Home Sweet Home!

Well, it's official - I'm back in the City of Brotherly Love!
I have had an amazing time on my trip, but I'm so excited to be back!




I love love love this city!

Okay so my official end of tour is tomorrow's show at 2nd Street Annie's....I hope to see all of you Phillies there!!

Thanks so much for keeping up with my travels by reading the blog - I'll continue to post about my travels and happenings in the music world of Mary - so keep checking back!

May 30 (Saturday): 5:30pm
2nd Street Annie's
628 N. Front Street (Front and Fairmount Ave)
Philadelphia, PA 19123
with special guest Jacob Mathew and more (plus full band!)!
21+

Onwards through Pennsylvania...

I was up early Wednesday morning and back on the road, this time heading for Harrisburg - it was time to visit my extended family!

Pennsylvania really is a beautiful state to drive through - lots of farms and mountains and overall pretty scenery.

Wednesday was particularly foggy, which made this very cool looking.

I spent the day visiting with my sister, grandfather, goddaughter, aunts and uncles, cousins and this super cute new puppy.

To Pittsburgh!

Yesterday's partially rainy, partially beautiful sunny ride...KY, OH, WV and PA...

The side of this "monster truck" read "Budget Off-Road"

Driving over the bridge from Ohio into West Virginia...and then we quickly crossed into PA.


Nick joined me for this leg of the driving - he flew in to Louisville for the weekend, and then we drove to Pittsburgh, where he just barely caught his flight back to Philly...whew!

I surprised myself by breathing a sigh of relief when we crossed into Pennsylvania - I have been having such a wonderful time visiting different cities in different states, but I love PA and I think I was just happy to know that I made it back in one piece! But I'm not quite home yet!

Tonight's Show:

Your Inner Vagabond; 8pm

4130 Butler Street

Pittsburgh, PA 15201

all ages!

Memorial Day

Today was my Memorial Day...tomorrow I'll be making my way to Pittsburgh, so I did my relaxing at bbqing today with family in Kentucky.

In leu of a story or pictures, here's a video from my cd release back in October.
(Thanks Hil ;)

Derby City Espresso For Real!

Yesterday Nick flew in to Louisville to spend the long weekend and got to enjoy the set-back of THIS stop.

After picking him up from the airport we decided to stop at Dairy Queen to get some ice cream.
I'm not quite sure what happened, but I turned off the car, got out, locked and shut the door.....aaaaaand there were my keys, on the other side of the window, sitting comfortably on my seat. I knew it immediately after starting to swing the door shut but it was too late. It happened so fast!

It was the best set-back I'd had, however. We called AAA and went inside to sit in the air conditioning and enjoy some ice cream while we waited. It was the first time I'd ever locked my keys in the car, but I couldn't have picked a better place to do it.

Nick's extended family lives here in Louisville, so we got to visit at dinner and then they came out to the show at Derby City Espresso. It was a neat place with a lot of very cool artwork, and the two local musicians, Jamie Barnes and Brooks Ritter were very welcoming and happy to have me and another out-of-towner, Mike Griffin, at the shop.

Derby City Espresso

Great show at a great coffee house tonight - blog and photos to follow tomorrow!

Nashville!

I woke up today, put on my drivin' dress (that's right, I have a specified outfit for long drives...it's a strapless sundress - can't be getting funny tan lines from my extended time behind the wheel!) and was on my way to Nashville.

First of all, it amuses me the way that scenery almost instantly changes as you cross state lines. That's one thing I've found about the south - each state is extremely distinct in it's landscape (similar to a point, but you know what I mean.) One minute you're riding past the red clay dirt in Georgia, and all of a sudden you're going through the rolling hills of Tennessee.

It was a BEAUTIFUL ride.





Today was a day of many firsts for me - the most obvious one being that it was my first time in Tennessee (minus an hour layover in the airport once...I don't count that.)
Another was as soon as I passed this sign that said "Tennessee Welcomes You," there was a sign that said "Now entering Central Time Zone." I've never seen a sign like that before! I've been in plenty of other time zones, but I've never "crossed over" so officially.

The road took me back into Georgia for a little while and into Tennessee again - all the while everything in my eyesight was just beautiful green, expansive hills. Oh and also a good number of firework warehouses.



After some slight confusion I made my way to the Grand Ole Opry!

I had just missed getting into the tour, so I went for a tour of the museum and waited around for the last tour of the day.

It was a good thing though, because since it was the late afternoon, they were having rehearsal for that evening's performance and I got to hear some great music!

We went backstage AND onstage.


We also had a chance running in with The Whites, who were performing tonight, as well as Larry Gatlin, the Opry's host.



After the tour I went downtown to get some food and to catch some live music before I made my way to Kentucky.
I accidently parked on the same street as the Ryman Auditorium, the original host of the Grand Ole Opry, so I got to see that too!



After getting dinner it was time for me to sit back and enjoy some excellent music - there were performances in every bar and you could hear the honky-tonk all the way up the street! (Which, by the way, was lined with all kinds of people, heavy on the cowboy hats.) It was way fun. 





Nashville's definitely my kind of town. :)

Smith's Olde Bar

So Atlanta's mishap event (it happens with every stop!) was with timing at the bar...we had some double booking errors of sorts....but it all worked out! (Thanks to the flexibility of our sound man Sean and the other musicians)

There was a nice big crowd there ready for a lovely Wednesday evening of Mary Scholz - even a few from Philly who were in Atlanta on business!
(Too many to name, but you know who you are - thanks so much for coming out!)

I'll definitely miss Georgia - I really love it here - but I am so excited for my time in Nashville and Louisville this weekend!

World of Coca-Cola

Day two in Atlanta, and it was off to The Vortex for lunch and the World of Coke.
First of all, let me say that The Vortex, which is apparently featured on many travel channel food specials, is a biker-style bar that has menu items such as the "Double Coronary Bypass." This particular burger has two burger patties, separated by two grilled-cheese sandwiches (which act as buns)...it also includes a couple of fried eggs, 5 slices of American cheese and 5 slices of bacon. I can't even imagine.

I had a burger with mushrooms. And fried zucchini. Mmmm....

We kept driving further into town, parked the car and made our way through the Centennial Olympic Park. 

I really enjoyed walking through and seeing the fountains. There is apparently a drought here so they only had the big Olympic-ring-shaped fountain in working order - but they still had the "fountain show" on...meaning that loud, inspiring Olympic-style music played while the water danced...it was very fun. 

After that, it was off to the World of Coca-Cola - where we learned all about the history of Coke, watched commercials from all around the world and saw a 4-D film about it.





Ooooh....Coca-Cola harp!

The torch from the Atlanta Games....

My favorite part, however, was the part they saved for last - the tasting room.


It was just full of soda fountains with different Coca-Cola products from around the world - it was amazing!

I'll be back on stage tomorrow...until then!