Sunday, Bloody Hot, Sunday -- Bonnaroo 2010 -- Day 4

Sunday, June 13, 2010

It's was hot, just damn hot, and that's all you can say about it this year at Bonnaroo. The heat was relentless and people were finding any way they could to cool off (photo below was taken at the Bonnaroo "Beach"). We were certainly ready to finish up our last day at Bonnaroo 2010 and get back home to some air-conditioning. We got to the Sonic Stage very early so we could grab some of the few shady spots available and awaited a set by Truth & Salvage Company. While it's a newly formed group, the members are all veteran musicians who have come together to create some great laid-back California rock with some great four-part harmonies similar to The Eagles. Afterwards we trudged over to The Other Tent to catch Ingrid Michaelson. A huge crowd had already gathered by the time she took the stage (photo above) and we had to endure the sun since all the shade was taken. She surprised us with her energy, witty banter and great vocals which helped get your mind off the searing heat. We are definitely adding her to the "We Would Pay Money to See You Again" List. The crowd dissipated after her set and we were able to slip under a nearby tree with a slight view of the stage and await balladeer, Martin Sexton, to play next. Martin is a long-time veteran of the folk rock genre with a style similar to Van Morrison. His signature song "Black Sheep" is an amazing piece of music. We moved inside The Other Tent next for Blues Traveler and got fairly close to the stage, but the rather irritating facts that it was stifling hot under the structure with no air moving, and that lead singer/harmonica legend, John Popper, didn't seem really into the show with his long pauses to take a drink and smoke a cigarette during songs made us quickly decide to seek entertainment elsewhere. Our only real musical disappointment of the festival so far. What a shame because we were looking forward to seeing them and have been fans for a long time. We ambled over to the nearby This Tent and found some much-needed shade under a tree near the front of the structure and listened to a little of Against Me!. These guys are a little raucous for our taste and they weren't on our "must-see/listen" list, but at least they were showing more enthusiasm and energy than "Snooze Traveler." Now we probably know why those guys have fallen off the face of the map in the last ten years or so. For the first time that we can recall at Bonnaroo there was chanting by fans a half-hour before the next band even took to the stage. They were awaiting the Dropkick Murphys, a legendary band from Boston who take their Irish heritage very seriously and incorporate traditional music from the homeland in their songs with the amps turned up to about 11 (see the photo below of the strange combination of bagpipes and big-ass Marshall amps). They started gaining national notoriety a few years back when Martin Scorsese used their signature song, "Shipping Up to Boston" in his Academy-Award-winning best picture, "The Departed." Now while their musicianship and vocals aren't superlative, they make up for it in energy and bravado. This was a wild crowd for a hot, steamy afternoon with loud sing-alongs, high bouncing up and down, and lots of crowd-surfing. People were coming out of the center of the thick crowds drenched in sweat and probably close to the point of collapse only after a couple of songs. It was an entertaining site on all accounts. We finished the festival with a half-hour set by a solid, newish band that we saw last year here that we really liked called Everest back at the small Troo Music Stage. We caught a song or two by Phoenix on the Which Stage as we made our way over to the main What Stage to catch about 45 minutes or so of the Dave Matthews Band as they closed Bonnaroo 2010. Unlike our troubles getting into the festival, it was a breeze getting out and we were home by midnight. It was a really bittersweet festival this year for us with some definite highs (no pot-head pun intended here, sorry) and lows, but in the end well worth all the effort and struggle. Next year is the festival's 10th anniversary and we are hoping for some big things for it, so we can hopefully do it all over again next summer.

Saturday...in "The Park"...it felt like the 4th of July -- Bonnaroo 2010 - Day 3

Saturday June 12, 2010

It not only takes a lot of dedication and long hours to attend Bonnaroo, but it can also be the same for those playing at what is now known as "Great Stage Park." That was the case for Jonathon Tyler & the Northern Lights, a stripped-down Texas rock-n-roll and blues band who had performed the night before on the west coast at the famous Fillmore Theatre in San Francisco and then made it in for a high noon 30-minute set across the country in Manchester, Tennessee. Now that's dedication to music, friends! The quartet made the most of their short stint at the festival with a fiery rockin' handful of original songs in the Troo Music Lounge. It was a great way to kick off another busy and hot day at Bonnaroo 2010.

This year was definitely the hottest temps we have encountered at the festival so far. We've had a little bit of everything in the past with storms, heavy rain and some searing sun at times, but this year the sunlight was fairly relentless with only a few scattered clouds. This fact sent the tens of thousands in attendance seeking any manner of shade possible. The line-up today that perked our interest the most during the hottest afternoon hours were all on the Which Stage which has very little cover if you want a vantage point of any worth. Fortunately, the sound engineering is world-class at Bonnaroo and if you could find a little shade like we did then you didn't necessarily need to see the stage for an artist like Norah Jones who's all about smooth vocals.

We lost our shade with the path of the sun during the day and it made a tough decision a little easier. We wanted to see The Avett Brothers - a folk-rock band from North Carolina who are rising fast in popularity - following Norah Jones, but we also had heard great things about Mumford & Sons - another energetic rock folk band from south London playing at the same time. The Brits won out thanks to the fact they were playing in one of the covered tents. Similarly to The Gossip the day before - what started out as a decision to watch a band for a somewhat selfish reason turned into a discovery of a great experience. These guys are stunning live and "the kids" as we call them (anyone under 25) and there are lots of them at Bonnaroo, but not usually at the same shows we are at, really loved these guys and knew every word of their catchy songs. We can't wait to see these guys again. We did slip out toward the end and catch a few songs of The Avett Brothers who were also good but the huge crowd watching them blocked us from really getting a feel for them. We are fortunately going to get a chance to see them again soon as we just learned they are coming to The Ryman in October.

After the Avetts came Weezer to the Which Stage. They are an entertaining, somewhat silly, and now obviously aging, "pot-head" band who have had a few radio hits through the years. We watched them for a while, again from a great distance, before heading over to settle in for the night's headliner, the legendary Stevie Wonder.

We found a good spot fairly close to the giant What Stage and waited while the sun set and the temperature and humidity dropped pleasantly. Conan O'Brien took a break from his stints in the Bonnaroo Comedy Tent (not worth standing in line for - trust us) to come on the big stage and introduce Stevie to the huge crowd. Stevie and his excellent band sounded great and he is looking great for his age and you never really realize how many great songs he has until you hear him deliver them one after another. Well done, sir!

The Casualest Friday - Bonnaroo 2010 - Day 2

Friday, June 11, 2010

Don't go hunting for a Day 1 recount of Bonnaroo 2010 because frankly it was a day to forget. Everything started out fine until we arrived in Manchester around 2:30 PM and then proceeded not to get our pop-up camper set up onsite until around 10:30 PM! Traffic going into the Bonnaroo site was horrible and what took us about three hours last year took seven this year. We were told once on site that there was new management for Bonnaroo this year and we believed it because it was basically a mess. We were very disappointed to have missed any chance of seeing the artists we planned on checking out that evening (Diane Birch, NeedtoBreathe and The Temper Trap). Setting up the camper in the dark was a first for us and a bit of struggle as well. And then to top things off, our generators were malfunctioning and not allowing us to run our air-conditioning. Need we say more? Moving on to Day 2... We got up early because once the sun hits the pop-up camper without any A/C then it's time to vacate it immediately. We lounged around the campsite in the shade with our new friend, Bridgette, until the music started around noon. Ashlee met Bridgette online in a discussion group of folks talking about going to Bonnaroo this year, and she had never been before and was happy to find someone to share a camping space with folks who had been before and could show her the ropes. It was a big leap of faith on all our parts to get together with complete strangers, but it worked out great as we all found ourselves to be pretty much normal while we were surrounded by thousands of weirdos. But, hey, that's all part of Bonnaroo. Our first stop was at the Budweiser Troo Music Stage, one of the smallest venues at Bonnaroo that features up-and-coming artists in a close, intimate setting. Taking the stage for a quick half-hour set was the lovely and talented Nashville resident, Jessie Baylin (photo above), who just happens to be the wife of the drummer (Nathan Followill) of tonight's headlining act, Kings of Leon. Jessie's soulful voice brought out her original songs in perfect pitch along with the accompaniment of a good backing band. An excellent start to the day. The lovely-lady/lovely-voice parade continued as we walked over to the Sonic Stage, which is a bit larger but still fairly intimate, to catch a solo set by Diane Birch who we had missed the night before with her full band on a bigger stage. She's a skinny little thing but her angelic voice is as big as they come. She's gaining notoriety fast these days and it will continue as she will be opening for tomorrow's headliner, Stevie Wonder, on an upcoming tour. It was time now to give the boys a chance and we ambled over to the second largest venue on-site, The Which Stage, to catch an hour-long set by The Gaslight Anthem. These fellas from New Jersey have been rising stars in their home state for a while now and are just starting to gain national notoriety. Their music is usually labelled as "punk" but that seems out of place with their thought-provoking lyrics and the smooth vocals of lead singer, Brian Fallon. So smooth in fact they seemed a bit out of place on the huge stage in a Tennessee farm pasture as the sun blazed down on us, and probably would have fit in more in a crowded, dimly-lit bar on the Jersey Shore. As the sun continued to blaze down, we next sought the shelter of one of the Bonnaroo "tents" which are actually large, steel-roofed open-air structures with a medium-sized stage in the back of them. These structures of which there are three on site, are not only great for some relief from the sun but also work quite well acoustically. We were there to see "She & Him" - a pop/folk duo of whom the "she' is singer/actress, Zooey Deschanel (remember her singing "Baby, It's Cold Outside" in "Elf"?). More on them later because before they took the stage it was time for The Gossip - an indie rock band that we checked first as just a curiosity (the lead singer, Beth Ditto, is...well...as she said herself on stage...240 pounds) and turned into one of the great surprises of the festival. They were excellent. Despite her size, Ditto never stopped moving on stage and worked the crowd into a bit of a frenzy with her energy, her witty banter and her soaring vocals. The rest of the band was top-notch as well. She & Him took the stage next and while their music is catchy and melodic, it came off as a bit hollow after the energy of The Gossip. We had a few hours before our next band of real interest, so we trudged back to the camper ( a good 15-minute walk) and unloaded our folding chairs and cooled off a bit with the car's air conditioner. The walk was worth it not only for the lovely cold air but because we wanted to be as unencumbered as possible for the first show of the somewhat cooler evening and one of our most anticipated, Michael Franti & Spearhead. We wanted to get as close as we could to the big Which Stage they were playing on so as to gather in as much of Franti's energy and good vibes as possible. We saw him last year as part of a three-band show and we knew nothing about him, but he really blew us away with his stage presence and feel-good music, and that was in the confined space of The Ryman Auditorium. We had high hopes when he was let loose in a festival setting that it would be even greater. In fact in all honesty, there was a lot riding on this show for us. On the long way walk back and as we sat in the car letting the a/c blow us back to something resembling comfort, we had a real discussion as to whether or not we were maybe "Bonnaroo-ed out?" Was is still special to us or not worth all the bother and set-backs? Had the newness worn off since this was our third year going in a row? Hell, were we just getting too old for this crap? These questions lay heavy on our minds as we trudged back to Centeroo and nestled in about ten rows from the Which Stage with our tired bodies leaning against a center walkway that splits the audience in two and awaited the man and band that held our future unknowingly in their hands....and then something magical happened!!! Michael Franti & Spearhead saved our Bonnaroo Souls by putting on THE BEST show we have seen there in the two-working-on-three years we have been going to this festival. He went light years beyond our expectations with explosive energy and stage presence, constant calls for audience participation and interaction, and the most obvious outpouring of music and song that showed these guys loved what they were doing and loved having us there to experience it. Oh yeah, and he came out into the audience within inches of us not once, not twice, not thrice, not whatever four would be in Old English but FIVE separate times including a performance right next to us in the walkway we were leaning against (Ashlee and Michael - photo above).

Thank you Michael Franti & Spearhead

for restoring our faith in that which is Bonnaroo!!

We were soaked in sweat and exhausted after the MF&S show and slowly walked over to the main What Stage area where we could already hear the day's headliners, Kings of Leon, playing. We settled in far back from the massive stage and enjoyed the music and watched the high-def TV screens on each side of the stage for up-close shots of what was happening on stage. The band that consists of three brothers and a cousin who hail from just down the road were spot on with their music and while they let the songs do the talking most of the time, it was a bit stirring to hear lead singer, Caleb Followill, tell the story of how the Bonnaroo festival basically turned them from a local garage band playing one of the small stages here in 2004, then as a rising blip on the music radar screen in 2007 when they played one of the bigger tent stages, and into the superstar group they are today kicking off the 2010 festival's opening night on the main stage. Welcome home, boys. A real, full (and historic for us) day at Bonnaroo 2010 was now in the books and we fell asleep quickly inside our (almost) cool camper when we got back knowing another full day was ahead of us tomorrow.

Memor-able Day Weekend

We took a quick Memorial Day Weekend road trip up to Louisville, Kentucky, with our friends, Nate and Ginny and had a great time. We hit the road mid-morning on Saturday and our first stop was about an hour out of Nashville in Bowling Green, Kentucky, to the tiny Corsair Distillery located just off the town square. Corsair produces a pretty good line of spirits including an interesting Vanilla Bean Vodka and a Pumpkin Spice Moonshine. They recently opened a second distilling location in Nashville and we wanted to check out their original facility since we were in the neighborhood. We got a private tour of the small facility and it was very interesting. We wish them all the luck in the endeavors. We stopped at a great little sports bar called Double Dog Chow House for lunch. Excellent food and atmosphere.

Our second stop was a bit farther out of the way, but it was worth the drive with some beautiful scenery along the way. It was the Abbey of Gethsemani near Bardstown. It's the largest active monastery in the U.S. The grounds and buildings are immaculate and we stopped in their gift shop to get some handmade bourbon fudge and French-style cheese that they are known for producing and shipping world-wide.

We got on into Louisville after that and checked into our rooms at The Galt House Hotel right on the Ohio River in downtown. This stylish old hotel had a great rate thanks again to Travelocity's Top Secret Hotel finder that we used in Atlanta a month or so ago. We had a room overlooking the river on a holiday weekend Saturday night (during a huge Beatles-tribute convention going on at the hotel as well) for $80 - not too shabby!

We caught a cab for a quick ride to where we had dinner reservations: The White Oak Restaurant. We picked The White Oak for a couple of different reasons: a great menu that included many items locally grown as well as vegetarian dishes (for Ginny) and the fact we had a Groupon for $20 off dinner. Like the Travelocity Top Secret Hotel finder, Groupons (groupon.com) are another great money-saver for the budget traveler. After dinner our same taxi driver, Floyd, took us over to the Brown Theatre for our concert. We were there to see The Swell Season for a third time. This great Irish & Czech folk duo are one of our favorites. Before the show we had a few minutes to slip over to the Bluegrass Brewing Company Brewpub for a pre-show drink. This Louisville-based microbrewer puts out some really great beer. The show was excellent and the Brown Theatre could not be a nicer venue - great site-lines and perfect acoustics. After the show we did a bit of bar-hopping on our way back to the hotel in the pedestrian-only area known as 4th Street Live. We stopped at the Maker's Mark Lounge and the Ri Ra Irish Pub before winding up at Al J's Lounge back at The Galt House's Conservatory.

The next morning we slept in a bit and got up in time to check-out and head over to the other (and original) location of the Bluegrass Brewing Company Brewpub. They opened at 11 AM for lunch....but couldn't serve their award-winning beer until 1 PM thanks to a antiquated Kentucky law. Well, at least the food was great, but we didn't have to time to wait around on the beer since The Bourbon Trail was calling us. Our first stop along the winding roads that lead to more than a half-dozen well-know distilleries in central Kentucky was Jim Beam. The place was beautiful and they were open but....in Bullitt County, Kentucky, no alcohol can be served on Sundays, so no sampling. Oh well, we were 0-2 in terms of libations vs. Sunday ordinances. The friendly lady at the reception desk told us to head over to Heaven Hill Distillery because it was in a different county and they did serve on Sundays. Heaven Hill turned out to be a great find. They make Evan Williams Bourbon Whiskey as well as a few others and they have a beautiful facility including a fairly large and new welcome center called the Bourbon Heritage Center. We got a great free tour along with a couple of samples in their tasting room shaped like a bourbon barrel.

Maker's Mark has a beautiful facility nearby that we have been to before but were willing to go to again to for Nate and Ginny, but we had already missed the last tour of the day. Maybe next time. We stopped for one last nip before hitting the road home at the quaint-looking Old Talbott Tavern and Bourbon Bar in scenic Bardstown, Kentucky, but it turned out to be a bit of a dive when you went inside the place. But, the beer was cold and the bourbon was flowing if you wanted it, so it's probably all in the eye of the beholder.

We dropped Nate and Ginny off at their place in Nashville and we had planned on continuing south and spending the night in Scottsboro, Alabama, to take a hot-air balloon ride the next morning as part of our wedding anniversary, but Mother Nature was not complying and a call to our pilot, Richard, confirmed there would be no flight tomorrow morning. We would have to postpone. Disappointing to say the least, but at least we can reschedule. We headed east instead toward home and got to sleep in our own bed that night.

Monday was Memorial Day and despite not getting to do our balloon flight, we still had plans to meet our friend, Emily, in Lynchburg, Tennessee, to visit the Jack Daniel's Distillery - time for a little compare and contrast. Call us biased, call us homers, call us bourbon-haters but Tennessee sippin' whiskey is soooo much smooooother than bourbon, and Mr. Daniel did it right. What a beautiful place also. Our tour guide, Buddy, was tremendous and the free hour-long behind-the-scenes tour is well worth the visit. Incredible history surrounds this place and the story of "little" Jack Daniel is truly amazing. This distillery famously sits in a dry county so there would be no sampling of anything more than tame lemonade, but they are now able to at least sell their product (except on Sundays) at the distillery. We bought a beautiful bottle of Woodlands Commemorative to take with us. After a little walking tour of the quaint downtown square of Lynchburg, we ambled back to Emily's house in the nearby and also-very-quaint town of Bell Buckle where we cooked out, played some corn-hole toss and created our own kind of very untamed Bell Buckle Lemonade.

Not bad for a Tuesday night...

We decided sort of last-minute to go check out Butch Walker & the Black Widows at Exit/In last night in Nashville, and it was well worth the effort. We first saw Butch & Co. open for Train at The Ryman a month or so ago (see earlier blog). They really blew us away and almost stole the show. It was definitely one of the best opening acts we've ever seen. Butch has a great voice and a tremendous amount of energy on stage. His original songs are solid in melody and sharp in lyrics. We figured if they were that good as an opener, then they should be tremendous as the headliner. And, we were rignt on the money. They played non-stop rock-n-roll for two solid hours and we didn't get home until close to 1 AM this morning. Definitely a good time for a "school night." We haven't been to the Exit/In for several years now (in fact it was to see Train the last time we were there) and we forgot what a great venue it is. Lots of general admission standing room, good sight lines and excellent acoustics. They have been doing it right here since 1971 and the list of performers who have graced their stage is truly amazing (see photo above to see just a few of them). It was definitely a nice reprieve from our previously rotten live music experience at 3rd & Lindsley (make that The-Now-Boycotted 3rd & Lindsley - see previous blog entry). The place was packed for a Tuesday night and there seems to be a pretty big underground following for Butch who has been creating and producing great music for many years now. Plus his live shows are epic and always full of surprises including his late-into-the-set wade into the middle of the crowd (photo below). A lot of the folks sang along to the music despite the fact that Butch's music seldom gets radio airplay. It was also a respectful crowd with limited talkng during the quieter numbers when it was just Butch and his piano. Thanks, Exit/In-ers, for the respect because that's not always the case during live performances even in "Music City."

Thanks also to our friend, Nate, for being a good sport and tagging along with us despite not knowing anything about BW & the BW. He too was impressed by the show and is now a fan.

"Hey, (Ms.) Potter, please don't go..."...to 3rd & Lindsley

Well, it's official - we love Grace Potter and the Nocturnals and we absolutely hate 3rd & Lindsley as a music venue. This was our third visit to the place and the experience just doesn't get any better. You have to get there two hours before the show just to get a seat since the place is so small and it only has tables right up to the stage, no "offical" standing area. The tables near the stage are almost always reserved and unavailable. The acoustics are good but the sight lines any farther back than those first few tables are bad and the layout of the place is just awful and not worth the trouble anymore no matter who is playing there. And it's too bad because the place books a lot of great acts, but unfortunately we probably won't ever be back. We figure if the performer we want to see is playing there then they are also probably playing in a nearby city that we can drive to and have a better experience. On a more positive note GP&N were terrific as usual (this is the fourth time we have seen them) in the their performance for local radio station, Lightning 100's, Sunday Night Live simulcast. Our new friends, John and Monique, met us there for dinner and drinks beforehand, and we all had a good time despite our blocked vantage point of the stage (i.e. people standing where they are not "officially" supposed to be) during some of the performance. On an even more postivie note we just learned that Grace & Co. will be playing one of our favorite festivals, Bele Chere, in Asheville, NC, this year. Hoo-ray!!! We were going anyway no matter who played, but this news makes it all the better. See you in late July, Miss Potter!

ImprompATL

We took an impromptu trip to Atlanta this past weekend. What started out as a mistake, turned into a nice little trip and the discovery of yet another great band out there that no one's ever really heard of.

The mistake was that a band we like a lot out of Canada, Blue Rodeo, recently announced on Facebook that they would be playing in Atlanta on Friday night, April 23rd. Note to selves: don't trust Facebook announcements until you actually see the tickets go on sale...turns out its June 23rd. By the time this correction was made however, we had already used the great new Travelocity feature: Top Secret Hotels to secure a room in the downtown 4-Star Holiday Inn for a mere $42. The one catch to Top Secret Hotels is that once the rooms are bought, you can't change the date or get a refund. At first we thought of just having to eat the $42 and chalk it up to a lesson learned, but after a little more thought and a call to our friends, Terry and Rex, who live in Atlanta, we decided that a quick trip might be worth it to visit some friends, plus Rex said a good band we had never heard of - The Bridge - was playing at Smith's Olde Bar (this is where Blue Rodeo will be playing) that Friday night and he had read glowing reviews of their shows. In addition, we thought it would be a good opportunity on Saturday to tour one of our favorite regional breweries, Sweetwater, which is also located in Atlanta. So off we went.

We left after work Friday afternoon for the easy 3.5-hour drive to Atlanta. Rex picked us up at the downtown Holiday Inn after we checked in. This was our first experience using Travelocity's Top Secret Hotels and we could not be more pleased. We got a nice non-smoking room on the 8th floor with a queen bed. The location is perfectly situated downtown within walking distance of Phillips Arena, the Georgia Dome, the Tabernacle (another great music venue) and Centennial Olympic Park. We are using this service again for upcoming trips to Las Vegas and Louisville and are really saving money. Probably even more so than our Hilton loyalty program.

The drive over to Smith's Olde Bar was quick and we found good parking nearby. We have been wanting to check this place out for a while and almost came down for another show a month or so ago, but got lazy in the end. Now we wish we had made that trip because this place is an excellent music venue with great acoustics and good sight lines. The three-level bar is non-smoking upstairs where the concerts are held and that's very important to us. It's a general admission venue with mostly standing room only, but we were able to secure one of the few tables available as we walked in while the opening act, Danger Muffin (great name), was well into their set. "The Muffin" was good with their laid-back beach bum inspired original tunes plus a solid cover of Seal's "Crazy,"

The Bridge came next and this quintet from Baltimore was extremely impressive. Granted, these fellas are not the best looking dudes in rock-n-roll by far, but they are gifted with a lot of soul and a lot of talent on a wide variety of instruments from the dobro to the mandolin. Their original music is strong and melodic and their closing cover of The Allman Brothers' "Whipping Post" was dead solid perfect. It's a shame there wasn't more of a crowd for them as the turnout was a bit sparse, but they mentioned the first time they played Smith's Olde Bar seven years ago only 3 people showed up, so this was a great improvement. We got to meet a few members of the band after the show as they handed out posters and signed them for us. We found out when talking to them that they just recently added a late show at Bonnaroo as well. We told them we would definitely see them there! After the show we did a bit of bar-hopping downtown and wound up at Rex's very cool loft near our hotel for a nightcap. His loft home is in a converted gasket factory building with exposed original brick, huge windows, high ceilings and a private roof-top patio with amazing views of downtown. Thanks for a great evening, Rex!

We slept in the next morning and soaked up our $42 room for all it was worth. We met Rex again and our old friend, Terry, for lunch at a pasta/pizza place that was very good. We sat and chatted for a long time as thunderstorms and rain showers passed through clearing just in time for us to head over to Sweetwater Brewing Company for a mid-afternoon tour and some tastings. The brewery is on a dead-end road in an industrial park next to I-85 and you have to be looking for it to find it, but we were definitely not the only ones seeking it out this rainy afternoon because the place was packed when we arrived. We got a souvenir glass and 5 tasting tickets each and while it was crowded in their tasting room, their expansive bar and numerous tap stations made it easy to grab some brew. See Rob's beer blog for more info on the beer we had. We jumped in the 3 PM tour line and got a quick run through of their fairly large (but regional) facility. Our tour guide was more of a glorified bartender and seemed limited on his knowledge of the brewery and it's processes, but it was still an enjoyable look-see behind the making of one our favorites regional brewers (Ashlee loves the Sweetwater Blue - a malted wheat beer with a hint of blueberries and Rob loves their Sweetwater IPA claiming it to be the best bottled IPA he's ever had...and he's had a lot of IPAs...again see the beer blog for more on that).

We headed back to Chattanooga after the tour to visit family and spend the night before heading back home on Sunday. Just outside Atlanta on the way back north we stopped at Pappasito's Cantina in Marietta, Georgia. Our friend, Brenda, had suggested this place for dinner and she was right on the money. Excellent fresh, high-end (without a high cost) Mexican food. The place was jam packed for a Saturday evening and we got lucky and were able to get in quick and grab a table next to the bar for dinner. Delicious fajitas and grilled fish tacos were the choices and both were fantastic.