Does anybody read these?

Absolutely exhausted...

I have no idea how long this post will be, since I'm supposed to be recreating the last 4 crazy days of my life. Bear with me, and feel free to stop reading at any time.

The excitement of my life started Thursday afternoon. I ran some errands and was doing laundry, knowing that on Friday I was headed off to stay in a suite for the weekend with my friends. (Yes, I'm one of those people that never does laundry until I'm wearing my "laundry day" clothes or going on a trip.)

I was just trucking along. I had laundry in both the washer and the dryer.

My phone rang at 3 p.m. My friend Julie had already arrived in town, and she couldn't get her laptop on the Internet. Could I come to her hotel and help her?

I left a note to my roommates saying I'd be back later that evening. Oh silly me.

When I get to Julie's she hands me a beer. We set off to Best Buy/Wal-mart/etc. to find some type of network card for Julie's computer. We never did find it, and we gave up because it was time to pick our friend Lindsay up at the airport. We drank again there. I think I had something with Malibu in it.

When we arrived back at the hotel with Lindsay, we found out more of our friends were there and others were en route. We went swimming while we waited. I invited everyone to come over to my house and throw some burgers on the grill, but they didn't want me to have to clean up and such. That was probably not so bad, because I just got home for good today at 11 a.m. Although if I had been home, I may not have ended up closing down Broadway on Thursday.

But I did. We went to Hooters for dinner. (It was surprisingly good.) Then we headed out and hit the honkytonks until we ended up at Legends. We stayed there until last call, which here in Tennessee is 2:30 a.m.

(Did I mention I had a job interview at 10 a.m. Friday? It wasn't really a job I wanted, but I think she liked me anyhow. I guess I'll see...)

We went back to the hotel to wait for Lynn and Leslie, who were supposed to arrive at 4 a.m. I took a nap because I had an interview. And because if I drank one more drop of liquor I would've thrown up. We ran a few crew guys as they were heading to the Coliseum from the Louisville show about 4 a.m. They were off to take quick naps and everyone was to be back for load-in at 7 a.m. When I went home at 7 to get ready for my interview, it was soooo tempting to make a detour.

After my interview I went home and did laundry. I also had to run a few errands. I had to be packed before Amy and Jenny arrived at my house. Then we were picking Kay up at the airport. Except Amy and Jenny had BIG car trouble, so then I was on my own for picking up Kay. I did that and we checked into the hotel. And then I brought her back to my house where she visited with my roommates while I packed. We arrived back at the hotel and I got ready to go out Friday night. Amy and Jenny came and we were off to the races.

We had sooooo much fun Friday night. A big group of us met at my favorite restaurant for dinner because we were able to reserve a private room there that looked out over the Cumberland River. Through the windows, we noticed that Ed and the crew were working very hard to get the stadium ready for us. We were able to listen to the soundcheck from the restaurant, which was very cool.

We hit the bars after that. We went to Coyote Ugly, where Ultimate Coyote winner Kassie was tending bar. She's a really sweet girl. She met up with us again on Saturday at the concert. Somewhere someone has a picture of all of us, so I'll have to post that at some point.

We met up with Kayla and Bobbi at Robert's Western World and we spent quite a bit of time there. Because Robert's plays a lot of classic country (especially their house band Brazilbilly), there were a lot of -- how to put this? -- mature folks in the crowd. And since Amy was not much for getting hit on by dirty old men, we headed up to the surprisingly empty upstairs bar, but not before I was felt-up by a man who looked suspiciously like Elvis. We went up there where never waited for a drink and serenaded the bartender with Hank Williams and Johnny Cash tunes.

Somehow we ended up at Legends again, because I wanted to try the Honkytonk Lemonade. Probably not the best drink to end with when you've been drinking all night, but it was fun. Did I mention that Thursday night I made a new friend there? The bouncer and I had been discussing some country singers (not naming names) that we believed were overrated, and we have surprisingly similar tastes in music. Well, when I arrived Friday he gave me a huge hug. And then he'd leave his post to come chit-chat with me.

Before he left, he invited me to come see him sing Sunday morning. Because Kay and I both thought he was cute, we quickly put that on our agenda.

Saturday was show day, and we got a late start. I took Amy and Jenny sight-seeing and we had lunch. Then we ran back to the hotel, quickly got ready and battled the traffic to the big tailgate party. My Jello jiggler shots were a huge success, and they escape the scrutiny of even the toughest police officer. (We met him, so we know.) We went and got our sandbar passes at will call, hung out with our friends (and Kassie who joined our tailgate party and remembered our group from the night before!!!) We reconnected with new friends and old, drank a little too much and headed inside for the show.

The show was good. I missed Little Big Town because I had to get Andrea's tickets to her. That's cool. I'd seen them at Fan Fair and I could hear them, so I was happy. They are pretty good. I'd forgotten about them when I'd said that I didn't like any groups in country music right now.

Dierks is always great. Big and Rich were amazing. I hadn't seen them before. Kenny should get some pyro for his show too. John Rich is cute, and Big Kenny really isn't that big.

Gretchen Wilson disappointed me. I loved her set last year. It was perfect. I wish she hadn't changed it one little bit. She left out some good stuff and added some stuff that the audience just wasn't digging. I also think she's gotten a little too thin. She used to be really pretty. She looked cute at the end with Kenny when she wore a ball cap and white t-shirt. That's the Gretchen that I'm a fan of.

Speaking of disappointing sets, Kenny left out lots of favorites. But the show was fun, and he seems really happy. I'm sure he was very excited to have all the people who love him in the audience that night. The VIP section had plenty of VIPs, including Nicole and Keith, who are just soooo cute together. I think Keith has gotten gold-ring syndrome because he is very hot since he got married. It might have just been his shirt. Anyhow, would've much rather heard "How Forever Feels" than "Somebody Like You," but I'll live.

It's exhausting to stand for eight hours in the July sunshine in Tennessee, so I was beat by the end of the show. I'm pretty sure I had a little heat exhaustion going on, but I was fine when I grabbed a water AND a Gatorade after a show. I guess someone found a dead lady in one of the bathrooms, so I guess I fared OK even though I felt like I'd been beaten with a baseball bat when it was over. General Admission at a Kenny Chesney show is not the best idea. Crazy fans.

That's our report for Saturday. Too tired to go out drinking. We did hit the Taco Bell on West End before we hopped on the Interstate. Saw a guy who looked and sounded like Tim McGraw driving one of those horse-drawn carriage tours. Only in Nashville.

Sunday morning we sent Amy and Jenny back to Indiana, which was very sad. Then Kay and I went back to sleep for a couple of hours before getting ready to head downtown to see our troubadour.

Can I tell you this man lit up when we walked in the door? We hopped up at the bar (front-row seats two nights in a row!). After his song was done, he said "I never thought y'all would make it after being out all night last night. Or the last three nights really." And then he came over and talked to us a few songs later. He was very shocked that we were drinking whiskey. We stayed for every song he sang and had a great time talking to him. He does this every week apparently. Might have to go again, although I may never get back to St. Ann's again if I do that. So, we'll need a new plan.

We went to lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory. It's beautiful and the food was fantastic. A waiter overheard me say something about being drunk for three days straight (we'd been drinking at the bar so we were actually on day 4 at that point). He interrupted our conversation, and next thing we know he's inviting us to Lonnie's for buckets of beers after we get done with dinner because his shift's almost over.

Do y'all believe that I went? Totally not like me. Well, he stood us up, but we did get to see a guy who was a dead-ringer for George Freaking Jones doing karaoke. I should've gotten my picture taken with him for Larry. I was about to sing Delta Dawn when Lindsay called and it was time to pick her up at Opryland and take her to the airport.

Kay and I ate lunch leftovers for dinner, tried to go in the hotel's hot tub. There were kids using it for a kiddie pool and that must've been because the heater seemed to be broken and it was freezing. Oh well, it was a nice thought.

We looked at pictures from the show and then headed to bed, where we ended up talking and smoking (OK, she smoked.) for about 2 hours.

This morning I was very sad to drop Kay off at the airport. I'm hoping we can all do this again soon.

I came home, hugged the dogs, downloaded my pictures, read 8 billion emails, looked for a job and rested.

Tomorrow it's back to the grindstone.

posted by Laura at 4:08 PM