MAYnniversary Month

Thursday, May 4 - We saw Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. in IMAX (obviously) tonight with our friends, Danny, Brenda and Wayne.  It was as good, if not better, than the original!

Saturday, May 13 - We saw J. Roddy Walston and the Business at The Revelry Room in Chattanooga with our friends, Danny, Brenda and Bill tonight.  Ashlee barely got in since she had left her ID at home, but thanks to the internet we got in.  We had an excellent dinner before the show a couple doors down at Stir.  It's very cool what Chattanooga has done with this area of town around the Choo Choo.

HAIR's J Roddy Walston doing what he does best!

Thursday, May 18 - We flew to Tampa after work today to begin our 16th Anniversary Trip along Florida's Gold Coast including a couple night's stay in the tiny hamlet of Cedar Key which is supposed to be a "poor man's Key West."

May 19 -  Happy Anniversary to us!!  And, hey, is that a monkey?  Well, it probably is since this is the Monkey Bar in Homosassa Springs where we stopped for lunch on our way north from Tampa to Cedar Key.  It seems that four spider monkeys live on the tiny island in the harbor here and can be viewed while you eat some tasty seafood and have a cold one.  The black smudge near the little house is one of the inhabitants that we saw while we were there.  

Cedar Key is definitely a small version of Key West with quite a blue collar on it.  While they have a few bars to bide your time at including this cool tiki bar at the Low Key Hideway, this is a working town and a naturalist's paradise.

Our stay at the Cedar Key Bed and Breakfast was pretty good.  We booked the Sunrise Suite bottom floor which is a separate house across the street from the water a mile or so away from the B and B.  Their breakfasts each morning  were just OK, but the view  with the meal was pretty spectacular back at the B and B main house with it's  lush gardens  and  ancient and giant live oaks.

Just across the road from our rental house was the beautiful gulf a view of some of the flat key islands.  We had good weather throughout our stay although the humidity had definitely found this place already.

Saturday, May 20 - We had an active day today with an interesting and informative morning boat tour of some of the key islands and then a great airplane ride over them for a totally different perspective.

Sea birds are the biggest inhabitants of this area outnumbering humans by a large percentage.

Our pilot, Marve, took us on a great 20-minute flight above the keys (this is Atsena Ote Key pictured here).  Big thanks to Ashlee for saying we should go today since the weather was not cooperative the next day.

Sunday, May 21 - We headed out of Cedar Key today and headed back south.  We had a late evening flight back home from Tampa and most of the day to kill.  On the way back, we stopped at the adorable Twistee Treat  in Tarpon Springs for some ice cream.  We really enjoyed  tooling around in our sweet Mustang convertible during this trip.  Enough so that we are thinking of a purchase of a used one in the near future.

With the weather improving as we neared Tampa, we stopped for a quick visit to Honeymoon Island State Park and took their ferry over to to Caladesi Island  which you can only reach by boat.  We just hung out at the dock and had a cold one before riding the gentle waves back to the mainland.  Another great little weekend trip in the books.

Monday, May 22 - We were fortunate to attend the historic Game 6 of the NHL Western Conference Finals where our Predators had a 6-3 win  over the Anaheim Ducks and will now be playing for the Stanley Cup!!   We had terrific upper-deck, front row seats ( Section 327, Row A. Seats 10 and 11) that we will definitely try and get again  We parked for free at Czann's Brewing beforehand and had a couple beers with our pal, Wayne.   After the game we met up with our friends, Brenda and Danny, outside the arena with about 10,000 others who didn't make it inside. What a beautiful night and what a beautiful feeling!!

Saturday, May 27 - We attended our friends, Wil and Alyssa's Wedding tonight and it was a beautiful ceremony at the very nice Legacy Farms venue here in Wilson County.  It was made even more memorable due to a power outage during the reception due to stormy weather, but a car-operated generator kept the lights on and the tunes blasting throughout the night of celebration.