Okay, I don’t have much for the trip to Tallahassee. Then again, I’m sure I’ll think of something. I was a bit out of it
for this trip. It was supposed to take approximately three hours to drive to Tallahassee from Jacksonville. I think it took ten
hours or at least it felt that way. We stopped at a Cracker Barrel (the official sponsor of Ally roadtrips) along the way for
breakfast/lunch; this would be the only CB stop we made all weekend, even though we passed many on the road. We made
another stop on the road during this trip. Nikki spotted a big bull statue when we were almost inside the city limits of
Tallahassee. She turned the car around to go back to it so that we could take pictures with it and pet it.
We had a better time finding our Tallahassee hotel than the Jacksonville hotel the night before, but the traffic in the capital city of
Florida was horrible. It took forever to go short distances. We missed the turn to get us on the street for the hotel. So, we just
made the next turn, which took us behind the hotel. We thought that there would be another entrance right there, but no there
wasn’t. Although, we did find some tire tracks and a pathway that helped us to enter from behind anyway. The thought of
having to turn around in that traffic was just scary. While I was checking in, I inquired about directions to the evening’s venue
and a liquor store. After all, I had only packed one bottle of Tequila and margarita mix. We were planning another party, so we
needed more Tequila.
After unloading our entire luggage, Jen and I headed out to find the liquor store armed with the map that the front desk had just
giving me. Well, 50 minutes later we still had not found the liquor that the front desk had said was so close. Anyone who had the
good fortune of chatting with me during this time knows exactly how frustrated I was. All that time spent looking for a liquor
store was going to make me late for another tailgate party. When we found the liquor store, naturally we were happy, but we were
also surprised. This liquor store had a drive-thru window. Yes, that’s right a drive-thru and this liquor store was located right
alongside the FSU campus, how convenient. When we checked out with our two bottles of Tequila, one for tonight and the
following night, and the strawberry mix, I believe there was one other person in that store who was actually over the age of 21.
Well Friday in Tallahassee was definitely not my highlight of the weekend, nothing against that city. I was just way too hung over
from the day before, and I tried some of the hair off the dog that bit me, nothing was working. I was actually quite down for most
of the day. Although there was no cell reception in the Jacksonville Coliseum, there was in Tallahassee, but I just didn’t feel
like talking to anyone. Shoot, I didn’t even talk to Nikki and Jen. They complained afterwards that I was the quietest they
had ever seen me at a show. I was hoping for at least one of the three shows to get backstage with the GM meet and greet, but
since we always got inside the venue so late, it just didn’t happen. I really wanted to get backstage to thank him for putting
the Conway tune back in his show, and Jen needed him to autograph her 4-inch road cone that she adopted. Getting an autograph
on the cone would be no big deal to do from the stage, but he needed to hear the story, just in case he forgot about the Homdel
show last August. Well, thanks to some good friends that we kept seeing all weekend at the soldout shows (normally that wouldnâ
€™t be odd, but they are also from the Northeast) who had won the GM thing, they took Jen backstage with them. Thank you
Sue for giving Jen that opportunity. Unfortunately, she blew it by getting all tongue-tied and Kenny seemed to be suffering from
the same.
After Jen deserted us for the GM meet and greet, we didn’t see her again until Montgomery Gentry was almost through their
whole set. Actually, she got back just in time for their encore of HILLBILLY SHOES, and unfortunately she missed them saying
what bar they would be at that night. She also missed them signing a ton of autographs from the stage while they were singing
and in Troy’s case, playing the guitar. Troy and Eddie were having a ball with everyone at the front of the stage. They kept
passing pictures between each other so that they were both signing them. Eddie would hand the picture back to someone and
Troy would grab it from him because he was giving it back to the wrong person. It was actually very comical. Then Troy would
have to run back to the microphone in time to start singing again.
Now that Montgomery Gentry was done with their set, I really hadn’t mind too much the big huge guy in front of me with the
big huge hat, but once Kenny got on stage, I started to have a real problem with him. This would be another thing that just kept me
in a sour mood that night. Here’s a list, long trip to Tallahassee (when it should have been a short one), spent over an hour
buying Tequila (thanks to horrible directions), got to the venue late (so I wasn’t even considered for the gm meet and greet),
and the last thing, a big fat huge guy wearing an even bigger hat and blocking my view all night. Eventually, I shared the space
between Nikki and Jen and was finally able to see Kenny a bit. He did an excellent job with the crowd that night. There were a lot
of college students there from FSU. When Kenny was singing Lay You Down, somehow the crowd, the whole crowd
simultaneously, started doing the Florida Seminoles war chant. Kenny was quite impressed with it and stopped singing and just
stood there and laughed. The crowd had just took over the show.
Once the show was over we headed to the bar that Montgomery Gentry had mentioned earlier in the show. Kenny had even
mentioned it, Stetson’s on the Moon, during his part of the show. Not that he was going there, but that he had played there
several times in the past. When we got there, we didn’t see any buses from Montgomery Gentry. We just hung out in the car
drinking and chatting. I think this is where I finally started to enjoy myself. It really was an awful hangover from the night before.
After chatting for a while, we decided to head towards the bar, with our drink-filled solo cups. I’ll bet you didn’t know
that there is a law in the city of Tallahassee that prohibits you from walking around with solo cups. We were walking around the
front of the bar and someone asked, “ladies, what’s in the cup�, and Nikki told him a Margarita. Well, that guy took
away Jen and Nikki’s cups while I was quickly dumping mine, but even after my cup was emptied, it was still taken away.
Something about a no open drink law in public inside city limits, but I do still not understand why my empty cup was taken.
Once we got inside, the place was packed. It wasn’t as big as the bar the night before, but pretty much the same set-up, dance
floor, bar, separate lounge area, mechanical bull. You couldn’t get on that dance floor. There was absolutely no room. One of
the funnier moments was when we were watching some girl on the bull. She totally took flight, right off that bull. Montgomery
Gentry never showed up that night. We stayed in the separate lounge mostly listening to some poor souls trying to sing via
karaoke. It was pretty funny. I don’t understand why if they had the words in front of them that Jen and I seemed to be the
ones doing most of the singing, but without the microphone.
Now on to the Tampa show, the place where I think I had the most fun, but apparently I don’t seem to remember a lot of what
happened. We got up early in Tallahassee so that we could get started on our 4-½ hour drive. We were hoping to get into
Tampa while the sun was still shining, and we did. That city was packed. It was almost like New York City, just not as large.
While I was checking in, I got a bit scared. They lady checking me in gave me three bracelets that we needed to wear to be able to
enter the hotel after 4 PM. I thought that was quite odd and couldn’t understand why. It became apparent about an hour later.
Although, we didn’t need to make a stop at the liquor store, we needed to find some construction paper or oak tag to make a
sing for Kenny. Nikki thought it would be humorous if we had a sign that said “WE C U’R PIMENTO CHEESE�. So
Nikki stayed behind in the hotel to make some phone calls, get some sleep, and get dressed while Jen and I scoured the city looking
for a store that could help us out. The lady at the guest services had given me directions to such a store and also to the venue. It
was at this point that she told me about the parade they were having there in celebration of Gasparilla Day (some invasion of
pirates). She said that a lot of the streets would be closed and that we would be better off walking over to the venue. Since we had
some time we thought it would be a good idea to check out the festival, getting the sign materials, and then see how long of a walk it
would be to the venue, a.k.a. THE ICE PALACE.
Our first stop was at some booth right behind our hotel that was selling beer. The person who sold it to us was from Long Island,
New York, just like Jen and me. Then while we headed over to Eckerd we drank our beers and got some sun. When we finished
with our drinks, we went inside the store, and we were pleased as punch that they actually had what we needed. They had oak tag
in many colors. We decided on Orange. Plus, they also had some BLO PENS that I thought would be good to make the sign with,
but we didn’t really need them since I always have my sharpie.
So now we had our sign material, but we still needed to know how long of a walk it would be to the venue. Now, I know what
you’re thinking. How the heck are they going to have “THE WORLD’S LARGEST TAILGATE PARTY� (as
Nikki had advertised in the forum) without a tail (gate)? Well, where there’s a will there is a way. When you are determined,
it’s amazing what you can do. We wound up walking just about the whole parade route trying to find the venue. The lady at
guest services had said that we would be able to see it. I guess I should have asked what it looked like. Naturally we stopped by
our Long Island friend and purchased another beer. While we were walking, we kept asking people where the Ice Palace was.
They would point in a general direction, but they never said it’s that rectangle looking building with the a-frame roof. That
would have helped. Jen and I gave up and headed back to the hotel to get ready since time was starting to get away from us.
So we got ready which included, getting dressed, making the margaritas, making sure we had ice in the cooler, and packing whatever
miscellaneous party supplies that we needed in one of the many rolling suitcases we had. So there we were, the three of us, one
pulling the cooler, one pulling the suitcase, and one carrying a small cooler that contained about four pitchers worth of Margaritas.
What a site that was to see walking down those city streets. Then again, there was a big celebration going on in town that day (and
I have to add it was so nice of the City of Tampa Bay to threw us such a nice party) and just about everyone walking down the
street had a cooler they were pulling. As it would be, we were the only ones with a suitcase. At one point, some guy tried to steal
the cooler from Nikki, but she is a tough cookie and sent him on his way.