55 Years Done Spring, Sprang, Sprung!

Friday, Apri 1 - After picking up our friend, Nate, we headed up to Louisville after work today in a nice Toyota Camry rental from the Turo app that we picked up here in town to keep the wear and tear off of our cars.  We stayed at a Hampton Inn on the other side of Louisville in New Albany, Indiana, and had dinner and drinks at the nearby Floyd County Brewing.   After dinner we discovered a fun old band of hippies playing out back of the brewery in their Grain Haus called Hooter and Doobers.  What a fun and quirky surprise!  They even had a flautist!  

Saturday, April 2 - After a great breakfast at Wild Eggs in Louisville (so sad the one in downtown Nashville is no more), we drove on to Columbus, Ohio, for the Nashville Soccer Club Road game vs. the Columbus Crew.  Before the game. we hit a couple more breweries included the hilariously named Hoof Hearted Brewing which we visited before a few years back on another road trip up this way to see the Nashville Predators play (and win).  We walked over to North High Brewing next and met up with our friends, Chris and Tarryn.  Then it was off to the game in the beautiful new Lower.com Field Stadium and to meet up with two more friends, Craig and Alison.  We won a thrilling 1-0 match that helped NSC get some much-needed points in the standings, but the game was marred for us by some rude, obnoxious fans...for Nashville!?!?  Never again will we sit with these rowdy a-holes.  What a shame.  

Sunday, April 3 - We did the entire drive home from Columbus today but did break it up with a nice stop just outside of Cincinnati for a brewery tour and lunch at Cartridge Brewing in Maineville, Ohio.   These guys have set up shop in an old ammunition plant built back in 1860's called Peters Cartridge Company (hence the brewery name).  It's a beautiful old structure (thanks AtlasObscura.com) that's also been turned into apartments. Pictured above are the original smokestack and shot tower used during production.  The tour was fun and informal with a nice 5-count flight of their beers at the end.   Their food was good as well, and we enjoyed the company of Ashlee's cousins, Leslie, and her daughter, LeeAnn, who live nearby for the tour and for lunch. 

Monday, April 4 - We attended the "Bumps, Bruises and Bedtime Stories" show with past Nashville Predators players at Zanies Comedy Club tonight with our friend, Richard, and his girlfriend.  It was a great show with four former-Preds who still live here now telling great very funny stories of their careers in the NHL (former goalie, Chris Mason, couldn't make it). The host was comedian, Steve Byrne, who now lives here in Nashville as well and was quite hilarious himself. 

Tuesday, April 5 - We FIINALLY got to check out the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit with a bunch of our friends tonight over in West Nashville after countless delays for this nationwide show stopping here for a limited engagement.  Beforehand, we all had dinner at the always-great J. Alexander's nearby.  The exhibit exceeded our expectations and was very unique, beautiful and interesting. 

We had a large group of friends attend with us including Nate, Ginny, Bethany, Danny and Brenda, who I snapped this cool picture of as she was immersed in Van Gogh on all sides. 

Wednesday, April 13 - Mother Nature tried her best to knock us out of another concert, but we braved the stormy elements and made it to the JohnnySwim show at The Grand Ole Opry House tonight.  Beforehand, we had a great dinner nearby at The Bavarian Bierhaus in the Opry Mills Mall. 

We had great seats down on the main floor of The Grand Ole Opry House, and Amanda and Abner, the husband/wife heart and soul of Johnnyswim put on a great show including bringing on Drew and Ellie Holcomb for a few songs to close out the show. and Abner coming down in the crowd very near us for the final song.   So great to see these guys live, and up close and personal for the first time. 

Saturday,  April 17 - We got a couple nice Stubhub fire-sale floor seats at The Ryman tonight to see one of our favorite local guys who's made it pretty big now, Mat Kearney.  He didn't play as many "old" tunes for our taste, and the new stuff is just OK, but overall it was a fun show along with a pretty good opener, Birdtalker, who are also locals.  Our dinner plans got way-laid by some crazy traffic so we wound up eating hot dogs at The Ryman concession stand which weren't half bad! 

Sunday, April 17 - We were downtown again today to attend the SOLD OUT Hatch Show Print "Block" Party at The Country Music Hall of Fame.  This event gave us the chance to use the historic Hatch Show Print block letter-press tools and ink to create our own posters, T-shirts, and canvas tote bags.  We thought we were only going to get to make one thing each, but they let us have at it for almost two hours to make as much stuff as we wanted!  The collection above is Ashlee's (which were better than mine), but we both had a ball creating keepsakes.  We also got to keep our Hatch Print aprons we wore and we got a professionally-made event poster as well.  What a great deal! 

Dudley is reporting that spring done sprung!! 

Tuesday, April 19 - We were downtown yet again tonight to attend our first Preds game of the season as they battle for a playoff spot with just a few regular-season games left.  Our seats were great, albeit a little tight...that's probably a change in us more than the seats!  Plus, we had just had some great 1/2 price chicken and biscuits downstairs before we sat down. A couple of definite big changes were Pekka Rinne's retired jersey number in the rafters, and the amazing new jumbotron hanging over the ice.  We snuck out a little early to beat the traffic after the Preds blew an early 2-0 lead to the Calgary Flames, but were glad to hear they got at least a couple points with a shoot-out win in OT.  

Wednesday, April 20 - It's my birthday!!  I'm 55 and Fine!!  Since we were traveling this weekend to a wedding and with my birthday falling in the middle of the week, we opted to stay home for this one.  We decided to do dinner and check out the music of Coldplay by candlelight (you guessed it - in downtown Nashville again) instead.   Dinner became quite the conumdrum when every place we tried was weirdly packed on a Wednesday night?  WTH?  We finally got in to Waldo's Chicken and Beer in Germantown which was fine with me since it focuses on two things I really like!   The hour-long show was simply amazing.  It was held in the Downtown Presbyterian Church sanctuary which had great acoustics and beautiful ambiance with the candles and the awesome stained glass windows they have. 

Thursday, April 21 - After work today, we flew up to Philly to stay with our friends, Mike and Eileen, who live in nearby Media, PA, to attend their daughter Megan's wedding tomorrow night.   The flight was packed,  but it was our first one with no masks necessary in a couple years.

Friday, April 22 - The outdoor wedding of Megan and Kieran's at The Duke Sculpture Garden at The Dixon Mansion in nearby Wallingford, PA, was beautiful and the weather cooperated perfectly (must be nice, right, hon?).  We ate, drank and partied late into the night and had a great time.  We wish the best of luck to the young couple and thanks for the invite! 
Before the festivities, we worked a little at Eileen's house, ran some errands, and took a drive over to Tap 24 for lunch and a look around the nice town of Media, PA.  

Saturday, April 23 - After a great late breakfast cooked by Eileen, we loaded up and headed to the Philadelphia Union MLS soccer game vs. the Montreal Impact.  The pretty Subaru Stadium is very close to Eileen and Mike's house, and they are pretty big fans since their other daughter, Erin, has actually worked for the team in sports medicine.  Ashlee wasn't into the game, so she mostly ran around to peruse the stadium's alcohol stands with Eileen's sister, Kath, who was also there without much interest in the game... and it was her birthday!   Meanwhile, the game concluded in a tough-fought 1-1 draw. It was a fun, family atmosphere...which you don't expect in Philly.  
After the game we stopped by Cocca's Pizza in the town of Aston for an interesting Del-Co dinner. 

Since we were in the Del-Co (Delaware County), I guess we shoulda went to the WaWa for a wet-ass hoagie (WAH) in honor of Aunt Mary Pat, the drag-queen comedian from this area that we love.   We chilled back at Mike and Eileen's tonight since we have a very early flight home tomorrow morning.

Sunday, April 24 - Our best flight choice today was a mind-numbing 6 AM flight (direct at least) from Philly back to Nashville.  Of course, after a nap, we did have the whole day to recover.  

Ashlee took the first full swim of the year in the cold, but not bone-chilling, pool today.  That's one way to wake up from a 6 AM flight home!   Congrats, honey!  I couldn't get past my knees. BRRRR!