Picasso Landscapes: Out of Bounds

Artist Pablo Picasso is most famous for co-founding Cubism, a new style of modern painting, in the early 1900s. Inspired by African art, Picasso’s cubist pieces utilized geometric components to create figures and forms. While his most famous works, such as Guernica and Girl Before a Mirror, are examples from his cubist period, he was also a prolific landscape artist throughout his career and its various stages. The Picasso Landscapes: Out of Bounds exhibit celebrates his lesser recognized works from this genre. From his beginnings in art school right up until his death, Picasso explored the intersection of man and …

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Pink Jeep Smoky Mountain Tours

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park straddles North Carolina and Tennessee and is the most visited national park in the US. It is less than 3 hours away from us yet somehow we have never visited! It was definitely high on my reasons for picking Tennessee for our spring break trip. Normally we would find some hiking trails to explore but since we were traveling with my parents, I wanted to find a different way to see the park. Pink Jeep Tours fit the bill exactly! Started as an off-road tour company in Sedona AZ, Pink Jeep Tours now offers …

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Dollywood

I have secretly wanted to go to Dollywood for years but knew my husband and boys wouldn’t be super excited about it. So when we were floating around the idea of a Tennessee road trip, I knew I had my opening. I sold it as a trip to the Great Smoky Mountains and subtly tacked on a stop in Dollywood since we would already be in the area. It’s not that my boys need a lot of prodding to go to an amusement park, but unless you are a country music fan or a young kid, Dollywood on the surface …

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Country Music Hall of Fame

The Country Music Hall of Fame was established in 1967 but moved to its current location in the heart of Downtown Nashville in 2001. The museum is one of the most iconic buildings in the city, and musical symbolism is heavily featured in its architectural design. From above, the building is shaped like a bass clef. From the street, the front of the building looks like a piano, with the windows emulating the black keys. The left side of the building features a rotunda, with a replica radio tower at its peak. Even the disc-shaped tiers on top of the …

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Historic RCA Studio B Tour

At the hotel brunch on our first morning, my dad overheard another guest come up to one of the staff members and thank him profusely for recommending a tour, saying it was the best tour he had ever been on. Intrigued, my dad went over to ask for more information. The staff member happily repeated his recommendation for the Historic RCA Studio B Tour, agreeing that it is the best tour in Nashville. We immediately got to work researching the tour over breakfast and found out that it is an add-on to the ticket for the Country Music Hall of …

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The Listening Room Cafe

Listening to live music is an essential Nashville experience. One of the most popular places to do that is the Blue Bird Cafe. But its huge popularity and small size make it very difficult to get tickets. I set an alarm for the day tickets were released for our dates and logged on a few minutes before 9am. As soon as they became available, I put the tickets in my cart, but by the time I clicked check out, I got a message that they were sold out. It was 9:02. So… on to plan B! I did some reading …

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Joyride Golf Cart Tour

Since I hadn’t been to Nashville in over 20 years, I wanted a high level tour of the city to help us get the lay of the land and see where the major sites were to determine what we wanted to visit later. There are lots of different city tour options, but many of them involve adult beverages and entertainment. Of the more family-friendly options, I narrowed it down to the Hop On Hop Off Trolley Tour and the Joyride Golf Cart Tour. I decided on the golf cart tour because I thought it would offer a more personalized experience. …

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Downtown Nashville

Music is Nashville’s heart and soul. There are two main music-related strips in Nashville – Music Row and Broadway. If Broadway is the partier of the family, Music Row is the more serious cousin. It is in a quiet part of town and is where the recording studios, record label offices, and radio stations are located. Broadway, on the other hand, runs through the heart of downtown and is the lifeblood of the city. Also known as Honky Tonk Highway, Broadway is loud, bright, and crowded. “Colorful” takes on multiple meanings on Broadway, from the bright purple building that houses …

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Grace Bay

Consistently ranked as one of the top beaches in the world, Grace Bay is a 3 mile stretch of coastline located on the north shore of Providenciales. The sand is white, soft, and always cool to the touch. The water is warm, clean, calm and an impossibly turquoise blue. If there is a nicer beach in the world, I certainly haven’t seen it. The barrier reef that is found about a mile offshore is the world’s third largest and typically keeps the waters of Grace Bay very calm. From a slightly elevated vantage point, you can see where the waves …

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Mangrove Clear Kayak Tour

We knew we wanted to get out on the water while we were in Turks and Caicos but weren’t particularly interested in snorkeling or an open water boat trip. Kayaking seemed more our speed and the mangroves seemed like the perfect location. A quick internet search brought up a lot of options for clear kayaks. Although it seemed gimmicky to me at first, the waters are so crystal clear that it made sense to make the boats clear so that you can see what is swimming underneath you. There were a lot of companies with great reviews and we narrowed …

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