The First Month of Football

September

With so much football and so many of the exact some pictures, I figured I would group a few of the games. This football season is full of high expectations, excitement and sadness. It is the beginning of a new era and a reminder of the old. We were all excited and looking forward to watching Hokie football with lots of friends and family this season.

The season opener was Liberty on Sept 3rd. For it being an afternoon game again Liberty the excitement of a new coach brought a pretty big crowd. Tailgating was a big success this game and the team crushed the Flames 36-13.

Mark came to the game with me

Thankfully we were also able to continue our tradition of adventure on Sunday after the game. Jed & I were able to get away for a few hours to Peaks of Otter to enjoy the weather and do a little hiking before the grid of the next week.

The next weekend was the big game, The Battle at Bristol. This was a crazy experience. There is nothing like being a part of a group of fans 159,000 strong. There were just TONS of people everywhere.

You would expect a venue that normally handles that many people during Nascar season to have everything running smoothly. That couldn't be further from the truth. We waited in line/in a huge mob of people to get in for over an hour. Thankfully we made it in the stadium in time for kick off but once we got in, they were out of most food and drink!

The "line" from the prospective of a short person

In the end, it was a really fun experience. We had a great time with friends and family despite the heat, crazy 3 hours in the parking lot after the game traffic and a final score of 24-45.

The weekend of Sept 17th we were back in Lane Stadium for our first ACC game again Boston College. My mom and Tom made the trip back to Blacksburg back to back weekends to make it to this White Out game.

It was a pretty low key weekend and our first ACC win of the season 49-0!

We were also introduced to Growley the Corp of Cadets new dog.

To finish the month out, we had one last game at home against ECU. This weekend, Jenn and family came to check out Tech to see if this is the place for Jonathan to come to college. We had a fantastic day walking around campus and downtown and beating ECU 54-17!

That evening we had the chance to catch up with an old student, Same before hitting the road the next morning.

We were able to make a quick trip down to the Greensboro Science Center to meet us with family to celebrate lots of birthdays.

It was a great start to football season with the best balance of work and live we could possibly create. The next few months we have lots of fun coming.

Gatlinburg or Bust

June 27th - 29th

This weekend we headed west again back into Tennessee. On Friday morning, we met my brother, sister in law, niece and my sister in law's mom in Ashville, NC. We spent to morning doing a little shopping before we headed to Maggie Valley.

As we pulled into Maggie Valley, we stopped at a little BBQ place for a great lunch called Butts on the Creek.

Maggie Valley is a very special place for Ben & I. We went there as kids as a family vacation to Ghost Town in the Sky. We have great memories of this place and even though Ryn might be just a little too young to enjoy it, I hope in a few years we will be back so she can enjoy it and remember this place as fondly as we do.

The next little town we can to was Cherokee, NC. We walked around a little bit and then finished the drive through the Smoky Mountains before getting to Gatlinburg, TN.

Ben had a friend that gave us the hook up on a timeshare rental so we spent the weekend in a two bedroom, two bathroom condo with two pools, a playground and putt putt. So you can imagine how we spent our weekend.

After swimming, putt putt, playing on the playground, we also had a little time to do a little cowboy hat & boot shopping and explore parts of the town.

I can't help it but I just think my niece is just the cutest little thing!

We had a great time hanging out with her, playing games, rounding around and enjoying our time with her and my family. We need to do that a lot more often.

Thanks for setting all that up Ben & Shelby!

Hitting The Trail

June 20th -22nd

It wasn't long before it was time for Jed & I to head out on the road again. This time we were going to head west. We have recently had some friends move out to Knoxville, TN so we decided to head that way to explore with them for the weekend.

Friday night, we spent some time catching up and checking out downtown Knoxville. We settled on a place called Downtown Grill & Brewery. At the restaurant, we decided we were not in a hurry so we would hang out in Knoxville that evening and continue the driving west in the morning.

On Saturday morning, we headed out to the Whiskey Trail.

Amy, Peter, Jed & I

Our first stop was at George Dickel's place. I never really thought about how out in the middle of nowhere these places would be. For a while, we thought we were lost or headed to the wrong place.

We took a tour but decided to just do the "boring" tour instead of the drinking tour because of how long we would have to wait for the tour and it would put us later to other establishments that we also didn't want to miss.

The Welcome Center is the old Post Office

The Creek where they get water to make the whiskey

The tour was really interesting and informative. This place is definitely a tiny little mom & pop place and it was really interesting to tour and learn.

We decided that we would purchase a bottle from each place and then try them all in the evening so after our tour, a few pictures and a bottle of George, we were back on the road to find Jack Daniels.

Jack Daniel's Welcome Center

This place was no joke! I think Jed & Peter kept calling it the Disneyland of whiskey places. There were a TON of people and it did feel a lot more like an attraction then the last place. But we took our number for our tour group and checked out the welcome center.

The tour was really neat and a lot of similar information just on a bit larger scale for where we had just come from. We learned not just about how they make whiskey but we learned that there really is a Jack Daniel's and in a really crazy story, died because he was stubborn & kicked a safe that he couldn't get opened and was stubborn and didn't seek help and died from that. He left everything to a nephew since he did not have children of his own.

Both of these distilleries we visited so far have a history that go back to the 1800's. It was interesting to hear about probation & moonshine times and how they made it (or didn't make it) and came back.

After our tour, we walked down to the city square of Lynchburg, TN. It was super cute! Apparently it was some kind of bike weekend here and there were a ton of people and lots of motorcycles.

We checked out a few of the stores, grabbed a few treats (MOONPIES!) and found a great little place for lunch called Whiskey Runners.

The food was great and it was a great little house they had converted into a restaurant.

We found one more distillery before ending our time on the Whiskey Trail called Pritchard's . This place might have been the most fun. Our tour guide was hilarious, it was just the 4 of us on the tour and the building is a tiny school house that they have turned into there distillery. This distillery has a much different history and one that only dated back to the 1990's.

 

They had a TON of different types of whiskey's/ rum's / flavored goodness for us to try as we were the last tour of the day. It was a fantastic way to end our whiskey trail experience even if we still have a few more distilleries to check out in the future.

Peter, Jed, Our Guide, Amy, Mrs. Pritchard, & Me

We walked out with way too many whiskey bottles from this place before we started our trip back to Knoxville. On our way home, we stopped in Chattanooga to grab dinner. After a comedy of hiccups, we ended up checking out two different restaurants before deciding against dinner here and hitting the road for Knoxville.

We did make a quick pit stop to grab one last bottle to complete the evenings taste test by grabbing the new Jack Daniel's Fire that is only sold in select states and select stores.

Peter & Amy took us to a great little Thai restaurant (Stir Fry Café) for dinner before we headed back to there house for the final taste tests.

Sunday was a very chill and relaxing day. We made it to church with Peter and he gave us a tour of downtown Knoxville before we spent the afternoon just hanging out and heading home from a great weekend with friends.

We can't wait to tackle the Kentucky Bourbon Trail next with you guys!!