August Happenings

Another busy month for us as we wind down a fun Summer of 2014

Saturday, August 2 - It was another luxurious overnight stay at The Inn of Fontanel for us as geared up for The Soulshine Tour making a final stop at The Woods Amphitheater at Fontanel starring some of our favorite musical performers including Trevor Hall, Brett Dennen, and Michael Franti and Spearhead.  We had the larger Guest House Lower Suite booked this time and it was awesome.

Did we mention it was luxurious?  Ashlee claims this is the greatest bathtub she's ever soaked in.

We were having such a great time hanging out at the inn with our friends Chris and Tarryn, who also came up for the show, that we missed Trevor Hall's quick opening set, but he made several appearances throughout the rest of the show at least.  Brett Dennen was up next and we caught most of his set.  He seemed a little "spirited" in his always-enjoyable performance, some of which is captured in the video below from our great vantage point near the stage.  Soja was the third band to play and we enjoyed their unique reggae sound for the first time live.

Michael Franti and his band, Spearhead, put on another dynamite show to close out the evening with appearances from all the previous performers as well.  Tarryn even got a big hug from him after the show.  He's the best about hanging out after a performance.

Saturday, August 9 - Monday, August 11: We continued the "staycation of luxury" theme the following weekend with our third visit to Evins Mill Resort over in nearby Smithville, TN.  We got to enjoy a buy-one, get-one night deal in their newest addition, the Solstice building.  Our room was large and lovely and the entire unit is nestled in among the trees.  Totally peaceful.  We even had the whole building to ourselves on Sunday night since no other guests were staying there.

Our choice of revisiting Evins Mill  this particular weekend was two-fold since Calfkiller Brewing Company in nearby Sparta was having a tasting and pairing with the Evins Mill dinner on Saturday night.  We tried all four of their offerings and were impressed by each.  Dinner was delicious and abundant, as usual, as was the fare on Sunday night.  The breakfasts that are included with the room rate are awesome too as was the box lunches they provided us on Sunday.  Worth every penny and I bet we come back again if given the chance.

OK, make the reason we came back to Evins Mill this weekend three-fold.  We also wanted a chance to swim beneath Carmac Falls which is located on the resort's property.  We hadn't had an opportunity to do so during over previous two visits, but we got our chance on Sunday afternoon with warm, sunny weather and, amazingly, in complete privacy also.  Can't beat that!  The short video below shows Ashlee daring to take a dip even after the fact she spied a snake in the water a bit earlier.  Fear...conquered...for the most part.  

Friday, August 22 - We had dinner at Watermark Restaurant tonight to take advantage of some good pricing for Nashville Restaurant Week. Our friends, Danny and Brenda, joined us and we had a fancy and delicious three-course dinner for 30 buck each. We decided to go see Guardians of the Galaxy in IMAX after dinner.  All of us but Ashlee had seen it before.  In fact, it was the 3rd time for me and Brenda.  It's not exactly Ashlee's preferred type of flick, but she was a good sport and wound up enjoying it actually.

Saturday, August 23- We got up this morning and headed over to LP Field to have our picture taken and turned into a banner for this season's "Hall of Fans."  We got this honor by actually winning four Tennessee Titans season tickets.  Plus, they gave us a nice bag of Titans' swag as well.  Big thanks to the Tennessee Titans organization for this generous prize!  We even took the elevator to the wrong floor going out of the stadium and wound up getting a couple goofy pictures in the team's on-field vehicles. What a hoot!  

     We spent the afternoon cooling off from the high temps at  Nashville Shores Water Park.  This was my first time there, but Ashlee's been a few times this summer and even got a season pass because she likes it so much.  We had a ball riding all the big water slides and lazing about in their Lazy River.  What a great place right in our own backyard.

Sunday, August 24 - We stole the term "Sunday, Funday" from a hilarious new TV sit-com called "You're the Worst" and applied it to a full day out and about doing pretty much nothing of any real value other than...you guessed it...having fun.    We started with brunch at M.L, Rose's in downtown Nashville.   We then moseyed south to where we had a bottle of wine on the covered porch with a nice breeze at Arrington Vineyards.  Next, it was a drink at the now-TV-(in)famous dive bar over in Murfreesboro, MT Bottles and Cans.  We had an early dinner at O'Possums Irish Pub in Murfreesboro with our friend, Emily.  The food was excellent. We finished up with a drink at the rather underwhelming Brew U also in Murfreesboro. Overall, a very good Sunday, Funday!

Music, Baseball and BACON!!

Thursday, July 10 - We caught a great FREE set by Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds tonight downtown on the riverfront at Nashville Dancin' (formerly Dancin' in the District). We got right up in the front row and enjoyed the beautiful weather and the great show by this band we discovered at Bonnaroo a few years ago. We had dinner beforehand at Hana House of Sushi in Mt. Juliet.

The Cumberland River, the Shelby Street Pedestrian Bridge and the edge of downtown made for quite a panoramic backdrop for  Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds as they jammed away at Nashville Dancin' tonight.

Friday, July 18 - We caught a showing of the hilarious comedy sequel, 22 Jump Street, tonight at our local Mt. Juliet theater for free thanks to some passes we won at an Oscar party hosted by our friend Brenda way back in January.

Saturday, July 19 - Tonight was our first of two scheduled overnight stays this summer at the beautiful, new Inn at Fontanel.  We picked this night since we were also seeing The Fray play at The Woods Amphitheater on the same property up in White's Creek north of Nashville.  While this is a "local" venue, it's a pretty long haul back home after a late show, so when they converted the Southern Living Idea House that we visited last year (see previous blog) into a small hotel, we knew it was worth a try despite the kind of high price tag.  We will be staying again in a few weeks for the Michael Franti show, but in a different, larger room.  We had a great stay in the "North Bunkie" room which included a large cooked-to-order breakfast the next morning.

 

The FrayVerified account‏@TheFray

Nashville... Pretty much our second home. Excited to play @WoodsAtFontanel tonight. Come on out! -BW #HeliosTour

•  Reply 
•  Retweeted 
•  Favorited 

• RETWEETS22
• FAVORITES73
• 

10:50 AM - 19 Jul 2014

The Fray were tremendous live.   Their Tweet (shown above) from before the show was an indication that they love this area. The video below isn't that great visually, but it does a good job of capturing their pure sound on stage.  We only had general admission tickets but found a nice place to watch the show on a little hill just right of the stage. We enjoyed some Jeni's Ice Cream before the music started. The two opening bands, Oh Honey and Barcelona were decent.

Friday, July 25 - We loaded up in separate cars and headed north into Kentucky today and stayed in Louisville overnight as the start of a little fun (and a lotta work for Ashlee in Kentucky) and southern Ohio. I played some poker across the river from Louisville in Indiana while Ashlee worked.  Early in the evening we met up in the quaint old Louisville neighborhood of Clifton and had some delicious desserts at the Homemade Pie and Ice Cream Kitchen, then took a stroll that including passing the very interesting personal residence known as Jerry's Junk (photo above) and onto the relatively new Apocalypse Brewing Company for a couple of tasty craft beers.  It was certainly a lovely summer evening to be in "Loo'avull."

Saturday, July 26 - We got up this morning (had breakfast at Wild Eggs...of course) and headed further north to see the Washington Nationals play the hometown Cincinnati Reds at The Great American Ballpark.  It was our first time in the ballpark, and she is a beauty.  We had great seats hovering above the first base line in Section 301 which are shaded and attached to an all-you-can-eat suite that was phenomenal.  We got the most out of our money too with hot dogs, BBQ sandwiches and ice creams sandwiches before the game even started.  Then it was popcorn, another ice cream sandwich each, pizza, a soft pretzel, nachos and peanuts plus free soft drinks.  What a deal!  The game was an exciting, albeit low-scoring, defensive struggle with the Reds winning 1-0 and posting 11 strikeouts on the division-leading Nationals.  This looks to become a once-a-year tradition for us if possible.  We had such a great time including our leisurely walk across the Ohio River to the ballpark from Covington, KY where we parked for just a few bucks.

Sunday, July 27 - It was back south toward Louisville again today as we planned on heading to the Kentucky Speedway for an Indy Car Ride-Along.  It got rained out unfortunately. We are rescheduling it for next summer where we hope to do a duplicate trip.  We had more delicious pie at another location of the Homemade Pie and Ice Cream Kitchen and then went our separate ways as Ashlee had a couple more days work in Kentucky to complete, and I was due at work back home the next morning.  What a dandy little weekend it was despite the rain hiccup.

Thursday, July 31 - Tonight we attended the first of two SOLD OUT shows of The Bacon Brothers at The Franklin Theater.  Even more exciting to us was the chance meet and greet Michael and Kevin!   Thanks to our friend, Brenda, for grabbing the tickets for us while we were out of town and for going with us to the show.

The meet and greet was only a little more in price and included down-front seating for the show.  The Bacon Brothers couldn't have been nicer.  We got autographs, a group picture with them and even individual shots.  I have never gotten more "likes" on a Facebook post than I have of this picture of me and Kevin.  One degree feels pretty darn good!!

We had a delicious dinner beforehand at The Red Pony Restaurant across the street from the theater in downtown Franklin.   And, yes, one of the delicious (and our favorite) appetizers was THE BACON!!  Jason's Grilled Bacon to be exact.

Let's be honest here, we grabbed these tickets for a chance to meet Kevin-Freakin-Bacon and not really for the music.  But guess what?  These brothers can play some pretty good music!  Below is a true "boot-leg" clip (I shot it from around my bootleg since cameras weren't allowed during the show) that shows just how good the brothers and their stellar band are.  This is some of their closing encore cover of The Band's classic "Up on Cripple Creek."  It was a great show, and we would definitely see them again, meet-and-greet or not.  This was also our first time at the beautiful Franklin Theater which has been lovingly restored and has great acoustics and sight lines for music.  We are lucky to have it so nearby and hope to catch some more events here in the future.

seaBOURNE on the 4th of July

It was quick cruise for us over the 4th of July weekend with a couple of good friends and our first time out of the country on Independence Day.

Wednesday, July 2 - We drove south after work, picked up our friend, Mike, in Chattanooga, and got past Atlanta and spent the night in Macon, GA, about half-way to our final destination.  Thursday, July 3 - We boarded the Carnival Sensation cruise ship in Port Canaveral, Florida, around noon after meeting our friend, Wayne, who had flown down from Nashville to meet us.  We were also celebrating Wayne's recent birthday as well as the fact that this was his first cruise ever.

We departed at 4 PM from the Port Canaveral Port in good weather despite the presence of Tropical Storm Arthur that had blown through here earlier in the week.  Photo courtesy of Wayne's I-Phone.

Port Canaveral Beach was a pretty site on our way out to sea.

Friday, July 4 - Happy Independence Day! And hello Nassau!

Ashlee's been to Nassau a couple other times on some "girls-only cruises" but this was my first time here and our first time together.  It's quite beautiful  here, and the Atlantis Casino and Resort in the distance is massive in scale.

Ahoy, Nassau, Bahamas!.  It is us, the Americans!

Soon after docking, we made our way down the harbor, secured some beer and met Captain Danny and our private chartered boat for the four of us.  He whisked us away from the noise and crowds of the busy port and headed to a secluded island and private beach where we spent lots of time snorkeling, sunbathing and imbibing on a few delicious Kalik beers.

If you are going to spend the 4th of July out of the good ol' USA, it might as well be on a private beach!!

Goofing around in the ocean.  Photo courtesy of Wayne's amazing GoPro camera in it's waterproof case.

Small boat heading back to the big boats.  We had a great 4-hour excursion with Cpt. Danny that ended with us even taking turns tubing behind the boat. We sure wish we had more time to spend here. We finished our excursion day with a visit to Senor Frog's for a couple more libations and some browsing and shopping around the port.

Saturday, July 5 - It was a relaxing day at sea today as we headed back toward the Florida coast.

Big blue view aboard the Carnival Sensation.

The day aboard the ship was spent just lounging around soaking up some rays; sliding and splashing on the ships excellent water slides; sipping a few cocktails here and there; getting to some new friends we had made at dinner the two nights before and eating way, way too much (but the chicken fingers are sooooo good!)

Sunday, July 6 - We arrived back in port early this morning and began our long drive home without incident.  Another great little trip notched in our travel belts.

Warming Up for and Then Plunging in to Bonnaroo 2014

We did our best to prep for Bonnaroo 2014 with a couple of memorable pre-festival activities: 

Friday, May 30 - Sunday, June 1:  We geared up for the balmy, summer weather with a visit to the great outdoors via nearby Center Hill Lake for the weekend.  Our thanks to our friends, John and Monique, for inviting us up for John's 50th birthday celebration which included lodging in a sweet house near the lake, great food throughout the weekend, a day on the lake in an awesome rented double-decked pontoon boat, complete with slide, plenty of libations and an overall fun time.  Of course it would be nice if Bonnaroo had the cool, clear waters of Center Hill Lake to jump into whenever you wanted.

Sunday, June 8 -We got a dose of some great live music just before Bonnaroo started with a visit to 3rd and Lindsley to catch one of our favorite new artists, LP, whose first full-length album, Forever For Now, just dropped earlier this week.  She was the guest artist on our local indie radio station, Lightning 100's Nashville Sunday Night  live broadcast.  Opening the show was a wonderful, young, locally-based talent, Guthrie Brown and the Family Tree.  This bandleader is just 18 years old, but has a lifetime of talent already.  Look for him on the rise in the future.  The same should be said for LP whose soaring voice from such a petite frame is a treat to see and hear live.  Below is just a snippet of her amazing talent and this does it nowhere near due justice:

"But Rob never wants his picture taken" says Ashlee to LP after her show when she graciously hung around for pictures and autographs.  That statement prompted a big smile and a hug for me from the artist as well as unexpected pinch of my cheek.  Too funny.  My answer was simple..."yeah, but I love LP."

AND NOW...ON TO THE ROO!!

Thursday, June 12 - We met up early with our past-Bonnaroo pals, Bridgette, Wayne and Mike, and headed to Manchester for the organized mayhem that is "The Farm."  This is our 6th almost-consecutive year of attendance to the festival while only missing 2011.  Our sweet campsite this year was very close to the Centeroo entrance.  Maybe too close with the thumping music most of the night from The Other Stage just 100 yards away through the trees.  But that's what Tylenol PM and two shots of whiskey before bed are for!  We had tons of room to set up camp with Bridgette now having a pop-up camper as well, plus the added privacy of the tree line to our south.

The first music of the Roo for us was The Unlikely Candidates at the small Miller Lite New Music Lounge.   They were pretty good and as lead guitarist, Brenton Carney, shows with his big grin, they had a great time playing The Farm for the first time. We followed that up with some Afrikan beats from Ogya over at the Solar Stage.  It had been a long day, so Ashlee turned in early while a caught a few other acts.

The weather cooperated swimmingly throughout the festival for us with very little rain and two unseasonably cool days to start off with.  The heat was back on Saturday and Sunday, but it wouldn't be Bonnaroo without it, now would it?

Friday, June 13 - Friday the 13th at the 13th Annual Bonnaroo with a full moon....what could happen, right?

We awoke late and after a leisurely (and always delicious) breakfast whipped up by Ashlee, we started to hear St. Paul and the Broken Bones at the nearby Other Tent.   We caught a few more of their tunes from inside but couldn't get much closer than our campsite it due to the huge crowd.  The inordinate number of general admission tickets being sold now at Bonnaroo has become a big problem.  All the stages are packed now and it's hard to get a good view of the shows without camping out well beforehand and then if you do that you take the chance of being crushed by everyone crowding in as the music begins.  This could seriously be our last Bonnaroo or we might try a single VIP-day which we discovered they are selling now.

  It's Big Sam on a much BIGGER stage!!  One of our favorite small-time bands, Big Sam's Funky Nation, played the biggest Bonnaroo stage there is this year with an early-afternoon opening set on The What Stage.  The crowd loved them and they were spot on as usual despite the massive  and intimidating backdrop.

The Broo'ers Tent was packed with folks escaping the sun and looking for beer.  We were no exceptions.  We even stuck around for a surprisingly interesting talk from some folks with Wood Chuck Cider that included lots of free tasty samples and some cool swag.  Ben Howard provided the background tunes at the nearby Which Stage.

The largest (and strangest) new addition to Centeroo this year was "Hamageddon."  His name is evidently Henri and he's the ultimate smoker of delectable meat.  He was part of the new "Baconland" which we enjoyed in the food area.  Not sure of his staying power at the Roo with all the vegan-style hippies roaming around but our sandwiches were awesome.  And followed that up with an Amish doughnut each with John and Jacob playing nearby

As the evening wore on we caught a little of Andrew Bird at This Tent and a little of The Head and the Heart at the Which Stage.  And then we wasted of  45 minutes of the beautiful evening (and our lives) checking out tonight's headliner, the ultra-stupid Kanye West.  What an idiotic and talentless rube.

The night was beautiful despite the ho-hum musical performances we saw.

The full moon was brilliant and nothing weird happened (to us at least).

Agreed.  He should have never been asked back to The Roo.

Saturday, June 14 -  We woke up late to some broiling temps and this fact prompted us to go make two runs on the Big-Ass Water Slide.  It was hoot!  Why haven't we done this before?

We caught a short set by the great-sounding Jamestown Revival at the Solar Stage just before our reserved BonnaROOTS Dinner which was set up on the grounds in front of the same stage.

We had a great time at The BonnaROOTS Dinner which consisted of four courses made all from Tennessee-grown products including the herb garden here at Bonnaroo.  With Grouplove playing in the background at That Tent, it was a pretty nice evening on "The Farm."

It was on to see a good portion of Lionel Ritchie's set on the main stage after dinner.  We were able to wind of way down pretty close to the giant stage.  For a "senior citizen" Lionel put on a whale of a show with tons of hits from his solo career as well as classics from his days with The Commodores.  The short video below is a clip of one of our all-time favorites.

Jack White was the headliner of the night and while obviously talented, the eccentric guitarist/singer is not really our cup of tea.  We stayed for about half his show before turning in for the night.

Sunday, June 15 - We slept in late again.  Had another wonderful Ashlee-prepared breakfast and then  packed up camp.  We caught a good amount of Capital Cities' set on The Which Stage followed by an awesome (and festival best) set by Fitz and the Tantrums that afternoon to finish our Bonnaroo experience for this year.  We opted not to stay for the headliner, Elton John, since we had seen him before and he came kind of late for us souls who had to work the next day.

Mingling with the huge crowd at the Fitz and the Tantrums show on the Which Stage.
Below is a short clip from their energetic show during their feet-stomping hit, "Money Grabber."