A Visit to the "51st State"

April 20, 2013 - We flew out this morning for a long weekend in San Juan, Puerto Rico to celebrate my birthday.    

 

We chose this trip thanks to a new route offered by Southwest Airlines and a great opening sale ($110 each way!) celebrating their first destination out of the Lower 48 states .

 

Our flight down connected in Tampa and the plane from Tampa to San Juan was one of Southwest's new 800 series and this particular one we were on looked (and smelled) brand new.  And it was amazingly only about half full.

The flight to Puerto Rico was beautiful as we passed over The Bahamas with tremendous views.

We stayed near the airport at The San Juan Water and Beach Club Hotel, a swanky, art-deco boutique hotel right on the beach that we got a great deal on booking "blind" through Hotwire.com.  We capped off the day of travel with a moonlight stroll on the soft sand beach in front of our hotel followed by some room service and champagne.  Not a bad way to spend a birthday.

Sunday, April 21, 2013 - We got up early this morning to go on a hiking tour of the El Yunque Rainforest followed by a sunset food and walking tour back in Old San Juan.

The only U.S. National Forest that just so happens to be a rainforest also, El Yunque is beautiful and very close to San Juan.

A little over a half mile from the main road down the Big Tree Trail is beautiful La Mina Falls.

Our first of four stops in the Old San Juan Food Tour was on of our favorites.  This traditional Puerto Rican dish is called mofongo and was served at Café' la Princesa .  Under that dome of mashed plantain on the left was yummy grilled flank steak.  The beans and rice on the right were super-flavorful.

With the walking tour starting at 5 PM, we were able to enjoy a beautiful sunset over the harbor during it.  We have been to San Juan just once before for less than a day as a cruise stop.  We did a car tour of Old San Juan and while it was enjoyable, it was nowhere near as in-depth as a tour on foot with our wonderful guide, Hiriam.

As night falls on Old San Juan, the beautiful walled city takes on another great personality.

Monday, April 21, 2013 - We spent most of the day today on the beach, but we did find our way back to Old San Juan again for another cool tour and some more great food.

Good mornin', Puerto Rico!  Enjoying an early morning mimosa up at the roof-top pool of the hotel.

They call it a "Shandy" - light beer (in this case the locally-brewed Medalla Light) and Sprite (or in this case Diet 7-up).  A light, refreshing blend that is a perfect beach drink.  Thanks to our hotel for introducing this drink to us at breakfast so we could modify it slightly and take a few to the beach rather quickly thanks to a Wal-Greens being within walking distance to us for all the ingredients as well as a cheap cooler.

The beach in front of the hotel is beautiful and not very crowded.  Those white legs definitely need that sunscreen!

We spent the late afternoon on a tour of the Bacardi Rum Factory which is free (and they give you two free sample drinks in the open air bar pictured above!!) It's located across the harbor from Old San Juan via a 50 cent ferry ride.  We got back to Old San Juan afterwards for a yummy light dinner of appetizers at The Parrot Club (we loved the black bean croquetas ).  After dinner we went and  found La Taberna Lúpulo (The Hop Tavern), a great craft beer hall with an impressive selection (thanks for the suggestion, Hiriam!).   We ended the evening in Old San Juan with ginger mojitos at the bar inside El Conventa Hotel (yep, the beautiful building used to be a convent and yep these drinks were another Hiriam suggestion).  We sipped these delicious libations outside watching Old San Juan just pass us by on the cobblestone streets on a lovely Caribbean evening.  What a great day!

Tuesday, April 22, 2013 - Another morning walk on the beach before heading to the airport to say goodbye to this beautiful island.  We will definitely return probably well before it actually does become a state which it so should be!!

A Month or So of Outs and Abouts

The past month has been chock-full of fun activities for us:

Thursday,  March 28th - We attended a Preds game and had lots of fun with our friend, Wayne, and his co-worker and friend, Devin, despite the 7-4 drubbing we took from the Phoenix Coyotes.  We had another yummy dinner again in The Suite Spot on some fancy (but fair priced) concessions.  We had great lower bowl seats. 

"Must go faster!!"

We took in another game on Tuesday, April 9th  vs. the St. Louis Blues which ended in another frustrating 1-0 loss.  At least the food (buffalo mac-n-cheese and citrus Buffalo wings) was good again in The Suite Spot and our seats were excellent in the 200 level.

Saturday March 30th - We headed over to 3rd and  Lindsley for a night of music straight out of East Tennessee.  Our old regional favorite singer/songwriter, Scott Miller, was acoustic with female fiddle player, Rayna Gellert. We hadn't seen Scott in a while and it was good to see/hear him again although we can't wait for another plugged-in show with his great band, The Commonwealth.  The Black Lillies, a solid alt-bluegrass band out of Knoxville, were the headliners and they were definitely plugged in and sounding great.   Although not listed as "sold out" technically, the place was packed to the gills. We used a Groupon and took a chance on dinner beforehand at Sushi Train over in West Nashville  (photo below) and it was actually very good.  So good, in fact, we bought a couple more of those Groupons!

All aboard the Sushi Train!!

Friday, April 5th - We caught opening night of Jurassic Park 3D IMAX at Opry Mills.  This re-release of this classic film was great, and the 3D and IMAX conversions were excellent! 

Friday, April 12th - One of our favorite bands, Alpha Rev, opened tonight for Ben Rector at The Cannery.  It was a SOLD OUT show.  Due to an early morning commitment we only stayed for a couple Rector songs but he sounds pretty good.  Leaving when we did gave us the chance to meet Alpha Rev, lead singer, Casey McPherson, again, out at the merch table and we even let him sell us a T-shirt.   On the star-watching front we saw, Clare Bowen, in the crowd at the show.  She's the actress who plays "mumbling Scarlett" on the show Nashville.  She's our least favorite character in the series, but it was kind of cool to see her in town taking in the sights and sounds of Music City.



Multi-talented singer, songwriter, guitarist, band founder and leader and, yes, merch table vendor, Casey McPherson, gives Ashlee the soft sell on a sweet Alpha Rev T-shirt



Not exactly the message
you want to see from the guy you've
got tickets to see sing that night.
photo courtesy of Jack's Mannequin
 Facebook page

Wednesday, April 17th - It was another SOLD OUT venue for us as we attended the performance of Jack's Mannequin front-man, Andrew McMahon, at 3rd and Lindsley.  Andy might be out on his own moniker now, but he is still belting out the great songs of JM that put him on the map and doing so tonight despite battling a strained voice issue (you could only tell it a couple times however during his performance).  3rd and Lindsley is the most exasperating Nashville venue in our opinion since you never know how much standing room there is going to be at each performance, so we went very early to stake out a couple decent seats and grabbed some dinner beforehand there that was actually pretty good.

The always-amazing Andrew McMahon

We also had to sit through two ho-hum openers (an annoying trend in live music these days - I mean, thanks for the bargain of seeing three performers for one ticket price, but it's a week night and we need to get home at a decent hour for work the next day, and besides that, some of these opening folks ain't all that good). But holding out for Andy was worth it because his energy on stage quickly made it one of the best shows we've seen at 3rd and Lindsley.



Photo courtesy of The Nashville Film Festival Facebook page

Thursday, April 18th - We kept the SOLD OUT trend going by attending the Opening Night Feature of The 2013 Nashville Film Festival (NAFF).  It was a film called Mud starring Matthew McConahey and Reese Witherspoon.  It was excellent from start to finish with great acting turned in by several folks. Unfortunately there was no star-power in the room for the showing as there has been in previous years for opening night of NAFF(even the film's director, Jeff Nichols, only Skyped in for a quick welcome message - photo above - from Austin due to an apparent family emergency), but it was still a fun evening with a huge crowd of patrons as this festival celebrates its 44th year.

Friday, April 19th - It was back to the Opry Mills IMAX tonight to catch opening night of the Tom Cruise sci-fi epic, Oblivion.  It is an excellent film with a great story that really keeps you guessing plus solid acting by the entire case and some out-of-this-world (literally) special effects.  Seeing it on the IMAX screen really does make a film an "event" instead of just "going to see a movie."

Two, no make that three, VIP Experiences Within a Week

After our recent VIP experience at Bridgestone Arena with the Pink concert, we had a few other chances to be sort-of snooty:.

Thursday, March 14:

We grabbed two VIP tickets  for one of our favorite 90's bands, Better Than Ezra, at one of our favorite Nashville music venues, The Cannery.  One hundred percent of the funds went to The Montessori School of Franklin where BTE lead singer (and now Nashville native), Kevin Griffin, has his twin sons enrolled.  The openers were former American Idol winner, David Cook, who has a great voice, and another of our favs from the 90's, Emerson Hart, lead singer and founder of the band, Tonic.  Emerson is also a local now with a home down in Leiper's Fork.

Besides the ultra-cool side-stage viewing platform (this is where the stage is for most performances), the SOLD OUT VIP section gave us access to some tasty food and a great open bar.

Friday, March 15 thru Monday, March 18:  We celebrated St. Patty's Day weekend down in Chattanooga and it started off with a bang as Ashlee's mom, Evelyn, (our favorite VIP) finally got to leave the hospital after six tough months of recovery from an aortic tear and several complications afterward.  Welcome home, Mrs. Carroll!!!

Sunday, March 17:  Thanks to Groupon.com, we were able to snag a fancy Victorian-era rail-car room at the famous Chattanooga Choo-Choo for an affordable price.  We stayed in the last one on the left in the photo above.

The room consists of half of a converted passenger rail car and had a ton of room.  In the photo above, our niece, Ella, checks out the TV in the room while Ashlee and Mrs. Carroll (balled up under the blanket) check out the comfy bed.  The full bathroom is behind me and was quite roomy as well.  We really enjoyed our brief stay in here.

Our final VIP situation came on Sunday night at Chattanooga's Tivoli Theater as we enjoyed front row seats and a backstage meet-n-greet for our favorite comedian, Jim Gaffigan.

This photo of Jim Gaffigan performing at The Tivoli Theater is kind of a goof in terms of photography, but it couldn't really be more accurate in terms of Jim's persona as a very "pale fellow."

Here's the pale one himself, mugging it up with us after the show.  The really funny thing about this weekend is that we stayed at the Chattanooga Choo Choo all weekend (just one night in the fancy rail car) and SO DID JIM AND HIS HUGE FAMILY! (5 kids...Catholic!)  We just keep seeing them and bumping into them and they couldn't have seen more nice and down-to-earth.  Thanks for all the fun, Jim!

An Off-the-Wall Triple in Downtown Nashville

It's been a busy start to the month of March for us:



Puckett's Grocery

Saturday, March 2 - We plunked down some major cashola to get VIP tickets to see Pink at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville tonight.  There were several reasons for our hefty investment.  First, we both like her music. Second, she is said to put on quite a live show.  Third, the Bridgestone is far from our favorite place to see music and if we can't general admission in front of the stage, then we were going to get as close as we could.   Beforehand, we had dinner at Puckett's Grocery downtown with our friend, Bridgette, who was going to the show with us.  This was our first time at this southern-food favorite that got it's start out in Franklin, TN. I had my first go at "chicken and waffles" and I have to admit they are pretty darn good. All the food was delicious, hearty and very affordable.  We will definitely be making other visits to this establishment when we have downtown events.  And they take reservations! 

The SOLD OUT show was in the simplest terms...AMAZING!  Easily the best arena show we have ever seen.  Our seats were great.  They were elevated and to the right center of the stage so we saw everything with a perfect view.  The production was something straight out of Broadway and/or Las Vegas with huge sound, bright lights and constant action.  The opening band, The Hives, were hugely entertaining as well.  Besides our swell seats, our VIP tickets got us a cloth goody bag stuffed with Pink promotional items like a trucker hat and a huge knit throw blanket from her Truth About Love Tour.

One good-lookin' mama...this was Pink's first tour after having her first child a couple years ago.

Our seats were very close to the stage and to Pink herself except for the times she went flying across the entire freakin' arena!  Great music and superb acrobatics made this the best arena show we've ever seen.

As this close-up shot shows, Pink was having a genuinely good time doing what she does best.  She's a solid performer and we feel privileged to have seen her play live.

Tuesday, March 5:   We caught one of only three showings of the Broadway musical hit, American Idiot, tonight at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Jackson Hall.  While not knowing a whole lot about it going in, we thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish.  It was actually a nice complement to the Pink show we saw a few days earlier which also did a great job of combining rock music with theatrics.



Our fourth row seats gave us a great view of the stage.  The rock-n-roll based musical  based on the hit concept album of the same name by the superstar group, Green Day, had a great, young cast (some of which we saw mingling with crowd out in the lobby after the show). One of the parts of the program that we liked best was the fact that a live rock band was on stage with the cast providing the music during the performance.

Wednesday, March 6: - We caught one of favorite "new to us" bands, The Gaslight Anthem, at Marathon Music Works in downtown Nashville.  They had a good opening band as well out of Charlotte, NC, called Matrimony.  The sound engineering was still at a little suspect at times in this venue where we've had one good and one bad experience in the past.  Some consistency in the sound quality is still needed for us to consider this a "good" venue.

In total contrast to the two previous music endeavors we experienced earlier in the week, these boys from Jersey are basically just a stripped-down, primal rock-and-roll band.



A few little sumpin' sumpin's

A few activities of note over the past three weeks or so:

Friday, February 8:  We attended the first of four sold-out shows for comedian, Drew Carey, at Zanies in Nashville.  He was pretty funny and his insight behind his new gig as host of "The Price is Right" was hilarious.."cash, cars and trips!"  He also had a pretty good opener by the name of Brendon Walsh. Our front row balcony seats were great.  Thanks to our friends, Wayne, Mike, John and Monique for attending with us.

Saturday, February 9:  We went and saw the re-release of the 1987 classic, "Top Gun" as it was presented in IMAX and 3D at Opry Mills Theaters in Nashville.  The 3D wasn't that big of a deal, but the IMAX conversion was excellent.  Maverick and Goose never looked so good...or BIG!!  Thanks to our friend, Mike, for attending with us.

Thursday, February 14:  We spent Valentine's Day at home this year and made some kind-of last-minute reservations for dinner at a new Italian restaurant over in East Nashville called Pomodoro East.   The food was very good and reasonably-priced, and Ashlee's violet martini (photo above) was tasty.  We have been looking for a good Italian place in Nashville and  we will definitely be back here, especially when it warms up because they have a sweet patio seating area as well.

Friday, February 15:  We weren't really planning on going to see Kid Rock at The Bridgestone Arena in Nashville (not our particular style of music and not our favorite music venue), but when a pair of tickets became available and were offered to us by our good friends, Chris and Tarryn, we decided to give it a go.  The concert wasn't half-bad and the guy is definitely a showman.  Our seats were good and dinner before the show at Big River Grille was tasty.  Thanks again to Chris and Tarryn for the invitation as well as their friends (and now ours), Stewart and Stacey, who also attended dinner and the show.

Monday, February 18:  We took advantage of the President's Day holiday today and slipped over to Belcourt Avenue in Nashville  for a late lunch/early dinner at Belcourt Taps (tasty "stuffed" burgers and good beer on tap) and then walked back across the street to The Belcourt Theatre to catch The Oscar Nominated Short Films (live and animated) for this year.  This has become a bit of a tradition for us the past couple years in preparation for the upcoming Oscars ceremony and the coinciding party we are invited to each year at our friend Brenda's house (see below for more info).  This year's entries weren't as good as the previous year's in our opinion, but all of them were interesting.  No clear-cut winners could be determined by us in either category, so it's anybody's guess who will win.

Saturday, February 23:  We were down in Chattanooga visiting Ashlee's mom (who continues to recover nicely) and since her house is a construction site currently due to a bathroom remodeling project, we decided to have a bit of a "stay-cation" by booking a cheap room (thanks to Hotwire.com's buy-it-blind program) at the historic and lovely Read House downtown.  The room was great and the bed was amazingly comfortable.  We slept in the following morning after a great dinner across the river at the Brewhaus, which has quickly become one of our favorite Chattanooga eateries.

Sunday, February 24:  We were invited again and attended again our friend, Brenda's, fantastic Oscar party and had a great time as usual.  Brenda added a twist this year by inviting all guests to dress in movie-related costumes if they wanted to with a chance for prizes.  I am proud to say that Ashlee took second place (which was a DVD copy of the soon-to-be-crowned Best Picture - "Argo") with her funny rendition of the bounty hunter, Django from another best picture nominee, "Django Unchained."  My costume mimicking the android, David, from my favorite film of the year, "Prometheus" didn't fare as well, but I liked it and it was damn comfortable!  Thanks, as always, to Brenda for throwing such a fab soiree of great food and good times.


Monday, February 25:  Tonight, we decided to plunk down some solid cash again and get our favorite Nashville Predator seats down on the glass behind the visitors' penalty box (we've sat here two other times and loved it).  Our friend, Mike, was in town and had never sat on the glass, so we figured that was as good an excuse as any.  Well, we couldn't have picked a better game to sit where we did.  There was  lots of action and scoring, lots of penalties for Dallas giving us a chance to razz the players sitting in front of us.  A couple of them were once again willing to read our signs for them:  "Never heard of you???"  and "ESPN is reporting you just got traded!"  and acknowledge us with a smile and a laugh.  There was a huge glove-dropping fight in the 3rd period, and finally, and best of all, the Preds had a dramatic comeback and overtime win of 5-4.  We had a pre-game dinner up in The Suite Spot up in the Patron Platinum Level of the Bridgestone Arena (access granted by our fancy tickets) which serves high-end concessions (the Buffalo chicken mac-n-cheese and the spicy southwestern meatballs were excellent).  Thanks to our good friend, Wayne, for coming with us again as well.

"Twinkle, twinkle, little Dallas Stars."  Let's try and count all of them...one, two...three...oh, wait, I see another one!  Make that FOUR Dallas stars crammed into the penalty box.  Naughty, naughty, boys! 

Below is a quick a video of the opening puck-drop that gives a sense of how close we were to the lightning-quick action.



A pretty darn fun February if we do say so ourselves!

TallahasSEE DUKE PLAY

Friday, February 1, 2013:  We rented a car and headed south for a long weekend in Florida's panhandle to catch our favorite college basketball team, the Duke Blue Devils, take on the Florida State Seminoles on the road in some ACC action.



After picking up our friend, Mike, who lives in Chattanooga and who is also a Duke fan and had never seen them play live before, the three of us stopped for lunch in Atlanta at The Vortex.  The food was amazing and the downtown location is very cool.  We were lucky to get in right before it got really crowded for lunch.  We will be adding this place to our list of  Atlanta favorites for sure.



To break up a bit of the 7-hour drive south, we got off the interstate and headed into SW Georgia and stopped in Warm Springs about an hour out of Atlanta and the home of the presidential retreat (aka The Little White House) of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The place is quite lovely and the tour and museum were very interesting.  Ashlee had been here before but only as a kid, and we all agreed it was a great stop.  We highly recommend it.  The quaint home, designed by FDR himself is pictured above with a bit of that nostalgic Instagram look to it.

Next stop was another hour or so south in the good-sized town of Columbus, GA, at The Cannon Brewpub  located in the city's quaint downtown.  We were still full from the lunch at The Vortex so we just split a plate of blue-cheese chips and did some beer samplers.  Their beer is pretty good  For more on it, see my beer blog.



We arrived in Tallahassee around dark and checked in to the Doubletree Hotel near the state capitol and within walking distance of the Leon County Civic Center where tomorrow's game was being held.  None of us had really spent any time in Florida's state capital before now, but we have to say it's a pretty nice, albeit small, city.  The Spanish moss in all the trees just adds to the allure.

Saturday, February 2, 2013:  Since the game wasn't until 2 PM, we decided that since we were so close to the Gulf of Mexico, we just had to go see it.


Yep, he's real, and yep, he's every bit of six foot long, and yep, he's just across a small canal from us in the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge.  We saw a ton of wildlife during our short time in the refuge including tons of different birds and even a couple deer, but this big guy was the star of the day.  Kind of glad he was snoozing and not interested in us!!



We lucked up on our visit to St. Marks for a couple reasons.  One, the weather, albeit a bit on the cool side, was beautiful. And, secondly, they were having a festival in the refuge this weekend and the beautiful old (second oldest in Florida, actually) lighthouse (pictured above) was open (at least at the base) for tours.

We got back to Tallahassee in time to catch the pregame warm-ups for Duke and FSU.  The Leon County Civic Center is a decent venue and the view from our seats (pictured above) was good, but it's a bit aged as a facility, and we were surprised that the Seminoles didn't have their own arena on the large and quite nice FSU campus.  The game was a clinic from the start as # 5 Duke jumped out to a huge lead over the young and rebuilding FSU squad and cruised to a 19-point victory, 79-60.



We decided after the game that we wanted dinner on the water somewhere since we were so close and enjoyed it so much earlier in the day.  After a bit of Internet research back at the room, we settled on going back down where we were that morning to the actual town of St. Marks which sits on the river of the same name (photo above).

The Riverside Cafe in St. Marks is nothing fancy and their menu is fairly predictable in terms of seafood, but it was exactly what we were looking for as it sits not by the water of the St. Marks River but OVER it as part of a large floating dock complex there.  The temps dropped again as the sun went down and we were happy for the kerosene heaters as we ate in their partially open dining room.  After dinner we headed back into Tallahassee and found a cool brewpub/bar called Proof Brewing near the FSU campus and had a few more tasty adult beverages.

Sunday, February 3, 2013:  We packed up and headed north and stuck to the interstate for the most part as we wanted to make it back in time to watch the Super Bowl.  Our only diversion besides stopping for a gas and a quick fast food meal was in Atlanta again at the humongous IKEA Store for a bit of shopping.  All three of us came out of there with something which isn't hard since the prices are so good.  It was another good trip built around our beloved Dukies.  It's been fun seeing the Blue Devils play on the road the last few years, but we both agree we must get back to beautiful Cameron Indoor Stadium as soon as we can.  Next season, hopefully....GO DUKE!!  Thanks to our friend, Mike, for going with us on this trip and providing us with some excellent company.