FALLing into a month of fun

With late September bringing the start of the fall season, we've had a month of fun activities around our local region here to report:

Saturday, 9/21/13 - We had tickets to see The Alabama Shakes at the Fontanel Amphitheater in Nashville tonight.   We had an early dinner beforehand at the Crow's Nest Sports Bar in Green Hills.  We got to Fontanel in time to grab some FRONT ROW spots for the show! Theopening two bands, Majestico and The Dexateens, were OK but their sound engineering was crappy making their vocals weak to nonexistent. Overall, The Shakes are solid and tight as a band, but there isn't a ton of showmanship on stage when they play. It was a good show, but nothing to compare to some of the other great shows we've seen this summer. The highlight of the night was probably the Jeni's Ice Cream we had before the show!  Yumm-o!

Friday, 9/27/13 -  We stayed in Wilson County tonight and enjoyed a nice dinner on the patio at Mirko's Italian Restaurant in Mt. Juliet and then caught a showing of "We're the Millers" at the local movie theater which was hilarious.


Saturday, 9/28/13 - We continued the weekend at home with a good hike in the Cedars of Lebanon State Park We did two laps of the Cedar Forest Loop for a total of 6K in distance.  This great little IPhone app called TrackRec does a cool job of keeping up with your distance as well as your route. 

Sunday,9/29/13:  Our old friend, Wayne, invited us to an early-season Titans game vs. the New York Jets.  It was a beautiful sunset after a beautiful, dominating win for our boys.  Before the 3 PM kick-off, we had a tasty lunch over at Drifter's Barbecue in East Nashville.



After the game, we returned back to East Nashville for some awesome ice cream at Jeni's.

Saturday, 10/5/13 - We had a return visit and stay at Evins Mill Inn over in Smithville, TN, this weekend along with Ashlee's mom, Evelyn.  We had good weather and great food.  This was an extra special trip because it was Evelyn's first real "vacation" since her serious illness last year.  The inn itself had some exciting news also with plans to add a large addition to the property soon.  In the photo above Evelyn and Ashlee stroll along the walkway above the dam at Evins Mill.

Monday, 10/7/13 - We HAD tickets to see NeedtoBreathe at Exit/In tonight which was a quickly SOLD OUT show since it's such a small venue.  Due to time constraints, making the show was going to be tough so on a whim I posted the tickets on Craigslist.com for an exorbitant amount and amazingly, a really nice guy from Knoxville bought them.  Sorry, N2B, but we've seen you guys a few times already and we just made $110, and a big fan of yours got to see you guys for the first time in a great venue.

Part of that time crunch that forced us to skip the N2B show was the fact that Ashlee and I had  separate trips coming up the proceeding weekend of 10/10 through 10/13 with her going to Austin City Limits while I headed off to Seattle for a guys trip to see the Titans play the Seahawks (more on that trip in my beer blog).

Saturday, 10/19/13 - We had a terrific dinner at the awesome Watermark Restaurant in downtown Nashville  with Ashlee's cousin Steve and his wife, Jennifer, tonight.

Sunday, 10/20/13 - Wayne allowed us to use a couple of his season tickets again for another Titans game vs. the San Francisco 49ers along with him and our friend, Mike.  It was a tough loss to very talented team.

Thursday, 10/24/13 - We attended our first Predators hockey game of the season vs. the Winnipeg Jets with our friends, Danny and Brenda, tonight.  It turned out to be a thrilling 3-2 win in overtime.  Our lower bowl seats behind the Defend Twice Goal were a good deal and only about 10 rows off the ice.

Saturday, 11/2/13:  We caught a showing of the amazing film Gravity (in 3D) tonight.  This was the second time I had seen it and it was just as good the second time (or maybe better since it was with my honey!).