Two, no make that three, VIP Experiences Within a Week

After our recent VIP experience at Bridgestone Arena with the Pink concert, we had a few other chances to be sort-of snooty:.

Thursday, March 14:

We grabbed two VIP tickets  for one of our favorite 90's bands, Better Than Ezra, at one of our favorite Nashville music venues, The Cannery.  One hundred percent of the funds went to The Montessori School of Franklin where BTE lead singer (and now Nashville native), Kevin Griffin, has his twin sons enrolled.  The openers were former American Idol winner, David Cook, who has a great voice, and another of our favs from the 90's, Emerson Hart, lead singer and founder of the band, Tonic.  Emerson is also a local now with a home down in Leiper's Fork.

Besides the ultra-cool side-stage viewing platform (this is where the stage is for most performances), the SOLD OUT VIP section gave us access to some tasty food and a great open bar.

Friday, March 15 thru Monday, March 18:  We celebrated St. Patty's Day weekend down in Chattanooga and it started off with a bang as Ashlee's mom, Evelyn, (our favorite VIP) finally got to leave the hospital after six tough months of recovery from an aortic tear and several complications afterward.  Welcome home, Mrs. Carroll!!!

Sunday, March 17:  Thanks to Groupon.com, we were able to snag a fancy Victorian-era rail-car room at the famous Chattanooga Choo-Choo for an affordable price.  We stayed in the last one on the left in the photo above.

The room consists of half of a converted passenger rail car and had a ton of room.  In the photo above, our niece, Ella, checks out the TV in the room while Ashlee and Mrs. Carroll (balled up under the blanket) check out the comfy bed.  The full bathroom is behind me and was quite roomy as well.  We really enjoyed our brief stay in here.

Our final VIP situation came on Sunday night at Chattanooga's Tivoli Theater as we enjoyed front row seats and a backstage meet-n-greet for our favorite comedian, Jim Gaffigan.

This photo of Jim Gaffigan performing at The Tivoli Theater is kind of a goof in terms of photography, but it couldn't really be more accurate in terms of Jim's persona as a very "pale fellow."

Here's the pale one himself, mugging it up with us after the show.  The really funny thing about this weekend is that we stayed at the Chattanooga Choo Choo all weekend (just one night in the fancy rail car) and SO DID JIM AND HIS HUGE FAMILY! (5 kids...Catholic!)  We just keep seeing them and bumping into them and they couldn't have seen more nice and down-to-earth.  Thanks for all the fun, Jim!

An Off-the-Wall Triple in Downtown Nashville

It's been a busy start to the month of March for us:



Puckett's Grocery

Saturday, March 2 - We plunked down some major cashola to get VIP tickets to see Pink at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville tonight.  There were several reasons for our hefty investment.  First, we both like her music. Second, she is said to put on quite a live show.  Third, the Bridgestone is far from our favorite place to see music and if we can't general admission in front of the stage, then we were going to get as close as we could.   Beforehand, we had dinner at Puckett's Grocery downtown with our friend, Bridgette, who was going to the show with us.  This was our first time at this southern-food favorite that got it's start out in Franklin, TN. I had my first go at "chicken and waffles" and I have to admit they are pretty darn good. All the food was delicious, hearty and very affordable.  We will definitely be making other visits to this establishment when we have downtown events.  And they take reservations! 

The SOLD OUT show was in the simplest terms...AMAZING!  Easily the best arena show we have ever seen.  Our seats were great.  They were elevated and to the right center of the stage so we saw everything with a perfect view.  The production was something straight out of Broadway and/or Las Vegas with huge sound, bright lights and constant action.  The opening band, The Hives, were hugely entertaining as well.  Besides our swell seats, our VIP tickets got us a cloth goody bag stuffed with Pink promotional items like a trucker hat and a huge knit throw blanket from her Truth About Love Tour.

One good-lookin' mama...this was Pink's first tour after having her first child a couple years ago.

Our seats were very close to the stage and to Pink herself except for the times she went flying across the entire freakin' arena!  Great music and superb acrobatics made this the best arena show we've ever seen.

As this close-up shot shows, Pink was having a genuinely good time doing what she does best.  She's a solid performer and we feel privileged to have seen her play live.

Tuesday, March 5:   We caught one of only three showings of the Broadway musical hit, American Idiot, tonight at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Jackson Hall.  While not knowing a whole lot about it going in, we thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish.  It was actually a nice complement to the Pink show we saw a few days earlier which also did a great job of combining rock music with theatrics.



Our fourth row seats gave us a great view of the stage.  The rock-n-roll based musical  based on the hit concept album of the same name by the superstar group, Green Day, had a great, young cast (some of which we saw mingling with crowd out in the lobby after the show). One of the parts of the program that we liked best was the fact that a live rock band was on stage with the cast providing the music during the performance.

Wednesday, March 6: - We caught one of favorite "new to us" bands, The Gaslight Anthem, at Marathon Music Works in downtown Nashville.  They had a good opening band as well out of Charlotte, NC, called Matrimony.  The sound engineering was still at a little suspect at times in this venue where we've had one good and one bad experience in the past.  Some consistency in the sound quality is still needed for us to consider this a "good" venue.

In total contrast to the two previous music endeavors we experienced earlier in the week, these boys from Jersey are basically just a stripped-down, primal rock-and-roll band.



A few little sumpin' sumpin's

A few activities of note over the past three weeks or so:

Friday, February 8:  We attended the first of four sold-out shows for comedian, Drew Carey, at Zanies in Nashville.  He was pretty funny and his insight behind his new gig as host of "The Price is Right" was hilarious.."cash, cars and trips!"  He also had a pretty good opener by the name of Brendon Walsh. Our front row balcony seats were great.  Thanks to our friends, Wayne, Mike, John and Monique for attending with us.

Saturday, February 9:  We went and saw the re-release of the 1987 classic, "Top Gun" as it was presented in IMAX and 3D at Opry Mills Theaters in Nashville.  The 3D wasn't that big of a deal, but the IMAX conversion was excellent.  Maverick and Goose never looked so good...or BIG!!  Thanks to our friend, Mike, for attending with us.

Thursday, February 14:  We spent Valentine's Day at home this year and made some kind-of last-minute reservations for dinner at a new Italian restaurant over in East Nashville called Pomodoro East.   The food was very good and reasonably-priced, and Ashlee's violet martini (photo above) was tasty.  We have been looking for a good Italian place in Nashville and  we will definitely be back here, especially when it warms up because they have a sweet patio seating area as well.

Friday, February 15:  We weren't really planning on going to see Kid Rock at The Bridgestone Arena in Nashville (not our particular style of music and not our favorite music venue), but when a pair of tickets became available and were offered to us by our good friends, Chris and Tarryn, we decided to give it a go.  The concert wasn't half-bad and the guy is definitely a showman.  Our seats were good and dinner before the show at Big River Grille was tasty.  Thanks again to Chris and Tarryn for the invitation as well as their friends (and now ours), Stewart and Stacey, who also attended dinner and the show.

Monday, February 18:  We took advantage of the President's Day holiday today and slipped over to Belcourt Avenue in Nashville  for a late lunch/early dinner at Belcourt Taps (tasty "stuffed" burgers and good beer on tap) and then walked back across the street to The Belcourt Theatre to catch The Oscar Nominated Short Films (live and animated) for this year.  This has become a bit of a tradition for us the past couple years in preparation for the upcoming Oscars ceremony and the coinciding party we are invited to each year at our friend Brenda's house (see below for more info).  This year's entries weren't as good as the previous year's in our opinion, but all of them were interesting.  No clear-cut winners could be determined by us in either category, so it's anybody's guess who will win.

Saturday, February 23:  We were down in Chattanooga visiting Ashlee's mom (who continues to recover nicely) and since her house is a construction site currently due to a bathroom remodeling project, we decided to have a bit of a "stay-cation" by booking a cheap room (thanks to Hotwire.com's buy-it-blind program) at the historic and lovely Read House downtown.  The room was great and the bed was amazingly comfortable.  We slept in the following morning after a great dinner across the river at the Brewhaus, which has quickly become one of our favorite Chattanooga eateries.

Sunday, February 24:  We were invited again and attended again our friend, Brenda's, fantastic Oscar party and had a great time as usual.  Brenda added a twist this year by inviting all guests to dress in movie-related costumes if they wanted to with a chance for prizes.  I am proud to say that Ashlee took second place (which was a DVD copy of the soon-to-be-crowned Best Picture - "Argo") with her funny rendition of the bounty hunter, Django from another best picture nominee, "Django Unchained."  My costume mimicking the android, David, from my favorite film of the year, "Prometheus" didn't fare as well, but I liked it and it was damn comfortable!  Thanks, as always, to Brenda for throwing such a fab soiree of great food and good times.


Monday, February 25:  Tonight, we decided to plunk down some solid cash again and get our favorite Nashville Predator seats down on the glass behind the visitors' penalty box (we've sat here two other times and loved it).  Our friend, Mike, was in town and had never sat on the glass, so we figured that was as good an excuse as any.  Well, we couldn't have picked a better game to sit where we did.  There was  lots of action and scoring, lots of penalties for Dallas giving us a chance to razz the players sitting in front of us.  A couple of them were once again willing to read our signs for them:  "Never heard of you???"  and "ESPN is reporting you just got traded!"  and acknowledge us with a smile and a laugh.  There was a huge glove-dropping fight in the 3rd period, and finally, and best of all, the Preds had a dramatic comeback and overtime win of 5-4.  We had a pre-game dinner up in The Suite Spot up in the Patron Platinum Level of the Bridgestone Arena (access granted by our fancy tickets) which serves high-end concessions (the Buffalo chicken mac-n-cheese and the spicy southwestern meatballs were excellent).  Thanks to our good friend, Wayne, for coming with us again as well.

"Twinkle, twinkle, little Dallas Stars."  Let's try and count all of them...one, two...three...oh, wait, I see another one!  Make that FOUR Dallas stars crammed into the penalty box.  Naughty, naughty, boys! 

Below is a quick a video of the opening puck-drop that gives a sense of how close we were to the lightning-quick action.



A pretty darn fun February if we do say so ourselves!

TallahasSEE DUKE PLAY

Friday, February 1, 2013:  We rented a car and headed south for a long weekend in Florida's panhandle to catch our favorite college basketball team, the Duke Blue Devils, take on the Florida State Seminoles on the road in some ACC action.



After picking up our friend, Mike, who lives in Chattanooga and who is also a Duke fan and had never seen them play live before, the three of us stopped for lunch in Atlanta at The Vortex.  The food was amazing and the downtown location is very cool.  We were lucky to get in right before it got really crowded for lunch.  We will be adding this place to our list of  Atlanta favorites for sure.



To break up a bit of the 7-hour drive south, we got off the interstate and headed into SW Georgia and stopped in Warm Springs about an hour out of Atlanta and the home of the presidential retreat (aka The Little White House) of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The place is quite lovely and the tour and museum were very interesting.  Ashlee had been here before but only as a kid, and we all agreed it was a great stop.  We highly recommend it.  The quaint home, designed by FDR himself is pictured above with a bit of that nostalgic Instagram look to it.

Next stop was another hour or so south in the good-sized town of Columbus, GA, at The Cannon Brewpub  located in the city's quaint downtown.  We were still full from the lunch at The Vortex so we just split a plate of blue-cheese chips and did some beer samplers.  Their beer is pretty good  For more on it, see my beer blog.



We arrived in Tallahassee around dark and checked in to the Doubletree Hotel near the state capitol and within walking distance of the Leon County Civic Center where tomorrow's game was being held.  None of us had really spent any time in Florida's state capital before now, but we have to say it's a pretty nice, albeit small, city.  The Spanish moss in all the trees just adds to the allure.

Saturday, February 2, 2013:  Since the game wasn't until 2 PM, we decided that since we were so close to the Gulf of Mexico, we just had to go see it.


Yep, he's real, and yep, he's every bit of six foot long, and yep, he's just across a small canal from us in the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge.  We saw a ton of wildlife during our short time in the refuge including tons of different birds and even a couple deer, but this big guy was the star of the day.  Kind of glad he was snoozing and not interested in us!!



We lucked up on our visit to St. Marks for a couple reasons.  One, the weather, albeit a bit on the cool side, was beautiful. And, secondly, they were having a festival in the refuge this weekend and the beautiful old (second oldest in Florida, actually) lighthouse (pictured above) was open (at least at the base) for tours.

We got back to Tallahassee in time to catch the pregame warm-ups for Duke and FSU.  The Leon County Civic Center is a decent venue and the view from our seats (pictured above) was good, but it's a bit aged as a facility, and we were surprised that the Seminoles didn't have their own arena on the large and quite nice FSU campus.  The game was a clinic from the start as # 5 Duke jumped out to a huge lead over the young and rebuilding FSU squad and cruised to a 19-point victory, 79-60.



We decided after the game that we wanted dinner on the water somewhere since we were so close and enjoyed it so much earlier in the day.  After a bit of Internet research back at the room, we settled on going back down where we were that morning to the actual town of St. Marks which sits on the river of the same name (photo above).

The Riverside Cafe in St. Marks is nothing fancy and their menu is fairly predictable in terms of seafood, but it was exactly what we were looking for as it sits not by the water of the St. Marks River but OVER it as part of a large floating dock complex there.  The temps dropped again as the sun went down and we were happy for the kerosene heaters as we ate in their partially open dining room.  After dinner we headed back into Tallahassee and found a cool brewpub/bar called Proof Brewing near the FSU campus and had a few more tasty adult beverages.

Sunday, February 3, 2013:  We packed up and headed north and stuck to the interstate for the most part as we wanted to make it back in time to watch the Super Bowl.  Our only diversion besides stopping for a gas and a quick fast food meal was in Atlanta again at the humongous IKEA Store for a bit of shopping.  All three of us came out of there with something which isn't hard since the prices are so good.  It was another good trip built around our beloved Dukies.  It's been fun seeing the Blue Devils play on the road the last few years, but we both agree we must get back to beautiful Cameron Indoor Stadium as soon as we can.  Next season, hopefully....GO DUKE!!  Thanks to our friend, Mike, for going with us on this trip and providing us with some excellent company.

Keane are Keen and Augustana are Awesome

We caught a couple of good shows this past week:

Wednesday, January 23:  We grabbed some under-face-value Stubhub.com "fire sale" tickets to see the English pop/rock quartet, Keane, at the Ryman Auditorium.  The one hitch was that we had to buy three tickets to get the deal so we invited our friend, Wayne, to with us.  The show was good despite not being completely sold out.  Below is a snippet of one of their most popular hits, "Everybody's Changing" from our vantage point in the balcony.   Before the show we had a great dinner at the always-delicious Suzy Wong's House of Yum.

Friday, January 25: We were excited to hear that one of our favorite bands, Augustana, included Nashville on their most current acoustic tour.  They were scheduled to play the tiny High Watt stage at the 8th Avenue Music Complex, but ticket sales were so brisk that they were moved to the larger Mercy Lounge (where we last saw them) and they sold that out too!. Not only is Augustana one of our favorite bands, but they are also one of the most schizophrenic - i.e.  they never have the same line-up when we see them.  This was the most stripped-down we have seen them with only lead singer (and heart and soul), Dan Layus, and an accompanying friend playing piano (and accordion on a few songs).   The voice and fire of Layus are really all you need though as the short clip below of one over favs, "Steal Your Heart" will attest.  The show was excellent. Although we do hope he's working on putting together another plugged-in version  of Augustana since he played several good new songs also.  Thanks to our friends Wayne, Mike, Chris and Tarryn,  for attending with us and grabbing some dinner beforehand at the great Music City Flats (the former Urban Flats chain, now locally owned and better than ever).

10,000 Elusive Sandhill Cranes

For two weekends in a row recently, we tried to see an estimated 10,000 sandhill cranes nesting in the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge on the Tennessee River north of Chattanooga by boat, but weather was a factor both times.  Despite the setbacks, we actually had a pretty good time on both trips.

Heavy fog was the culprit on our first try on January 12, 2013.  Despite much warmer-than-usual temperatures, the fog never lifted enough for us to make it all the way to the nesting site.

Blue Moon Cruises were our guides on both trips and provided a beautiful boat with comfortable amenities.  Our first cruise was booked through and sponsored by the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga.

It's not like we didn't see any sandhill cranes.  This little group was spotted heading back to the refuge from our boat.

We went north from the Sale Creek Marina to just past the Highway 60 bridge that connects Dayton and Decatur, TN, before having to turn around due to fog so heavy the captain was navigating only by radar and for the sake of safety had to call it off.  We still wound up having a nice cruise as the area is beautiful even shrouded in fog and we did see some wildlife.  Thanks to our friends, TIm and Lavonda, for tagging along with us and thanks to Blue Moon Cruises for the great lunch provided plus the chance to come back for another free cruise and try again to see the cranes and the refuge area.  We headed back to Chattanooga and caught a matinee showing of "This is 40" which was very funny and enjoyable as well as a delicious dinner at the always-great Urban Stack gourmet burger joint.

Saturday, January 19, 2013:  Now this is more like it!  We decided to go ahead and take our bonus cruise the very next weekend since the weather was clear (albeit a bit colder).  However, little did we know until we got to the refuge area that the heavy amount of rain over the preceding week had flooded the mud flats where the sandhill cranes usually hang out and forced them farther off the river and barely visable from the boat.  Again, the trip wasn't a total loss since we saw a several bald eagles, great blue herons, kingfishers, geese and ducks.

OK, yes, I love my new Smartphone for goofy stuff like this.  This screenshot also shows a lot of the over 1,000 acres of land encompassed in the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge.

Great blue heron.

ALL parts of the Hiwassee Refuge Area are used by the nesting birds including this TVA transmission tower.

This HUGE bald eagle nest had a mother in it whose white head would pop up now and then and what we can only assume were some eggs or eaglets she was caring for.  We were surprised to hear that such nests can weigh over a ton!

The beauty of this place is hard to ignore.  Thanks again to our friends, Tim and Lavonda, for trooping out again with us as well as Ashlee's sister, Paige, and our niece, Ella.  We met back up with Tim and Lavonda again later that night in Chattanooga for dinner at a great new Mexican restaurant they suggested called Poblanos.  The food was marvelous.

Happy New Year, Mon!

We took a quick trip down to Jamaica to celebrate New Year's.  While this trip had been planned for a while, it was up in the air if we would actually go until the last minute due to the ongoing medical condition of Ashlee's mom, Evelyn.  But, with improved progress in her health and an understanding and blessing by Evelyn herself, we decided to go.  This trip had a couple of "firsts" for us.  It would be the first time we would be staying in an "all-inclusive" resort and it's the first time we had bought a package deal (i.e. flight, ground transportation and lodging) from a travel company.  Our usual modus operandi is finding cheap airfare and building a trip around it ourselves, but we got a decent package rate and wanted to try an all-inclusive resort at least once in our lives.

Saturday, December 29, 2012 - We drove down to Atlanta to catch our direct flight into Montego Bay.  While we enjoy the convenience of flying out of Nashville, we always check Atlanta and a lot of times their airfares are much lower to certain destinations.  This was the same with the package deal we bought which was a much better overall rate out of Atlanta than out of Nashville.



The descent into Montego Bay was breath-taking.

Our resort, the Riu ClubHotel, was just outside of Negril, Jamaica, on the far west tip of the island.  The hour-and-a-half ride from the Montego Bay Airport was a bit long, but at least it hugged the coastline for most  of the way providing us with some nice views here and there.  Jamaica is an extremely poor country which is evident fairly quickly.   However, the roadsides and small towns we passed were fairly clean and tidy.  This was not case, for example, in Belize which we visited a few years ago on a cruise where not only was the country poor, but the residents there didn't seem to care about upkeep or trash removal.



This was the view from our room at the resort looking out on Bloody Bay.  One interesting thing about Jamaica, at least here, were the number of hardwood trees near the beaches instead of just palm trees.  Yes, that's a bar on the beach.  It opens at 10 AM every day..just FYI.  Until then we had a stocked fridge and bar in our room...just sayin'.

Sunday, December 30, 2012 - A great day to just hang out by the pool.

This was our favorite of the two pools at the resort.  Probably because that's a swim-up bar under the patio on the right and the bartender there makes a great White Russian and another  delicious "secret" concoction of his own called "The Green Dragon."

Not top-shelf, but a big shelf.  The bars, bar service and drink selections were the best part of the resort.

Monday, December 31, 2012 - It was just another lazy day for us around the resort today before we loaded up in a van to our one and only planned excursion of the trip:  a swim in Bioluminescence Bay.  This was an amazing experience.  The moonless but clear sky made it perfect for this endeavor.  We honestly can't say we have seen more stars in the sky than we did tonight.  And they seemed so much closer than at home.  The bioluminescence experience was surreal.  Every movement in the water left a glowing trail behind it. Unfortunately, we were not able to capture any of it on film.  We did find the link below to a National Geographic feature about a similar area in Puerto Rico.  A hint of the amazing stars we saw comes at :55 and the swimming experience is at 1:55 if you don't want to watch the whole thing (although it's all very interesting).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HXXQBz6Vv0

The only downside to the bioluminescence excursion was that it was on the other side of Montego Bay, meaning we had an almost two-hour ride to get there and then another back for only a one-hour experience.  The views as above were sometimes nice, but fleeting, and overall the transportation endeavor almost cancelled out the actual experience itself.

New Year's Eve back at the resort was a bit of a let-down.  They had a terrible band playing, unimpressive food and no fireworks.  What the??  We decided to see 2013 come in on our patio with a bottle of champagne and a (legal here) Cuban cigar (our first one and it was pretty smooth). 

Tuesday, January 1, 2013 - Happy New Year!  On our last day at the resort and the first day of the new year, we decided we just had to go so see a little more of the island. We made arrangements with a cabbie to take us into the town of Negril and drop us off at Rick's Cafe, a famous bar on the cliffs there overlooking the ocean which is supposed to be a good place to watch the sun set.

The famous diving alcove at Rick's Cafe with the Negril Point Lighthouse in the background.

A panoramic sunset view of Rick's Cafe from the balcony above the main bar.

What can you say.  Jamaica's pretty nice.  Yeah, mon!



Wednesday, January 2, 2012:  Heading Home

We said goodbye to tranquil  Bloody Bay this morning and headed back to the airport for our early afternoon flight.

Jamaica's worth coming back to someday if we have the chance.  It's a beautiful, diverse place.