Somebody tell Summer we're waiting...never mind, she just showed up

Friday, June 3 - We went to see St. Paul and the Broken Bones and Fitz and the Tantrums in a co-headlining show tonight at the Ascend Amphitheater in downtown Nashville.  This is the first of five shows we snatched up $25-flat tickets for this summer.  We had the cheap lawn seats, so we sprang for rental chairs (since you can't bring your own in anymore) and got a nice surprise free seat upgrade closer to the stage in the assigned seat area.  Fitz and Company were first and put on a stellar show as usual.  We only stayed for about a half-hour of St. Paul's gospel, but it was enjoyable with the saintly one even coming out in the crowd right behind us during a song. 

Sunday, June 5 - We went to see Top Gun Maverick again tonight, but this time in 4DX at the Hollywood Theaters in Nashville with some of our friends.  What a literal wild "ride" it was!  We all had a ball despite a bit of a seat assignment hiccup with some jerks in our seats who wouldn't move.  Ashlee even got us some free passes for that annoying inconvenience.  We had dinner beforehand at the always great Rafferty's which we haven't been to in a month of Sundays. 

We were wondering if our neighborhood deer were going to give us a backyard baby this year and then today:  surprise!! 

Saturday, June 11 - We bought our friend Nate's season tickets for tonight's game for NSC vs. the San Jose Quakes since he couldn't make it.    He's got great seats right on the field next to the players tunnel, so getting close up shots of the NSC stars like forward, CJ Sapong (photo above), is pretty easy.  The game was not so easy with a frustrating 0-0 tie to a team that was clearly not as good as Nashville.  Still, it was a beautiful, albeit a little humid, night for the game and the easy mile walk from Fait Le Force Brewing where we could park for free to the awesome new Geordis Park Stadium (Ashlee's first visit) and back.  

Tuesday, June 21 - We braved the heat (we are not waiting on summer anymore) along with our friend, Emily, to see one of our long-time favorite bands, Train, at the Ascend Amphitheater tonight.  This is the second of five shows we snatched up $25-flat tickets for this summer.  It was kind of like small music festival with three, yes, three, openers including Jewel, Blues Traveler and Will Anderson (who we missed).  Blues Traveler and Jewel both put on great-sounding sets.  Train and their ageless lead singer, Pat Monahan, put on a great show as well with some of their great hits, new songs and covers along with Jewel and John Popper of Blues Traveler coming back out on stage again.  

It turned out to a beautiful, not so humid, night for the show.  Our lawn seats gave us a good view of the stage and screens for the show. 

Thursday, June 23 - We went to see the new Elvis film on opening night at the Roxy Theaters (recliners!) here in Lebanon tonight with our friends Lisa and Toney.  The film was a little long, but pretty good. I am glad it's probably worth seeing again since I also accidentally bought tickets for next week too!  Doh! 

Friday, July 1 - We both separately visited the new Buc-ee's in Crossville today.  It opened on Monday and is the 50th one now, and the first in Tennessee.  We've loved these gas stations on steroids ever since first visiting them in Texas where they started.  We both bought cheap Buc-ee's swag (T-shirt for Ashlee, hat for me), tasty fresh food (brisket sandwich for me, breakfast for Ashlee) and cheap giant fountain drinks.   It's just another reason for us to travel east as often as we can I guess!! 

Here's the floppy-eared cute-as-a-button bone of contention that had us traveling separately today.  Despite my very vocal concerns, Ashlee took it upon herself to add another member to our already crowded household of six living beings (plus more if we are fostering kittens) with the purchase of an AKC registered golden retriever.  Meet Sweet Missy Sunshine (or Sunny for short).   Let's hope our four mature set-in-their-ways cats and my sanity adjust to this huge life-altering decision.  Fingers (and paws) crossed.   Thanks to Ashlee's sister (and enabler), Paige, for the great picture.  And, yes, Sunny's a sweetie and I have nothing against her.

July 2.3 and 4 - Ahh, the INDENDENCE DAYs of Having a Pool  

We had a pretty low-key holiday weekend this year.  We put feelers out for a pool party, but didn't get much interest, so we punted that idea and just invited a few friends over each day to just hang out in a low-key manner.  

We did have a couple houseguests over for a night as our friends, Tim and Lavonda, came up from Chattanooga for a visit.   Again, we kept Independence Day festivities to a minimum especially with what we four agree is a sad time in this nation's history right now with all the mass shootings and no effort for gun control of any kind, the reversal of Roe v. Wade, the January 6th hearings, etc.  Ashlee and Lavonda's "patriotic mimosas" were about all we could manage.  

Tuesday, July 5 - We went to see a little of the Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls show tonight at The Brooklyn Bowl.  This was my first time at this beautiful new venue in downtown Nashville and our first time here together. This is first of two BOGO ticket shows here that we grabbed this summer.   Frank and the boys were on point as usual, even though it's been a while since we've seen them.  So much energy!  We didn't stay too long since it was a "school night" and a late starting show (two openers on a Tuesday night? really?) and a dog that needed walking back at home.  

Before heading to the show, we relaxed in the pool a bit this afternoon with our newest family edition, Sunny.  She loves the water and after a bit of timidness, she walked into the shallow end of the pool on her own today!  

Saturday, July 9 - With iffy weather for the pool, Ashlee and I hung out at The Cedar Tap this afternoon with our new dog, Sunny.   Ashlee also got to meet my friend, Curtis, and his wife, Kate.  We had a nice time sitting outside with Sunny until an unexpected downpour chased us away. Before the rain got us, my last beer of the day was this interestingly colored fruit gose called Dawson from Living Waters Brewing here in Nashville.  We capped off our local day with some tasty gas station tacos from Alberto's, plus their delicious elote en vaso.

Saturday, July 16 - We imbibed in some tasty solar-cooked brick-oven poolside pizza today (plus a rewarmed burger for me) while enjoying our backyard paradise alone (and quietly).  So very nice.  

Sunday, July 18 - Ashlee actually snapped this great pic tonight while I was at an NSC game in Nashville tonight, but this view has been a regular occurrence on most nights as Dudley patiently waits for the two or three bats that usually dive bomb the pool around dusk looking for insects. 

Thursday, July 21 - I caught one of Dudley's bats on video tonight, but they move so fast the screen grab was just a blur, so I just goofed around with the image and got this artistic endeavor out of it.   So, bat or tiny dragon? 

Friday, July 29 - We headed east today for annual summer getaway to the mountains with some of our friends.  We stopped in Knoxville for a tasty authentic German lunch at Shulz Brau Brewery.  The food was great, the beer was top-notch, and their castle-themed beer hall was very cool.  This won't be our last visit to this fun place!

We got to our rental cabin in Highlands, NC, called Little Falls Lodge late this afternoon.  It's a great place with an epic deck view of bubbling Buck Creek.   

Little Falls indeed.  This thin, delicate stream drops into the same cove and into Buck Creek and is visible from the deck of the cabin...but you gotta squint to see it! 

The full deck view of Buck Creek and Little Falls is quite a stunner.   We spent our first evening just grilling out on the deck and enjoying the scenery and solitude.  This little gem of a cabin is located at the dead-end of the road and no other cabins or homes are visible.  Very nicely planned! 

Saturday, July 31 - After a great breakfast served up our friend, Patrick, we headed out toward Highlands with our first stop being pretty Bridal Veil Falls which we also visited around New Years (and where I got the idea for the locale for our summer mountain trip).  The previous two stops, Bust Yer Butt Falls and Dry Falls were both already packed with people.

We got into pretty Highlands, barely found a parking space downtown across from the historic Episcopal Church (photo above) as here too was again, packed with people.  We just started wandering through the little shops and stores.  We had some tasty apps and libations at Madison's Rooftop Terrace at the Old Edwards Inn.  The forecasted storms missed us entirely which was nice.  The biggest thrill from our trip into town, however, was driving out and seeing a huge BLACK BEAR just wandering around a new subdivision construction site.  Some workers must have left their lunch out!  No pics unfortunately, but he/she was a big one! 

We got back to the cabin for a late afternoon and evening of s'mores, giant steaks, grilled trout, and peach cobbler.  It was a great last night at the cabin.  Too bad it was the last night. 

Sunday, August 1 - We woke up to more unexpected blue skies this morning as we packed up for an early 10 AM check-out.   

We loved everything about this lovely little cabin including this "ugly Roy Rogers wagon wheel" (channeling When Harry Met Sally) chandelier.  The one other occupant we also found was a giant rat
SNAKE under the front steps that I assume was living there.  We sure didn't see any mice! 

Before leaving the area, we decided to go try and walk behind Dry Falls one more time in all its glory, and it worked as we got the last open parking space.  This was actually my second visit here today because our friend, Michelle, and I got up early to check it out in case the weather was as bad as predicted later on.  Ashlee slept in and felt like she won a contest to get to do both! 

We had another great meal and good craft beer on the way home at a another new-to-us brewery.  Frog Level Brewing is in pretty downtown Waynesville, NC, on the banks of Richland Creek.  We sat out on the back deck by the creek, and I had some great shrimp tacos and Ashlee's Cajun chicken sandwich was tasty as well.    Another fun trip to the mountains! 

Saturday, August 6 - We had tickets to see O.A.R. and Dispatch in a co-headlining show at the Ascend Amphitheater tonight.  This is the third of five shows we snatched up $25-flat tickets for this summer.   We got lucky that Ashlee's sister, Paige, was working a conference this weekend in Nashville also and was going to let us stay with her at her downtown hotel tonight, the brand-new Embassy Suites.   As a thank-you, I got her a ticket as well to the show.  

The evening started out great with a beautiful sunset after some earlier storms and showers earlier in the day.  After a few libations at the hotel's happy hour, we headed to the Ascend and met up with our new friends, Curtis and Kate, who were also at the show with a few more of their friends.  We had nice rental chairs in a good spot on the lawn and enjoyed seeing Dispatch who've we've never seen live before but sounded pretty good. 

and then it didn't...before O.A.R. could take the stage to close out the night, thunderstorms began lurking around the area and we were asked to leave the venue.  We waited for a while in parking garage area with A/C nearby, but the show was eventually postponed.  Bummer.  Hopefully, the band will be able to circle back through on their latest tour and give us a show soon.  Fingers crossed. 
(Editor's note:  We missed another show here a couple days later when storms delayed the start of the David Gray show so late that we just couldn't get downtown for it.  Another bummer.) 

Paige's room at the Embassy Suites had a helluva view!  We never got rained on during our walk back to the hotel, but we were pretty tired, and Paige had to actually get up and work tomorrow, so we just stayed in and enjoyed the comfy room and the excellent view. 

Sunday, August 8 - After securing some pet duties at home, we headed back to Nashville tonight to have dinner with Paige at Adele's, a new-to-all-of-us restaurant downtown in The Gulch.   The place was nice, the food was excellent and reasonably priced, so I bet we make it back here again. 

Friday, August 12 - We headed over to the Opry Mills Theaters tonight to catch the first-ever showing of the sci-fi film classic, E.T. in IMAX.  It's an even bigger tearjerker on the giant screen! We also got this " digital collector ticket."   I still don't understand these, but, ok, thanks, I guess. 

Saturday, August 20 - Sunny, our new golden retriever pup, went to her first brewery today!  Well, actually, she went to her first three breweries today!  I needed to swing by Southern Grist Brewing over in East Nashville today so I could pick an order of a newly barrel-aged bottle release of theirs.   Ashlee decided to come along, and we brought Sunny as well for an adventure.  Our first stop was actually East Nashville Beer Works because they have a big patio area for doggies.   Sunny sampled beer.  She was very popular with other folks at all the breweries. 
We weren't sure we were going to actually hang out at Southern Grist Brewing, but their smaller patio had an open table, so we decided to give it a go.   
Crazy Gnome Brewing was very close by and, again, we thought we take a look and see if we could get parking and a spot outside.  It was actually very quiet here, so we made our third brewery visit in this afternoon's spur of the moment crawl.  Met a great couple

Friday, August 26 - We went to see Michael Franti and Spearhead tonight for the umpteenth time, but it was at a new venue in downtown Nashville called the Skydeck at 5th and Broad.

Finally! Some good weather for an outdoor concert in Nashville! We've gone 0-2 lately in outdoor shows vs. thunderstorms this summer, but this awesome view of The Ryman as you walk in to The Skydeck proved we were in for a nice night with no weather and fairly low humidity.  

The Skydeck is a great new-to-us venue, and it had great sight lines and acoustics despite being above noisy Broadway.  And it was also a great show from Michael, as usual.  We felt like we were back on his cruise as the hip Cleveland group, Tropidelic, who first saw on the boat opened for them tonight.  Their set was great as well.  And added bonus was that our new friends from Lebanon, Curtis and Kate, were at the show as well, so it great to hang with them again tonight. 

Ashlee even ran into the lead singer of Tropidelic, Matthew Roads, at the show after their opening set for one of her patented selfies.  Nice shot, honey! 

Saturday, September 3 - We took advantage of National Cinema Day and $3 prices for all movies in all formats to catch the classic Jaws for the first time ever in IMAX at the Opry Mills Theater.   Just like E.T. recently, we really enjoyed seeing this amazing film on the giant screen where you catch things you don't remember seeing before when you watched it on smaller scales.  The theaters were packed too thanks to iffy weather outside and the great prices offered.