10,000 Elusive Sandhill Cranes

For two weekends in a row recently, we tried to see an estimated 10,000 sandhill cranes nesting in the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge on the Tennessee River north of Chattanooga by boat, but weather was a factor both times.  Despite the setbacks, we actually had a pretty good time on both trips.

Heavy fog was the culprit on our first try on January 12, 2013.  Despite much warmer-than-usual temperatures, the fog never lifted enough for us to make it all the way to the nesting site.

Blue Moon Cruises were our guides on both trips and provided a beautiful boat with comfortable amenities.  Our first cruise was booked through and sponsored by the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga.

It's not like we didn't see any sandhill cranes.  This little group was spotted heading back to the refuge from our boat.

We went north from the Sale Creek Marina to just past the Highway 60 bridge that connects Dayton and Decatur, TN, before having to turn around due to fog so heavy the captain was navigating only by radar and for the sake of safety had to call it off.  We still wound up having a nice cruise as the area is beautiful even shrouded in fog and we did see some wildlife.  Thanks to our friends, TIm and Lavonda, for tagging along with us and thanks to Blue Moon Cruises for the great lunch provided plus the chance to come back for another free cruise and try again to see the cranes and the refuge area.  We headed back to Chattanooga and caught a matinee showing of "This is 40" which was very funny and enjoyable as well as a delicious dinner at the always-great Urban Stack gourmet burger joint.

Saturday, January 19, 2013:  Now this is more like it!  We decided to go ahead and take our bonus cruise the very next weekend since the weather was clear (albeit a bit colder).  However, little did we know until we got to the refuge area that the heavy amount of rain over the preceding week had flooded the mud flats where the sandhill cranes usually hang out and forced them farther off the river and barely visable from the boat.  Again, the trip wasn't a total loss since we saw a several bald eagles, great blue herons, kingfishers, geese and ducks.

OK, yes, I love my new Smartphone for goofy stuff like this.  This screenshot also shows a lot of the over 1,000 acres of land encompassed in the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge.

Great blue heron.

ALL parts of the Hiwassee Refuge Area are used by the nesting birds including this TVA transmission tower.

This HUGE bald eagle nest had a mother in it whose white head would pop up now and then and what we can only assume were some eggs or eaglets she was caring for.  We were surprised to hear that such nests can weigh over a ton!

The beauty of this place is hard to ignore.  Thanks again to our friends, Tim and Lavonda, for trooping out again with us as well as Ashlee's sister, Paige, and our niece, Ella.  We met back up with Tim and Lavonda again later that night in Chattanooga for dinner at a great new Mexican restaurant they suggested called Poblanos.  The food was marvelous.

Happy New Year, Mon!

We took a quick trip down to Jamaica to celebrate New Year's.  While this trip had been planned for a while, it was up in the air if we would actually go until the last minute due to the ongoing medical condition of Ashlee's mom, Evelyn.  But, with improved progress in her health and an understanding and blessing by Evelyn herself, we decided to go.  This trip had a couple of "firsts" for us.  It would be the first time we would be staying in an "all-inclusive" resort and it's the first time we had bought a package deal (i.e. flight, ground transportation and lodging) from a travel company.  Our usual modus operandi is finding cheap airfare and building a trip around it ourselves, but we got a decent package rate and wanted to try an all-inclusive resort at least once in our lives.

Saturday, December 29, 2012 - We drove down to Atlanta to catch our direct flight into Montego Bay.  While we enjoy the convenience of flying out of Nashville, we always check Atlanta and a lot of times their airfares are much lower to certain destinations.  This was the same with the package deal we bought which was a much better overall rate out of Atlanta than out of Nashville.



The descent into Montego Bay was breath-taking.

Our resort, the Riu ClubHotel, was just outside of Negril, Jamaica, on the far west tip of the island.  The hour-and-a-half ride from the Montego Bay Airport was a bit long, but at least it hugged the coastline for most  of the way providing us with some nice views here and there.  Jamaica is an extremely poor country which is evident fairly quickly.   However, the roadsides and small towns we passed were fairly clean and tidy.  This was not case, for example, in Belize which we visited a few years ago on a cruise where not only was the country poor, but the residents there didn't seem to care about upkeep or trash removal.



This was the view from our room at the resort looking out on Bloody Bay.  One interesting thing about Jamaica, at least here, were the number of hardwood trees near the beaches instead of just palm trees.  Yes, that's a bar on the beach.  It opens at 10 AM every day..just FYI.  Until then we had a stocked fridge and bar in our room...just sayin'.

Sunday, December 30, 2012 - A great day to just hang out by the pool.

This was our favorite of the two pools at the resort.  Probably because that's a swim-up bar under the patio on the right and the bartender there makes a great White Russian and another  delicious "secret" concoction of his own called "The Green Dragon."

Not top-shelf, but a big shelf.  The bars, bar service and drink selections were the best part of the resort.

Monday, December 31, 2012 - It was just another lazy day for us around the resort today before we loaded up in a van to our one and only planned excursion of the trip:  a swim in Bioluminescence Bay.  This was an amazing experience.  The moonless but clear sky made it perfect for this endeavor.  We honestly can't say we have seen more stars in the sky than we did tonight.  And they seemed so much closer than at home.  The bioluminescence experience was surreal.  Every movement in the water left a glowing trail behind it. Unfortunately, we were not able to capture any of it on film.  We did find the link below to a National Geographic feature about a similar area in Puerto Rico.  A hint of the amazing stars we saw comes at :55 and the swimming experience is at 1:55 if you don't want to watch the whole thing (although it's all very interesting).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HXXQBz6Vv0

The only downside to the bioluminescence excursion was that it was on the other side of Montego Bay, meaning we had an almost two-hour ride to get there and then another back for only a one-hour experience.  The views as above were sometimes nice, but fleeting, and overall the transportation endeavor almost cancelled out the actual experience itself.

New Year's Eve back at the resort was a bit of a let-down.  They had a terrible band playing, unimpressive food and no fireworks.  What the??  We decided to see 2013 come in on our patio with a bottle of champagne and a (legal here) Cuban cigar (our first one and it was pretty smooth). 

Tuesday, January 1, 2013 - Happy New Year!  On our last day at the resort and the first day of the new year, we decided we just had to go so see a little more of the island. We made arrangements with a cabbie to take us into the town of Negril and drop us off at Rick's Cafe, a famous bar on the cliffs there overlooking the ocean which is supposed to be a good place to watch the sun set.

The famous diving alcove at Rick's Cafe with the Negril Point Lighthouse in the background.

A panoramic sunset view of Rick's Cafe from the balcony above the main bar.

What can you say.  Jamaica's pretty nice.  Yeah, mon!



Wednesday, January 2, 2012:  Heading Home

We said goodbye to tranquil  Bloody Bay this morning and headed back to the airport for our early afternoon flight.

Jamaica's worth coming back to someday if we have the chance.  It's a beautiful, diverse place.

Collage Time!

2012 Memories

Collage # 14 is done and another year is now "under glass."  2012 was a good one despite a few set-backs and missed opportunities due to Ashlee's mom's prolonged illness in the last quarter of the year.  We are happy to report she looks to be well on the road to recovery, and we can't wait to have her back home!

We saw a lot of great concerts this year including Mumford & Sons twice.  We found a great new music festival called Bunbury up in Cincinnati, and we returned again to our beloved Bonnaroo here in Middle Tennessee. We took some awesome trips this year including a 3-country tour in Europe (again) where we felt our first strong earthquake while in Milan, Italy; California (twice); the Outer Banks (again); Chicago (again); and tropical Aruba.  We saw an array of sporting events including playoff wins for our beloved pro hockey team, the Nashville Predators, the U.S. men's soccer team, pro and college football, and pro baseball in two different cities.  We had some great food at some wonderful new restaurants during our travels as well. 

2013 is already looking to be promising with planned trips to Jamaica for New Year's, China (yes, China) in February, and Colorado in early March for some snowshoeing.  We also have a possible first-time visit to the city of Pittsburgh and then on to Mt. Rushmore in the planning stages as well as a possible return to the Indy 500 in May, and a possible music cruise in November.  We already have a few concerts we are planning to attend including our beloved Augustana in an acoustic show, Gaslight Anthem in a more intimate venue than we've ever seen them before, and another run at Bonnaroo in June. 

A special thanks to all our friends who have joined us this past year for many of our endeavors. We appreciate your camaraderie and enthusiasm in everything we do. 

Now, as long as the Mayans aren't right, let's proceed in filing up our next collage!

Happy New Year everyone!

OK, now....Let's hear It for the boys...

November 5, 2012 - We caught another show by one of our favorites, Snow Patrol, at the Ryman Auditorium (this is the second time we have seen them there) tonight along with co-headliner, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, and opener, Jake Bugg.  It was a good Irish and British invasion  of Nashville all around.


November 17, 2012 - We attended the UT vs. Vandy college football game in Nashville tonight.

Great seats, eh? Just 7 rows off the field! It was a  41-18 shellacking by Vandy of the once-proud Vols.
  It was OK by us since we were pulling for the Dores who were already bowl eligible
 and increased their chances for a better bowl with this win.
This also turned out to be embattled UT Head Coach Derek Dooley's
(white shirt, right center) last game before being fired the next day.

December 1, 2012 - We caught another show by one of our regional faves, The Dirty Guv'nahs, at Track 29 in Chattanooga tonight along with openers, The Black Cadillacs, from Nashville, and Shark Week from Chattanooga.  Another excellent show by The Guvs who never fail to impress us with their energy and passion.  Thanks to our friends Mike (who also met us for dinner beforehand at the always-delicious Terminal Brewhouse), Michelle and Debra for hanging with us at the show.  In the photo above, members of The Black Cadillacs join The Guvs on stage for a closing cover of the appropriately-named Beatles/Joe Cocker staple, "With a Little Help From My Friends."

Let's hear it for the girls...

It's been all about the ladies recently for us.  Most importantly, Ashlee's mom, Evelyn, who has been on a long recovery over the past six weeks from an aortic tear in her heart.  Her serious medical condition has required us to miss a few shows and events we had planned together over the last month or so, but we were able to squeeze in a few things from some other special ladies during that time.



We caught the second show of Grace Potter & the Nocturnals' two-night-stand at the beautiful
Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on Saturday, October 13th.  With our friend, Wayne,
 we had awesome front-row balcony seats that gave us a great view of the 2-hour-plus show.



We were fortunate enough to get a chance to meet Doris Roberts
of "Everyone Loves Raymond" fame as she spoke to volunteers at Memorial Hospital in Chattanooga during Evelyn's recovery.  She was in Chattanooga for a seniors active-living convention and stopped by the hospital during her first-ever visit to the city.  Thanks to the staff at Memorial for letting us crash the party.


We returned to the Ryman Auditorium on Friday, October 26, to catch another great lady of music, Alanis Morrisette, who hasn't toured in a few years, but you couldn't tell that from the energy she showed on stage (see a small part of that in the video below).  Our 9th-row main floor seats were a perfect vantage point for the show that was packed full of her past hits (hear that, Jackson Browne, it's OK to play your hits!!) as well as new songs off her latest album.  Our great seats were a far cry better than what we had the last time we saw her a long way from the stage in the general admission grass at the now-defunct Starwood Amphitheatre (RIP, old friend) many pre-blog years ago.

GET WELL SOON, EVELYN!  WE MISS OUR TRAVELING PARTNER!!

Lordy, Lordy, Look Who's....in NorCal for Her Birthday!

Ashlee's 40th birthday was on the horizon and to celebrate, we headed out to San Francisco and other parts of Northern California for week of fun with a gaggle of our friends from all over the place for different amounts of time throughout:

Saturday, Sept. 1 - We flew out of Nashville with a pretty good fare to San Francisco on Frontier Airlines with our friend, Brenda.  Meeting us at the San Fran airport were our friends, Mike from Chattanooga, and Amy and Jeremy from New Hampshire.  Arriving before all of us was our friend, Rex from Atlanta.  Our friend, Wayne, who is also from Nashville would arrive late the next day to complete our eightsome (sp?) after running a half marathon in Virginia Beach (impressive!).

The upstairs view from the 4-bedroom house we rented was nice.

The fog that San Fran is famous for found us on our first morning there.

After settling into our rental house on Masonic Avenue we ambled a few blocks and found the Magnolia Gastropub and Brewery for dinner.  The place was hopping but they were able to accommodate our large group rather quickly and we had a great meal and a few libations to celebrate our long journeys westward.

Our rental house was just a few blocks from the famous psychedelic corner of Ashbury & Haight, an iconic area of the free-love movement and the hippie lifestyle.  It struck us kind of funny that in the shops along Haight Street which were celebrating simple living and a desire to get away from all things corporate and capitalistic, they still had bluejeans for sale for $145.  Gonna have to sell a lot of flower-necklaces to make that purchase.  Our favorite breakfast spot on Haight turned out to be the hilariously-named, Squat & Gobble, which is exactly what we did there a couple of different mornings.

Sunday, Sept. 2 - We spent the day in the city today with an afternoon gourmet food tour being the only scheduled thing on the agenda.   While waiting on the tour to begin in the Hayes Valley area (a mile or so from our house), we found a great "portable" beer garden (aptly named Biergarten) where the bar is located inside a shipping container.  It's one of several "proxy projects" in the fast-developing area that may or may not be there in the future.  We sure hope it still is when we return someday because it is a perfect place to hang out.

On our way to our food tour we stopped in Alamo Park
for a great view of "The Painted Sisters" row houses
and downtown behind them.  Remember this shot from
the TV show, "Full House"?

The Day One Group huddling in a neat sculpture garden  before our food tour.

An $80 box of chocolates from the Christopher Elbow Shop, one of the 7 stops on our gourmet food tour.

The one place not on the food tour that was recommended by our guide was Smuggler's Cove, a kind of secret bar nearby with a very plain exterior and a funky, 3-level, tiki-bar interior.  Their drinks were very good and Ashlee's "Volcano" was among the most amazing of them.

Monday, Sept. 3 - We spent Labor Day "laboring" the day away in a limo tour to Napa Valley and Sonoma with visits to Cakebread Vineyards, V. Sattui Winery in St. Helena for lunch, Schramsberg Vineyards and Caves, and finally Cline Winery.  When we got back to San Fran we all had a great dinner with our friend, Roman, and his wife at NOPA - a wondeful restaurant in the NOrthern PAnhandle area.

An unscheduled but amazing first stop on our limo tour was right
across San Francisco Bay to see The Golden Gate Bridge starting
to emerge from the fog.  A great start to a great day!

A Napa view from inside our limo

First stop:  Cakebread Cellars, Napa Valley



A little dust on the bottles inside Schramsberg's aging caves

 Tuesday, Sept. 4 - We loaded up the entire "Full House" of eight people into a rented Yukon and headed on a long road trip to Yosemite National Park today.  It was worth the trip as the weather was perfect, the company was great and we hopefully avoided the dreaded hantavirus that had plagued (literally) the park earlier in the summer.  It was worth the time and the risk to see this American jewel.

Windmill field on the way to Yosemite

The winding road to Yosemite from San Francisco

Our first look at Yosemite was one of the best with El Capitan (left),
and Half Dome (center) soaring into the beautiful skies.

El Capitan, the largest granite monolith in the world.

Bridalveil Falls at late summer/early fall level.

Wednesday, Sept. 5 - It was another day in the city with only another food tour (this time in Japantown) scheduled for five of us.  Sadly, we had to bid Rex a fond farewell as he headed back home today. 

After the great food tour, we snagged some amazingly-cheap, last-minute baseball tickets ($2.22 each!) to see the San Francisco Giants play the Arizona Diamondbacks at beautiful AT&T Field tonight.  It was a beautiful night for a game with mild temps.  The food at the ballpark was exceptional and I guess we made up for the money we saved on the tickets with all the snacks we bought.  (Editor note:  October 2012 - We went and saw one pro baseball team play this year and we will be danged if they didn't go and get themselves in the World Series, and then win it in a sweep!  Congrats Giants!) We followed that up with some after-game bowling at the ultra-cool Lucky Strike Bowling Center near the stadium.

A delicious Japanese snack called onigilly (rice balls wrapped in seaweed).

A beautiful rainbow appeared on our way to the baseball park.

AT&T Park is a jewel of a place nestled right on the SF Bay.

Our seats were very good, especially given the fact we paid less than $2.50 for them!

The abandoned nachos and stray popcorn clean-up crew after the game.

Jeremy's score should have an asterisk by it...that's all I am saying.

Thursday, Sept. 6 - Another great day in the city that started with all seven of us taking a bike ride from Pier 33, across the Golden Gate Bridge and down to the beautiful town of Sausilito where we had lunch and then took the ferry back across the bay.  We hung around the piers the rest of the day and five of us took an Alcatraz night tour.  Ashlee gave her ticket up to Wayne who have never been before and wasn't able to get a seat on the sold-out tour. She and Brenda did some shopping and coconut-macaron (not macaroon) tasting instead (evidently they are as big as your hand!).

The crowded Golden Gate Bridge, even on a weekday, but what a great ride!

Friday, Sept. 7 - And then there were four.  We said goodbye to Brenda, Amy and Jeremy, who all headed home today.  The final four rented another car and headed south to the town of Mountain View (home to Google, by the way) to catch a concert by Linkin Park and Incubus at the Shoreline Amphitheatre. Before heading out of town we hooked up with our friend, Roman, again and had a tasty brunch at Q Restaurant and Wine Bar near our rental house.  Thanks again to the Food Network TV show, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, for another excellent recommendation!

You don't really have to "search" to find Google Street in tiny Mountain View, CA



Linkin Park doing what they do best and doing it live.



Saturday, Sept. 8 - Time to part ways.  I headed home, as did Wayne and Mike.  Ashlee was off to Portland, OR, for a day of fun before continuing north to Spokane, WA for work conference the following week.

The whole gang from L to R - Ashlee, Rex, Brenda, Wayne, Mike, me, Amy and Jeremy.
Thanks for all the fun and laughs everyone and Happy Birthday, Ashlee!!