It's right there in black and white...Happy First Birthday, Dudley! (Oh, and Rob has one too)

 

Wednesday, March 17 -  Byron says spring has officially sprung!  But then I had to pinch him because he wasn't wearing green for St. Patty's Day! LOL

Sunday, March 21 - We had an excellent breakfast down in Chattanooga today at a relatively new place called Syrup and Eggs.  We started off with these beautiful and tasty breakfast cocktails - the adult chocolate milk for Ashlee, and the apple pie chai (with Dickel) for me.  We deserved this good meal since we had to endure possibly the worst Mexican food we've ever had the night before at a crappy place out on Brainerd Road for our friend, Patrick, celebrating his recent birthday.  We were also celebrating another weekend of progress at the Carroll House/future AirBnb with the carpets cleaned, a cleaning service secured, replacing a broken outer deck door and two rotten boards on the same deck

Tuesday, March 23 - We enjoyed another installment of the Johnnyswim Livestream from the Backyard  (Palm Springs Edition) on YouTube tonight.  This couple have quickly become a favorite of ours out there in the musical world.

Friday, March 26 - We had tickets this afternoon to a timed showing of Picasso. Figures. at the Frist Art Museum in Nashville.  This is a hard ticket to get with most showings sold out weeks in advance.  On loan from the national Picasso Museum in Paris, these 75 pieces from the great master are only showing here within the U.S.  Quite the get for our little art gallery as it celebrates its 20th anniversary.  We enjoyed the exhibit despite not being big art lovers.  Picasso was an interesting dude.  That's for sure.

Before the exhibit we had time for a glass of wine in the lobby of the beautiful Union Station Hotel next door.   Afterwards, we took a nice stroll in the warm afternoon sun over to The Gulch for a tasty dinner at Emmy Squared.  On the way, our overpass view shown above of what seemed to be an endless line of train cars filled with Kentucky coal stretched out below us.

Sunday, March 28 - Happy Birthday, Dudley!  Our tuxedo boy, Dudley, turns one year old this week, so we decided to throw him a Black and White Party in honor of his signature colors.  Ashlee made this adorable coconut cat in his image.  We had about 15 friends and family over for the occasion. 

Dudley got lots of gifts as well as donations to local shelters in his name.  He seemed very grateful for everything and all the attention (somewhat).  

Thanks to our friend, Ginny, for this great shot of us and our special boy.  We love you, buddy!

Thursday, April 1 - No FOOLIN'  POOL'S OPEN!! 

Saturday, April 3 - After working most of the day on the soon-to-be AirBnB Carroll house, we stopped in for dinner at the fairly new location of Jack Brown's Beer and Burger Joint housed now where the old college bar, Yesterday's, was located.  Man, there are some memories in there!  But now the beer's way better and the food is outstanding as usual at a JBBBJ.  Glad to see something good is in a good ol' place. 

Sunday, April 4 - Happy Easter!  We went to breakfast again at Syrup and Eggs and then followed that up with a little churching. This was our first visit to the progressive service at St. Mark's United Methodist Church just around the corner from the Carroll house.   It was very positive and very music-oriented and we appreciated the social-distancing requirements in the pews.   Afterwards, it was a nice afternoon back home on the patio enjoying the spring weather with family and grilling out.  

Wednesday, April 7 - Just a cat in a yak....

Friday, April 9 - We packed up the car (and the foster kittens) today and headed toward Blue Ridge, Georgia, for a return trip for us to this great area.  This time, however, it was with our friends, Toney and Lisa.  Toney had a friend who had bought a cabin in Blue Ridge recently and he was able to secure us a decent deal on a long weekend rental of it.  On the way down, we finished one of the best audiobooks we've listened to in a long time:  Greenlights is the memoirs and biography of actor, Matthew McConaughey, who we both love.  Spoken in his own awesome voice, there's probably no better way to experience it.  Let's just say it's "Alright, alright, alright...." 

The cabin we rented was sweet.  Nestled down in a little hollow made it feel like it was a million miles from anywhere, yet the town of Blue Ridge is only a few miles away.   It has great amenities also like a big, covered hot-tub (in the background in the shot above); two decks facing out over babbling Sugar Creek, one of which was screened; a fire-pit built into the other deck; a pool table; and a beautiful shuffleboard table.   Tons of room inside as well.  Good find, Toney! 

The cabin was so peaceful, except at night when the spring peeper frogs roared through the surrounding trees.  Loud neighbors are the worst, am I right!! 

Saturday, April 10 - Despite some rainy weather in the area, we had a fun day starting with a visit to the very nice Bear Claw Vineyards, just around the corner from the cabin.   We both got wine flights and were surprised at how good their wares were. 

Great blues music by Travis Bowlin there in the background.  Great selfie skills by Ashlee in the foreground.  

After a pretty good dinner at a restaurant in downtown Blue Ridge called Southern Charm, we ambled over to Escape Blue Ridge to try out luck at one of their two challenges.  We chose the pirate-themed room (mostly because it was the only one available), and, man, was it HARD!!  We came up three locks short of winning the challenge before our hour was up, but we gave it a good try and all four of us chipped in to get as far as we did (including getting out of handcuffs we were in from the start!!). 

After our escape room fun (and failure) we returned outside to find the weather had broken and it was a beautiful evening in this always quaint little town here in the North Georgia mountains.  

We are fostering three young sibling kittens right now, so we had to bring them with us, of course. and they weren't any trouble at all. They were great little travelers! We were supposed to keep them in their kennel while at the no-pets-allowed cabin, but --- shhhhh --  they did get to explore our bed a little.  This is Clara in the photo above.  Her brothers, Morris and Asher, are out and about out of the picture as well.  

Spoiled women or spoiled me maybe since they allowed me to go to craft brewery here in Blue Ridge called Grumpy Old Men Brewing.  Ashlee and I came here several years ago when it was just opening and now it is a bustling and growing place that is very popular.  

We got back to the cabin to enjoy the hot-tub a little, then got a fire going in the fire-pit on the bottom deck and listened to more of the "roar" of the spring-peeper treefrogs that surrounded the cabin both nights we were there.  Thanks to my friend, Barry, for help in identifying the little loudmouths!!  And for telling us we were "lucky" to hear them since they only sing for a short time during the spring months.

Sunday, April 11 - The drive back was uneventful since we had the kittens in tow, and it limited our opportunities.  We did, however, stop back in Chattanooga and do a little work around the Carroll house prepping it ever closer to being an AirBnb hopefully.  Our biggest accomplishment was changing out this broken light switch (our first electrical project together).  Yes, we we need a new, white face-plate, but that's the easy stuff!! 

Tuesday, April 20 - Oh yeah, it's my birthday too on this blog entry.  Happy 54 to me!!  Thanks to the pandemic and my current work situation, we spent this one at home, but did take time to enjoy a good meal and a few libations at TennFold Brewing over in Donelson.  Thanks to our friends: Nate, Bethany, Danny and Brenda for joining us in the celebration.

Friday, April 23 - This afternoon we headed east to Monteagle Mountain for my post-birthday weekend trip to The Retreat at Deer Lick Falls.  It's a cool little development of tiny homes built around a beautiful waterfall that I visited many, many years ago.  We found this place on our last visit to this area back in 2019.  We had planned on going for my birthday last year, but the pandemic shut that down.  Our friend, Bethany,  joined us renting her own tiny house just a short walk from ours.

Our tiny house was a little beauty, and Bethany's was even a little nicer.  The whole community is really neat with hiking trails, communal fire pits, a playground for the kiddos, and even a nice covered pavilion for use by any of the residents.  After settling in (and hanging out with our illegal foster kittens...shhh, don't tell), we called it a fairly early night.

Saturday, April 24 - We woke up to some steady rain this morning, so we headed out for a late breakfast at Jim Oliver's Smokehouse, a staple up here on the mountain since the 1960's.  There was a wait for their famous breakfast fare, so we killed the time wondering around the store attached to the restaurant (I wonder if Cracker Barrel stole their concept from here maybe?).  Our greatest "find" was the hilarious Blazin' Rectum BBQ sauce (and jelly, yikes!!).  Nothing like truth in advertising I guess!  Breakfast was great and we also bought some fried pies and fudge on our way out.
(Editor's note:  In a shocking ironic twist, Jim Oliver's Smokehouse burned to the ground just three days after our visit.  So sad.)

After breakfast, the rain stopped and the sky lightened up enough for us to have a  nice window of opportunity to visit the showcase for the tiny home development, stunning Deer Lick Falls.  She was flowing beautifully after all the rain this morning and overnight.  

The trail down to the base of Deer Lick Falls  is steep and tricky, but we all made it safely in and out.  We had the falls all to our own as well which was nice.    Thanks to Ashlee for this great triple-selfie shot.

I made contact with our old friend, Jess Betchart, again today and arranged to drop by and see him.  We had a great visit with him a couple years ago when we were up in this area and wanted to show Bethany his neat wood-carving shop and to just see how he was faring through the pandemic.  We had a long visit that went close to three-hours as he regaled us with many stories from his past.  Sadly, his wife remains very ill, and his loving companion dog, Dusty, had passed away since we last visited, plus Jess's advancing age, all seemed to be taking their toll on him.  He was not quite the person we visited back in 2019 or who I met almost 30 years ago.  It's scary and sad to see a person's mind slowly start to slip and actually change who they really are or were.  It's a tough road we all must walk down eventually.  

Despite some nasty weather moving back in the area while we were visiting with Jess which even led to tornado sirens going off in the town of Monteagle, we checked the weather radar and figured it was safe to duck into The Mountain Goat Market for some dinner.  The place was hopping, but were able to grab a table and have a great dinner of fresh salad and two of their delicious custom pizzas.  This mountain goat astronaut mural overlooked us at our table.  Keep it weird, Monteagle! 

After dinner, the sky's cleared again, so we drove over to The University of the South at Sewanee for a quick look around.  Man, what a beautiful campus.  You really forget what a jewel it is as you zip by on I-24.  I caught this sunset and moonrise over their school's gothic-looking dining hall during our brief walk on the campus.
We spent our evening back our respective tiny houses, hanging out in both and admiring their craftmanship and ingenuity.  We even watched a silly tiny house hunting show at Bethany's place which seemed appropriate given where we were.  

Sunday, April 25 - We spent this morning packing up to head home and having some leftover pizza and fudge for breakfast...always thinking healthy!   I did enjoy the early morning tranquility out on the porch of our tiny home beforehand with a cup of coffee.  Bethany said he she did the same.  It really is a great place here, and we will definitely try and come back sometime if we get the chance.  

We got home in time to do a few things around the house before heading out again over to our friends', Danny and Brenda, house to watch The Oscars telecast in their newly-designed "relaxation room" over their garage.  They ordered some great Thai take-out and we enjoyed the pandemic-version of the awards show that was a little weird, sometimes funny and always interesting.  We are proud to say that we saw the Best Picture winner "Nomandland" a few months back and really enjoyed it.