11AM Saturday, we hit the road…headed for Charlotte, North Carolina for our “date” with Kenny Chesney.

By we, I mean my best friend Sondra and I…Tim would rather be caught DEAD than to go to a Kenny concert!

She had worked all night, so I drove, with the intention that she would sleep during the 3 hour drive. I think she slept, at most, an hour and a half. We got there shortly after 2 and checked in. I figured she’d sleep. She said, “get your suit on, we’re going to the pool.” So we did. Took a dip, relaxed and then she says, “I’m hungry, we’re going to eat.”

Sondra and I always get Mexican when we go out to eat and there’s always a margarita involved. This time was no different. We lucked out…Charlotte’s BEST Mexican restaurant was infront of our hotel. (We figured it must be good when we walked in and there were more Hispanic clients than those like us!)

We ate and had our margarita. There’s a reason I don’t drink. That margarita knocked me on my butt. We went back to the hotel and started getting ready for the concert and I crashed. When Tim called I woke up and it was 6:30…an hour before show time.

Of course, we were like high school girls getting ready. We both packed for 4 days even though we were only going for 24 hours and scoping out each others clothes to make sure we looked perfect for Kenny. ROFL. I just had to laugh. Sondra is the youngest 41 year old I know, and she’ll be quick to tell you that I’m the oldest 28 year old!

We finally left…and got to the coliseum. WOW! It was huge. The parking lot was as big as an amusement park parking lot! We made the woman behind us mad when we stopped to take these pictures…

And before going in we snapped this pic of ourselves and the big bottle of Cruzan Rum (Kenny’s sponsor)…I’m getting REALLY good at self portraits!

Then it was time for the show to start…Pat Green opened and then Gretchen Wilson played for about an hour. I people watched. What I noticed most were the amount of people in cowboy hats and flip flops…only at a Kenny concert! (Of course there were also people there that I wondered how they could afford to be there!) I was amazed at the size of the place as I certainly hadn’t been in any establishment that big!

Kenny started at 9:25…flew in on a little bar…and he was amazing! Uncle Kracker was there to help him with “When the Sun Goes Down” and sing a few of his songs and it was just an amazing night. He played all 3 of the songs I wanted him to: “The Woman With You”, “”Live Those Songs Again” and “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy”…and yes, he waved at me, blew me kisses and told me he loved me…lol…

Here are some pictures and they stink because we were so far away and that zoom button only does so much!

Then after the concert…at 11:30 we headed out to Coyote Joe’s…one of the biggest country bars on the East Coast…AWESOME…I wanted to ride the bull. I was advised against that.

Back to the hotel by 2 (Sondra lost her steam, by that point in time, I wasn’t ready to go to bed!) and to sleep…only to be up this morning to hit the road.

At 10:02 I walked into the hotel lobby to grab something from what they called a continental breakfast before we hit the road…there was no one in there but me and the hotel dude working behind the counter. I don’t know if he was but he appeared to be the manager. So I go over and have my hand on a muffin…my hand is in the little thing that has the muffins and I’m just getting ready to pull it back and he came over, closed the lid on my hand, and said “I’m sorry, this is closed, it’s after 10.” I just stood there and stared at him. I couldn’t stop staring in disbelief that he wouldn’t let me have the teeny tiny muffin and go on my way.We paid good money to stay in that hotel, and no, I didn’t realize that the breakfast ended at 10…however, that muffin wouldn’t have killed him to give it to me…i already had my hand on it. It really was the worst part of my weekend get away.

But we went to IHOP and ate and came on home…

A very nice trip…we’re already talking about what we’re going to do next year! =)

Until next time…

Heather