Happy Deuce Goose (Egg) Deuce Deuce!

We decided to close out the still-weird 2021 year and ring in the new, and hopefully better, 2022 with a quick trip out to The Carolinas for some Duke basketball, some good low-country cooking, and to get a peek at the ocean out that way as a possible snow-birding area for us in the future.

Tuesday, December 28 - A change in the start time for the Duke game tomorrow in Clemson had us heading out today with an overnight stay in Franklin, North Carolina, which would give us a short drive the next day to the Clemson campus.  Then the game got postponed due to Covid issues (and UT lost to Bama).  We decided to proceed with the trip anyway.  We were also scheduled to pick up Paige in Chattanooga, just like the good old days when she was a third wheel during her single years sometimes on our trips. but then she tested positive for Covid today.  Speaking of the good old days, we went ahead and took good old Hwy. 64 into North Carolina - this was a favorite route for Ashlee and me way back when we didn't have any money for big trips, there was always the waterfalls and other scenery of North Carolina for us.  

It was incredibly mild temperature-wise for late December, so we stopped for a stroll across the very low Ocoee River at the site of the Olympics so very long ago. 

Our first stop inside North Carolina on Hwy. 64 was the incredible Dry Falls.  Not sure how it ever got that name.  It was good to see "old friends" again in the beautiful area.  

Another old friend just up the road is Bridal Veil Falls that Highway 64 used to run under and up until a while back you could still drive under, but not anymore.  Times are a changin' I guess.  

We never spent any time in Franklin, NC, on our previous trips along Hwy. 64 in the past, but it's a great little historic town.  We had a tasty dinner out of a food truck at the Lazy Hiker Brewery, and then another round of drinks sitting outside along the Little Tennessee River at Currahee Brewing (photo above) thanks again to those very mild temps. 

Franklin, NC sure know how to do Christmas up right! Their downtown square was adorable! 

Wednesday, December 29 - We headed south in the fog and rain toward South Carolina this morning, bypassing Clemson since there was no need to stop there now and headed for Greenville where we had planned to spend the night anyway.   On the way, we took a slight detour to check out the massive Whitewater Falls along the NC/SC border, but as the video above shows (or doesn't show) all you could do is hear the water falling in the pea-soup fog.  

 
Our first stop in Greenville for lunch and a couple libations was Pangaea Brewing.  Their unique and tasty Vietnamese pizza was a great find, and their beer was solid too.  

Greenville's been our list to visit for a good while now and it did not disappoint.  The whole city is built around lovely Reedy River Falls.  The restoration of this area and park is quite a story.  We really enjoyed spending time this afternoon here and the weather cooperated as well.  

Our friend, Dana, and her husband, Tom, just happened to be in town as well celebrating her birthday, so we arranged to meet them at the Pour Beer Bar in downtown Greenville.  We had a fun evening catching up and sampling beers from all over the region and beyond in this pay-by-the-ounce establishment. 

While not directly lit, Reedy River Falls at night glows under the city lights.  We enjoyed seeing the natural wonder again tonight just around the corner from our nice Embassy Suites Hotel.  Thanks to Ashlee for using her Hilton points for free stays each night of this little trip! We even found out the rooftop bar at the hotel was still decorated with a Christmas pop-up theme, so that's another one to add to our list this season! 

Thursday, December 30 - We continued southeast toward the coast and Beaufort, South Carolina, a possible retirement/snowbird locale we wanted to check out.  Ashlee drove through a lot of rain throughout this trip and did a great job.  We could see the clearing skies ahead of us as we got closer to the Atlantic Ocean. 

The long drive in the rain paid off with clearing skies and some sun as we visited Hunting Island Lighthouse on the coast near Beaufort.  I have actually been to this lighthouse before, but not with my baby.  And she's as pretty as ever...the lighthouse ain't bad either! 

Sunset at Hunting Island Beach was serene and pretty, but that magnificent white sand in Destin in hard to beat and you don't have to pay to be on it like you do here.  Strike one. 

Friday, January 31 - We took a nice Dolphin Watching and History Cruise with Coastal Expeditions late this morning.  The sites were limited due to some patchy fog, but we did catch a few good looks at a good-sized dolphin playing nearby.  The history of the area was interesting too.   

While this turnstile swing-bridge going over to Lady's Island from Beaufort is kind of cool, it also symbolizes something we noticed pretty quickly around here.  You wait in traffic here...a lot.  We are all for "island time" but come on.  Traffic in The Keys isn't even this bad! Strike Two. 

While the Spanish moss in the trees everywhere is beautiful and quaint, it doesn't help with housing prices.  This tree was in the yard of a modest little house for over $400K nowhere near the beach.  Not worth it.  Strike Three.  You're out, Beaufort...

We took a drive over to Hilton Head Island to see what all the to-do was over there.  Not overly impressed.  Nice vibe and pretty chill, but same old ho-hum sand.  

After an excellent late lunch at the Lowcountry Produce Market and Cafe in Beaufort, we opted to just spend New Year's Eve in the room, relaxing and watching old sitcoms.  Guess we're getting old...but we did stay up til midnight (EST) at least! Happy New Year, baby!!  

Saturday, January 1 - Happy New Year!  We spent most of it driving back from South Carolina, through Atlanta and Chattanooga, dodging storms and traffic.  We got pretty lucky on both accounts, and the hours flew by thanks to some fascinating podcasts we found about The Murdaugh Family from the area we were just in.  Crazy, crazy stuff!  And it's still going on!  

Our only fun stop going home was at the first Buc-ee's we've ever visited outside Texas.  This fairly new one is in Adairsville, GA.  Man, it was packed, but we were still able to use their super-clean restrooms, plus grab some giant sandwiches and cheap fountain drinks for the last leg home.  Can't wait for the new one in nearby Crossville to open!! 

With a few slight alterations due to some end-of-the-year activity changes, the new 2021 collage is up and she's a beauty!   Still a somewhat limited year in terms of travel and such with Covid still creeping around and now even getting a new variant.  But we hope the new year brings us another busy and fun agenda as is at all possible.  

Monday, January 3 - We woke up to a beautiful snowfall today from an overnight weather pattern.  Too bad our Christmas decorations look so good with snow on them, but just a couple weeks too late.

Thursday, January 6 - More snow, new day.  We got an even bigger snowfall today that turned our place into a winter wonderland.  This is also the first picture posted on here from my new IPhone 13 and its three lenses!  So nice!  Thanks for the upgrade, baby!! 

Friday, January 7 - More snow fun.  Who cares if Christmas is over! 

Zippy thinks snow fun is dumb...

Sunday, January 24 - Ashlee got back from a week-long girls-cruise today and after taxiing everyone from the airport, we headed over to the Lebanon Square to Town Square Social for a tasty early dinner/late lunch.  It's so nice to see our little previously ho-hum square becoming an actual place you want to visit.   And more good things to come we are hearing! 

Thursday, January 27 - Ashlee and I attended our first-ever Beer Dinner at Catch 22 in Mt. Juliet tonight hosted by The Black Abbey Brewing Company from Nashville.  It's so nice to have something like this actually happening in our county!  It was a 3-course delight, food-wise and beer-wise.  We started with a pint can of their flagship Belgian blonde, The Rose.  The first course (fried lobster tail) was accompanied by their fairly new Czech Condition pilsner.  The main course of a succulent veal chop was accompanied by the lightly tart River Running Hibiscus Gose.  Dessert (photo above) was an awesome Twix cheesecake with Lorna Doon crust and accompanied by their delightful Belgian quad called Ancient Ways.  One of the owners/brewers of Black Abbey gave us some great introductions to each beer and a little history on this longtime Nashville microbrewery.  Overall, a very fun and tasty evening! 

Byron says the talking rabbits in the BBC "Watership Down" series are amazing! 

Christmas is Com- Never Mind, It's Here...

Friday, November 19 - Ashlee and the bachelorette party she was hanging with most of this weekend, met up with me at New Heights Brewing tonight in downtown Nashville.   It's very close to the AirBnB they were renting.  I bought the ladies a flight of NHBC's great beers as they are celebrating 5 years in business this weekend.  Then I was on my way...too much woo-woo for me! 

 
Saturday,  November 20 - It was a crazy night in Nashville with four different shows we would have liked to have seen:  Andrew McMahon (fresh off The Rock Boat), The Wallflowers, Andy Frasco, and the winner of our choice: Augustana (Dan Layus solo show) at The Mercy Lounge.  Ashlee broke free of the bachelorette weekend to attend along with our friend, Bethany.  Dan sounded great and we were so glad to see (and hear) him again.  

Thursday, November 25 -  We had a quiet little Thanksgiving at home for the first time in a while this year as the prices down in Destin for house rentals have really shot up.  Paige and Ella came up and we had a nice dinner ordered from Cracker Barrel with Doris at the head of the table ready to do some turkey carving!  Thanks to Ashlee for the cute pic.  

Friday, November 26 - Our old cruise pals, Will and Jenna, were in town for the holidays visiting Will's parents who live here in Wilson County.  We met up for a lot of craft beer and a ton of laughs and good times at The Cedar Tap over on the square.  It's so nice to have a place like this just a mile or so from the house.  These are two of my favorite pretty ladies in the world!! 

Saturday, November 27 - We headed over to our local Roxy Theaters (recliners!) this afternoon to check out the new flick, House of Gucci, which is getting rave reviews.  We thought it was really well done and a very interesting true story. 

Despite the fact we weren't going to Destin this year for Christmas, we found a bevy of Yuletide festivities around Nashville to keep us busy and happy. 

Friday, December 3 - We attended the Lighting of the Christmas Tree on the Lebanon Square tonight amid very mild temps and nice weather. Afterwards, we had a couple beers and dinner at The Cedar Tap.  Again, it's so nice to have this option in our town now! 

Monday, December 6 - We slowed down on our number of advent calendars this year with only this tasty cheese one from Aldi.  Maybe we will ramp back up again next year with wine, beer, etc. 

Tuesday, December 7 - We went over to Wal-Green's today and got our Covid booster vaccinations to hopefully protect us from the new delta variant of this crap.  While there, we also got flu shots.  Might as well protect against all the crud possible.  

Friday, December 10 - We had to hunker down in the bathroom tonight due to a terrible storm front with lots of tornadic activity roaring in from the west.  We got lucky with the cold Cumberland River once again splitting the heavy weather to our north and south of us.  North took in the worst with a lot of deaths in Kentucky due to tornado damage.  Whoever heard of killer tornados in December??  Yeah, global warming is a myth...

Saturday, December 11 - We cheated a little on the local cat rescue group that Ashlee volunteers with and is on the board of today when we snuck over to True Rescue in Mt. Juliet to check on the facility and a couple of their kittens they had posted online for Ashlee's sister, Paige.  It's a pretty cool place with tons of sweet adult cats just roaming around and a very nice staff.  We even went home with "Oliver" for Paige because he reminds us all of a young Zippy.  Well, those are mighty big paws to fill.  We shall see! 

We hit our first Nashville pop-up bar of the season tonight at Tinsel and Gretel's Christmas Candy Cottage at Sidebar at the Bode Hotel downtown.  This was our first visit here and it was pretty cool, albeit a bit disorganized this early on, I guess.  We had some tasty seasonal drinks, and there was a lady singing with her guitar that was pretty good also.  We had some decent finger food too.  Not a bad start! 

Tuesday, December 11 - Dudley: Santa's secret helper 

We went to see the new musical remake, West Side Story, at The Roxy Theaters (recliners!) here in Lebanon tonight.  Granted, we've never saw the original to compare it to but with Steven Spielberg at the helm of this one, we figured it would be good.  It was, in fact, not that great.  For a "classic" the story is kind of dumb actually.  It was shot well, but overall, a bit of a disappointment.  It was good to see our friend, Casey, and his nephew, Colin, at the show as well. 

Saturday, December 18 - We went to see the long-time holiday Nashville band, The Ornaments, in concert at The Wash at Eastside Bowl in Madison tonight.  Eastside Bowl is a cool new bowling alley and concert venue refurbed from an old Kmart building.  The Wash is their concert space. and while a bit small, it's pretty nice with good acoustics and decent sightlines.  Thanks to our friends Bethany, Emily, Andrew, Wendy and Charly for going with us.  We all had a nice low-key dinner in their Clark's Diner beforehand as well.  This little outing took the place of our usual Christmas party we have when we are home for the holidays.  

Sunday, December 19 - Since we missed seeing the holiday classic, The Nightmare Before Christmas, at the Full Moon Cineplex recently due to illness with the staff, we decided to check it out tonight on our Disney+ streaming service.  Very weird, kinda cute and definitely worth a watch...finally! 

Monday, December 20 - We had tickets to Snow Globe tonight, a pop-up holiday bar at the new JW Marriott Hotel downtown.  It was a late-night experience for us since we were lucky just to get in with all shows being SOLD OUT! 

With some time to kill before our 9 PM ticketed event, we checked off a couple other pop-up holiday bars as well downtown starting with The Nightmare Before Christmas-themed Parlor Bar at the nice boutique hotel called Dream.  This place must be new because it sits between The Bobby Hotel and The Noelle Hotel which we've been to both several times, but we've never been in here.  The decor was very fun and well done.  Good thing we just watched the movie, so we knew what all the decorations meant!  The drinks and food were excellent as well. 

Speaking of the always-fun Bobby Hotel, we went there next to check out their rooftop pop-up bar themed as an outdoor holiday camp with even a small skating rink.  We sat by one of the outdoor fires and admired the clear (but cold) views of downtown Nashville.  We had some tasty warm drinks to help keep out the freezing temps.  

The new JW Marriot Hotel is a beauty, and it was such an exquisite, albeit cold night, to be downtown with a full moon and very little traffic since it's a Monday.  We even got to park free on the street (such a rarity here!). 

The Snow Globe pop-up bar was worth the steep price of admission.  What a cool concept!  It was an hour and a half experience at these large screens changed to different wintry, holiday landscapes along with the sounds and smells of the season.  We had a couple more tasty Christmas cocktails before heading home with a nice night of merriment behind us.  
Ashlee also found out that the company that set this up for the Marriott called Nightscape will have its own location in The Gulch next year.  We will have to definitely check that out! 

Tuesday, December 21 - Our collection of pop-up Christmas bars to visit continued tonight at the L27 Rooftop Lounge at the Westin Hotel downtown which is now has a snowy ski chalet theme.  We did mix it up a bit with a 4 PM reservation so we could watch the sun set over the city. We had more tasty cocktails and really good French onion fondue to munch on.

After our ski chalet visit, we stopped in the new Gibson Garage store near where we parked for free on the street.  Yippee!  And what a cool place!  We grabbed a nice hatch print from the store to add to our growing collection of to-be-framed prints.  

Wednesday, December 23 - Our goal to visit as many Christmas pop-up bars in Nashville as possible this holiday season came to a close tonight, and it looks like we saved the best for last!  The Pearl Diver Miracle Christmas pop-up tiki bar in East Nashville was our sixth pop-up to visit, and it did not disappoint with a large, reserved booth for us, great decorations, tasty and fun cocktails, and delicious food. 

Yes, the Snow Globe was the best overall presentation (and it should for what it cost to get in), but the best drinks of the season were at The Pearl Diver.  This was my Yippie Ki Yay MotherF#%$er rum drink served up in a hilarious (and big) Santa Pants Cup.  All the drinks were bountiful and served in awesome glassware that you could also purchase.  We had their awesome PuPu Platter to eat with a wide selection of island treats on it including some spicy Jamaican jerk chicken wings! 

Thursday, December 24 - We headed down for Christmas in Chattanooga today and when we got there we first met with our friend, Mollie, at the Terminal Brewhouse for a few libations, a gift exchange between the girls, and some tasty appetizers.   

Friday, December 25 - We had a nice Christmas overnight in Chattanooga but were ready to get back to our house and our cats and two foster babies.  We got back home in time to get in a rousing game of Christmasopoly which I had gotten Ashlee for Christmas.  It was a lot of fun, especially since I got to drink craft beer while playing it and I won!!  

Ashlee definitely is the better gift giver and knows me very well.  She got me some great stuff (and even let the cats take credit for some of the great gifts).  She's very hard to shop for, but I did my best and tried to think "outside the (gift) box" as well.  So, this Cameo Christmas greeting by our favorite funk legend Big Sam direct from New Orleans was pretty unique I thought...take it away, Big Sam!!!