed since the May flood.  That's 5 1/2 months.  They spent millions renovating the hotel and I was actually disappointed that I had not had the foresight to just book a room for the night.  We got started about an hour later than I had hoped, but we made it.  I had wanted to get there with some daylight left for the sake of natural light in our photos.  Didn't happen. 

For those of you who don't know about Opryland Hotel, to say it is huge is an understatement!  It's a Nashville attraction and you actually have to pay to park.  When I first moved up here 8 1/2 years ago, the cost to park at the hotel was $10!  I thought this was OUTRAGEOUS!  So, anytime we went over there (or HAD to go over there when we were planning the wedding), we would just park in the Opry Mills Mall parking lot next door and walk over.  So, last night we tried to park in the mall parking lot, but the access to the hotel from the mall was blocked by fences.  Opry Mills is still closed from the flooding and much of the parking lot is fenced off.  We decided to bite the bullet and pay the ten bucks.  As we turned to enter the parking lot, we were ASTOUNDED to see that the cost to park is now $18 (!!!).  Holy Crap!  We were already in line, unsure of another place to park, running later than I had wanted, and the mood in the car was grumpy.  I was just ready to park the car.  I will go ahead and add here that the TRUE cost to park was $19.66.  Taxes, I guess.  Why don't they just include taxes in the posted cost?  Good thing their fancy little machine took credit cards! 

When we were finally parked and out of the car, we changed E into her fancy little dress and headed on in.  It was crowded, of course, but it was beautiful!  The Cascades area (hardest hit in the flood) has been remodeled, but still felt the same.  The lights were magical, as always.  I wish I had taken more pictures of just the inside of the Hotel, but we were busy chasing Etta and hoping to find just the right spot to set up the camera for a family picture.  I was having flash issues.  The flash made all of the pictures turn out harsh and gave red eye that was uncorrectable- not to mention how SHINY it made Etta's dress look.  *sigh*  In the end, we got ONE picture that was worthy of our holiday card.  I'm not going to share that one today.  You have to wait until you get your card in the mail.  I will, however, share with you a few of the other shots that weren't "the one".

We left there about an hour or so after we got there.  Etta started falling apart and we were about 45 minutes away from home, and she still needed dinner (official dinner, she had some cheerios along the way).  We didn't do too bad, she was in bed, asleep by 8:00.