Destination: Tennessee

The Hutton Hotel: A Green Hotel Frenzy, Southern-Style!

Currently in a soft-opening phase—the property just opened its doors last week—downtown Nashville’s Hutton Hotel is one of the most eco-friendly properties in the Southeast. Unlike a lot of other ostensibly green hotels with a program where they don’t change your sheets very often and that’s all they do for the environment, the Hutton bristles with technology that makes it greener and more efficient for the hotel. (In other words, it saves them money so, presumably, there’s oopmh behind it).

Inside, the Hutton is awash in bamboo—a highly renewable wood—on the floors and on the walls. The hotel even has a program in place to reduce waste from tiny plastic bottles for bathroom amenities, as well as dual-flush toilets. There’s also sexier amenities like media hubs for your electronics, digital controls for the shower so you can set a specific temperature and television displays in the lobby that turn into mirrors when they’re switched off. The hotel’s worth checking out because it cleverly slots into the Nashville hotel market; less upmarket than the deluxe Hermitage, but without the swarms of conventioneers that overrun Opryland every weekend. I, for one, wouldn’t mind digital shower controls of my very own, though I’d settle for real water pressure in my apartment as a close second.


A Presbyterian at the Peabody: Cocktails Across America

A Presbyterian at the Peabody: Cocktails Across America Photo by Mykl Roventine via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Photo by Mykl Roventine via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Cocktails are nice. So nice. David Farley’s marathon drinking session in India got me thinking: what U.S. cocktail-drinking experience would I like to relive? Some may laugh but, after a crapola week, I’m craving the simplicity and sweet ease of drinking a Presbyterian while watching the Peabody Hotel ducks march their way into the lobby fountain. Sounds pleasant right about now, eh?

Yours?


When Planning a Trip, Do Local Politics Matter?

No, you didn’t imagine that loud (and long-lasting) yay coming from Nashville on Jan. 22. It was the sound of the city’s English-only? seriously? contingent celebrating after the ridiculous measure was defeated in a (costly) special election.

While nothing could come between me and my Nashville (cause it’s a pretty damned fantastic city), it did get me wondering how much local politics play a role in other people’s travel choices. Have you ever put the kibosh on a trip because you didn’t like the politics of the place?


Morning Links: Buffalo-Wing Boycott, Nashville’s English-Only Measure and More

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State-by-State Home Improvement

bottles Photo by Jenna Schnuer.
At the Treasures & Trash Barn, Searsport, Maine. Photo by Jenna Schnuer.

Yeah, there are a few things here and there from places far, far away but, looking around my apartment, I realized that most of my art/knickknacks/stuff was hauled home in my carry-on, checked baggage or the trunk of a rental car from a trip to one of the 50. OK, I shipped the bear lamp home. This is some of it ...

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Welcome to Flyover America

United States Map Photo by Marxchivist, via Flickr (Creative Commons).
Photo by Marxchivist, via Flickr (Creative Commons).

Hi. We are Sophia Dembling and Jenna Schnuer. Sophia lives in Dallas, Texas (but was Manhattan born and reared), and Jenna in Queens, NY (aka “not Manhattan”), and we are both writers who are in love with America. Every diner and prairie and highway of it. The places that many people consider flyover territory—Lincoln, Nebraska; Lubbock Texas; Bayonne, New Jersey, and the like—grab hold of us. Flyover America is as much a state of mind as a place. We like to think of it as anywhere in America that isn’t Manhattan or L.A. Flyover America is packed with stories, discoveries and soul. And it’s got some great malls, too.

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Nation Branding for your iPod? Canada Votes for a National Playlist.

Nation Branding for your iPod? Canada Votes for a National Playlist. Photo by FHKE via Flickr, (Creative Commons)
Photo by FHKE via Flickr, (Creative Commons)

Call it change you can listen to: CBC Radio is hoping to get some made-in-Canada music onto incoming President Obama’s iPod.

The Canadian broadcaster is accepting nominations for a “definitive Canadian playlist”—dubbed “49 Songs from North of the 49th Parallel”—to be unveiled on Obama’s inauguration day. “One of the best ways to know Canada is through the depth and breadth of our artistic expression,” said a CBC representative. “We’re excited about the new president, and we want him to be excited about us.”

So how do you go about compiling a definitive national playlist? CBC producers will whittle the suggestions from the public down to a manageable 100 most-nominated songs, and then online voting will cut the shortlist down to the final 49.

Sure, the project seems a tad goofy—realistically, Obama will have bigger things to worry about on Jan. 20 than whether he prefers Stompin’ Tom Connors or Gordon Lightfoot—but it got me thinking about music and national identity.

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