Visiting North Carolina

 A good vacation doesn't always have to be one to a destination town that everybody has on their bucket list. This weekend my cousin had a wedding in a small town in North Carolina and my immediate family mostly all went and it was like a family reunion in an AirBNB. For this trip the AirBNB was one of the highlights excluding the reason for the trip, my cousin's beautiful wedding. Thanks to my brother who knows how to find great locations we got a three story cabin with a hot tub and situated in the mountains so the decks looked out over an amazing view. As often when my family gathers we brought along plenty of board games to play and beers to drink.

Morganton, North Carolina provided a lot in the way of diversions. A good selection of breweries, which we were sadly too busy to visit, but did try their beer at other locations and picked some up to take home. Only visiting two of the streets, West Union Street and South Sterling Street we got to experience some wonderful small shops that I would highly recommend visiting, and the reason we were too busy to visit the breweries. Our first day in we got breakfast at Grind Cafe which offered some nice seasonal coffees and breakfast options. I went with a lighter option of a bagel with ham and cheese since there was going to be walking afterword. Many of the shops we visited also had beer or wine to buy while walking around the store, which is a good way to get you to spend more money and it worked. Craft'd was a delightful visit with local art, local beer on tap, and a selection to make a charcuterie board where you're staying or there in the shop. They also have a large selection of wines and knowledgeable staff who is ready to help you find one you'd like.

Adventure Bound Books had limited hours but is a nice book store to visit in town to find some great deals on used books and a nice atmosphere to walk around in. Thornwell Books was another great spot to visit, and another location were you can get a beer or wine while reading a book. They also offered a selection of baked goods and coffee drinks named after authors. There is plenty of seating to enjoy your drink while reading your new book and I ordered a Hillman Brewing beer there then sat down on the couch with my beer by a window, to look out and see that Hillman Brewing is just a block down the road.

Back to the craft food experiences you can find, we visited Olive which has a wonderful selection of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The staff was friendly, helpful, and walked us through combinations and tastings, and once again it's a location that offers drinks on the premises including wine flights to help you get the full experience of starting your meal with a wine and dipping bread in olive oil. Almost next door, we visited Merrill's Mischief which has a unique selection of candies and a Christmas décor with a train running around near the ceiling and Disney music playing. The main draw is the fudge at the back of the store. I took home some of the Salted Caramel Fudge and it was delightful. The man running the fudge station was very friendly, knowledgeable and offered samples freely. That section also had a selection of maple syrup hot sauces that you can try out as well there along with being given a good idea of pairings for the sauces. You can pick them up in bigger sizes, but I opted for a sampler selection of the sauces.

The next day we visited Apple Hill Orchard and Cider Mill to pick some apples and the weather was delightful. It rained while we were on our way, but the weather cleared while we were there and warmed up to be a delightful experience. It's an unassuming place from the front, but the apple trees are spread out down some rolling hills. Some of the apples had been ripe for a bit and were hard to find, especially the Fuji's and Granny Smiths, but that could also be because of their popularity. We also also picked up some Stayman Winesaps and Cameo apples. There are a ton of products in their shop as well which I'll have more of an idea of how good they are once I'm home and try them out, but the apple cider is delicious. We got a half gallon and also tried the slushee versions of the cider which was really good as well. Overall it was a wonderful experience at the orchard and I'd highly recommend it. The view and walk around the orchard is very nice and the map at the beginning lets you make the walk around as intense or quick as you want it to be and they offer a good selection of different basket sizes so you can get just the amount of apples you want.

We returned to downtown after that for lunch at Moondog Pizza which was very good. They have all the normal ingredients for pizzas if you want something standard, but also some specialty's that are very exciting and I was sad I only had time to try one. I got the Moondoggery and it was wonderful. The normal red sauce and mozzarella were the base, but topped with gorgonzola, salami, caramelized onions, and roasted garlic that all worked so well together, just a phenomenal pizza. They have a good selection of sandwiches if you're not in the mood for pizza and a good selection of drinks. My sister-in-law has several food allergies and the waitress came back after remembering something in her order that might bother her and came back to get a corrected order and she provided great service the whole time we were there. If you like unique pizzas I'd definitely recommend a visit.

Obviously this has to finish with the wedding at Double J farms which is a delightful venue. It's got a lot of inclines and some loose rock areas, so keep that in mind when making footwear selections, but it is a beautiful venue. The ceremony is performed behind the farmhouse in a small rectangle cut out of the woods with benches built out of the logs and supplemented by additional chairs. I stood at the back in case my newborn was going to be loud so I wouldn't disrupt the service, which thankfully didn't happen. The woods foliage provided a lovely backdrop for a nice service that was simple and clear even with some issues with the sound system. The exterior dance floor was nicely litup by rope lights over around the border and during cocktail hour there was a guitarist playing who delighted my three month old. I also appreciated the selection of craft beers on tap since I'm also a fan of those as are the bride and groom. As the sun set the weather cooled and made the farmhouse a pleasant place to listen to speeches and get food.

A lot of the moments that made the trip great were being with my family as we played board games, or drinking a beer in the hot tub with my brother and sister-in-law as we looked out over the mountain view, but visiting Morganton was a ton of fun, and is a place that I'd like to come back and visit more, or the other surrounding small towns as well. We didn't make a trip to South Mountain State Park this time which we were hoping to, or take a trip to Asheville about an hour away, but it's good to leave a reason to want a return trip so there's something left to experience. More importantly I lucked out when I found out my daughter was perfectly happy to be in the car for a twelve hour trip and sleep most of the way in between feedings. Sure, her stuff took up a lot of room in the car, but we didn't have to do any driving with a baby crying in the car seat and that was quite the relief.

Visiting the Smokey Mountains

 

We started the drive after a day of work we headed out of Southwest Florida around 7:30 to make our way to Tennessee and the Smokey Mountains. Some naps at Georgia rest areas got us the Smokey Mountain welcome center around 11:30 the next day which is a nice way to travel as it makes shorter trips feel longer. The welcome center has a nice trail along the river that takes you to the park entrance sign for a nice three mile round trip. It was all level ground which made for a nice walk after being in the car for so long without being too taxing of a hike. We got to see an elk laying in the woods along the trail foraging and it was still there on our return trip although it had walked a bit further away. A great way to start a trip to the mountains. That hike took long enough for us to be able to check in so we started along the road through the Smokey Mountains where we got to enjoy seeing how mountains affect the weather as it was perfect weather on the East side of the mountains where we had started and the West side had retained the rain from earlier and they lived up to their name of the Smokey mountains with a heavy fog covering a lot of the peaks further away which made for some great sights.

We setup our ten in the Elkmont camping area which is a nice camping setup with a lot of spots for people to camp, but well enough spread out that you don't feel that on top of people and there is a river running between several of the sites. Be forewarned that the bathrooms don't have showers so you'll be bathing with a wash towel unless you want to take a dip in the river to bathe. I'd recommend bringing food if you want to cook at the campsite. We made the mistake of trying to shop in town, but Pigeon Forge had a Food City Express which didn't provide much in the way of meat, so we settled for picking up some hot dogs and visiting Wendy's for dinner. The weather at the campsite was phenomenal and while my girlfriend took an early night after traveling and hiking I stayed up and enjoyed a local beer, Hippies and Cowboys by Tennessee Brewing Comapny, and read a book. The sun was up until 8:30 and made it an easy way to spend the night before heading to bed.

The next day we made our way to Cade's Cove after a simple cooktop breakfast of eggs and hash browns. The line moves slow when there is something worth seeing, but it's often worth it. Early on the horse riders were out which drew a lot of attention for some reason. After that the next slowdown was because of an adolescent bear near the path so a lot of people got out to take pictures and slowed down while the Rangers tried to keep them moving. We cut the path a little short taking Hale's Pass, I believe it was. It took us right through some meadows which was nice to watch. On the other side of the Pass, which cut off two miles from the loop we stopped at an old farmstead and walked through the barn to the crick, then crossed the road and into the old house. I'm average height now, but the house was built low for the the height of people back then and made me feel like a giant nearly having to stoop to walk in. The highlight of the drive was up ahead as we spotted a Mama bear with her three cubs. They were a ways into the field so we couldn't get a close view, but it was still an awesome thing to see.

The next stop on our way back down the road was Laurel Falls. It's a pretty hike and not too rough to hike on since it's got a paved path, although there are a good amount of areas where it is eroding away and can be a little tricky, but it's generally a good hike to start with as it's not very treacherous, plus there is a waterfall at the end of the paved pathway. The nice think about reaching the waterfall is that it's naturally AC and can help cool you down. It's a really nice waterfall and there are some great views into valleys and mountains across the way as you go. We didn't this time, but you can continue on the path that is much more wild and difficult to hike that takes you higher up the mountains and provides even more splendid views, but is a lot more difficult of a hike.

We took a trip into Gatlinburg and stopped at Smokey Mountain Brewing for a drink and food where we got a really nice pizza and some nice spinach and artichoke dip with fresh made tortilla chips so it's definitely a stop I'd recommend. After that we headed to Ripley's Aquarium which is probably a nicer aquarium than you might expect from having the Ripley's name, which a lot of stuff along the main road does. There are several smaller exhibits, but the focal point is one tank that you can look into, but more importantly has a tunnel underneath it with a moving pathway. You get amazing views of sharks, fish, the sea turtle, and the very large sawfish they have. It's an amazing experience to go through the tank and one well worth doing, especially if you want to combine it with any two other Ripley's experiences which we didn't this time.

If you've never been there the main strip of Gatlinburg is like a tourist trap city on cocaine, it's amazing. There are three different moonshine distilleries, two cideries, and at least five wineries on the road. Five dollars gets you samples at everyone of the distilleries and you get a coupon for five dollars off if you buy anything, prices are pretty similar for the cideries and wineries, but they'll also have free limited tastings as well. These are great at all the locations because the people doing them aren't bartenders, they're showmen. They're definitely trying to sell you, but they make sure you laugh and have a fun time while doing it and then hope you'll spend a bunch of money to buy their product and it is worth it. The wineries are funny since none of the grapes for the wine are grown in the area they're imported in, but the wines all tend to be sweeter wines and the fruits that they're mixed with are the local produce that give them the flavor. If you're looking for Merlots and Cabernet's you're going to be disappointed, but if you like sweet, fruit forward wines you'll be in heaven. The cideries are both really good and Tennessee Cider Company is my girlfriends favorite stop in Gatlinburg. Not only are their ciders good, but they also make slushees that you can take with you as you walk down the sidewalk. You can also take a package of the slushee mix home with you which is also really good. There are also a ton of other experiences to have including a ton of miniature golf courses, one of which we tried out which was a lot of fun, arcades, motion simulators, and one place bought the old Earthquake ride from Universal Studios, which was decent at Universal, but I haven't tried at Gatlinburg.

After some walking along the road and visiting Tennessee Stud Cidery and Ole Smokey Distillery, both good experiences thanks to the servers Kristen and Blaze respectively, we made our way back to the campsite for another night of relaxing with drinks and a book while my girlfriend enjoyed napping in her hammock. We were chatting at the picnic table after a dinner of hot dogs when we were startled by the crack of a tree breaking. Across the road from the campsite a large tree fell and took out the powerline to the campsite with a bright spark as it severed the power line.. Everybody got up from their campsites and wandered to the noise where thankfully it was just across the road and not on a campsite or on anybody's car. Considering the distance away from any real part of town the response was pretty quick to the incident with two cops showing up as well as some other authorities to make sure nothing further was going to result from the down power lines, but obviously hearing a tree fall over in such close proximity does not make it easy to go to sleep afterword. When we woke up in the morning power had been restored to the restrooms and the road had already been cleared.

We had a hefty breakfast in Gatlinburg at Crockett's Breakfast Camp which would have been more suited as a meal after a hike, but it was good food and plentiful. We concluded our trip through the Smokey Mountains to head home with a stop at the Newfound Gap where the Tennessee and North Carolina border is and got some great pictures. We didn't hike it this trip, but you have access to the Appalachian trail which is a more strenuous hike with no pavement and just a path through the wilderness. It provides some amazing views and is worth the effort. On our way back out we got to see a family of elk at the welcome center to send us on our way. The Smokey Mountains are a great place to visit and one of my favorite destinations. There are just so many trails to try out and each season has something different to offer at the park. You can be fully engulfed by nature and then fifteen minutes away you can have all the luxuries of a city when you want them.

Visiting the Bourbon Trail

I've never been the biggest fan of whisky or bourbon in particular, but this year I arranged a trip to Kentucky with my family and visited the bourbon trail after seeing so many advertisements for it while traveling on I-75 and trips to the Smokey Mountains. For a family trip, with something for everybody to do the way we did it was pretty good, but it definitely wasn't the best way to maximize your time at distilleries and hitting up all of them on the bourbon trail.

The first recommendation I have is to pick up the Bourbon Trail Passport. Each distillery on the trail has a page to stamp and they date it for you as well. The distilleries are split into sections so when you finish a section you let the distillery know they are the last one in that section and they'll put a special qr code stamp or provide the challenge coin, but eventually you end up with a barrel stave challenge coin holder for two different trails; one for the bigger names and a separate one for the craft distilleries.

My second recommendation if you are maximizing distilleries would be to probably do one of the tours that takes you from location to location by van. I wouldn't go that route, but the other keys are to schedule a day in Lexington, Louisville, and Bardstown and a fourth and fifth day for the random distilleries outside those cities that require a little bit more of a trip. Most are in those three cities so there isn't a lot of extra driving to do. Those days are going to be Wednesday through Saturday where they are all open and you're going to have to start your drinking early as the distilleries seem to run on bank hours of 9AM-5PM. Ideal if that's what you're there for, but makes it a little difficult to get your family excited to drink liquor that early.

We stayed in Bardstown the whole time and took day trips to the cities as most of the people weren't drinking too heavily so we had sober drivers. It works as a nice hub being an hour from Lexington, a little over a half hour from Louisville, and an hour from the Mammoth Caves. I'd recommend adding a trip to the caves as it is just cool to see, but gives you a break from a bunch of drinking so your body can recover and rest for a little bit. If you want to do a more family oriented trip this is a good way to do it as it's a smaller town so you can find a good AirBnB to stay at and have a nice downtown area to visit. The town does tend to shut down earlier so always be aware of that, although there is a good amount of chain places that you can visit that stay open later.

The Bourbon Trail passport is a very useful resource for planning your trip. There is a key that lets you know if they are a bourbon distillery, electronic booking, cocktails available, onsite food, other spirits, and size. Each distillery has a signature cocktail listed as well although some are lazier than others. Old Forester, Green River, Heaven Hill, Wild Turkey, New Riff, Dueling Grounds, Castle and Key, and James Pepper all list some variation of the old fashioned which is pretty weak to me, but it's a classic and I get wanting to put your own twist on it. Evan Williams is probably the laziest with theirs being a whiskey sour that tells you to use sour mix. Jim Beam and Preservation also put in variations of the sour and Bardstown went with the Manhattan, but they were the only ones who did that so I guess it's not that egregious. Several distilleries have prebottled versions of the cocktails for sail to take home or the ingredients that are special for their drink. Those were a nice pickup as well as several new bitters to try out. My girlfriend really enjoyed that many of the places had bourbon chocolate balls. There were many different barbecue sauces with bourbon added and other foods that were also fun to pickup and try.

Having only visited eleven of the forty-one distilleries on the passport I can't give a definitive ranking of all of them and what they offer, but I can offer impressions of the places that I visited. The places in Bardstown and just outside of the cities offer the best overall view and are impressive with the sheer size of the complex and all the rickhouses they have setup. The places in cities are more compact and have to utilize space better and often have their barrels aging at the larger complexes.

For overall impression I'd have to put Lux Row at the top. You pull into their driveway and go through a tree lined path up to their welcome facility. We did the deluxe tasting and it's paired with chocolate which was nice chocolate and did add some different flavors to the bourbon and we sampled some great bourbons and was the place where we bought our expensive bottle after tasting the seven year aged single barrel. The best part of the tasting was going into the rickhouse where we got to thieve from a barrel that was was one of the first that they produced and have aged at the facility without having to use any other companies product or aging facilities and it tasted amazing.

Right on the backside of that facility is Bardstown Bourbon Company and like them it has a beautiful welcome facility and an impressive rickhouse setup. I just got a sampler flight at the location and they had a nice selection of cocktails as well. The entry also has live camera feeds of the boiling pots and a digital view of the whole process and the current temps, which I didn't know what it meant, but it looked cool. This is where I tried the most expensive bourbon which didn't seem to utilize a lot of their product, but was very good stuff. Definitely a place where I'd want a tour next time to understand the process they use. They didn't have a huge selection of bourbons to buy, but it was a great facility and had very friendly staff.

Heaven Hill and Jim Beam fill a pretty similar spot in my mind. They are huge facilities and are impressive just to look at and you're probably going to see one of them on your way into town and they'll catch your attention. Heaven Hill has a nice self guided tour and both have very extensive gift shops. Both have bars that you can get flights or cocktails at and are good experiences. Heaven Hill had free samples of some of their stuff when we went to the self guided tour as well. The Jim Beam facility is on some beautiful land that is a great backdrop for pictures.

Woodford Reserve is as good looking as you'd expect from a company with their reputation. Their welcome facility and rickhouses are on one side of the road and is a very nice looking place. The tasting bar is on the other side is right next to some stables so you can check out some horses on your way in. Cocktails come with souvenir mint julep cups which is cool, because a lot of places were charging quite a bit for those.

Copper & Kings was my favorite visit on the trip which is funny as they aren't really a bourbon distillery. They do have some bourbon they buy and finish in their brandy barrels since it made them more money than selling the barrels to other bourbon companies to do the same thing. We got there close to closing and they had a short tour so they threw us in with them for the tasting part and the guy who checked us in gave us a rundown of the company and how they do things which was informative and the tasting was great. A great selection of different liquors and the tasting let us choose our own after starting with their base brandy. Since I was with my gf we shared our samples and got to try six other of their products which had a nice selection of liqueurs, gins, and one of the bottles we picked up absinthe. Since they're a smaller company they don't have the people to rotate the barrels so they just have music playing to get the same vibrations to move the liquors around in the barrels. When we bought their brandy barrel aged bourbon we got to fill our own bottle which was fun. Definitely the place I would most highly recommend checking out in Louisville whether you're going to try the bourbon trail or not.

Angel's Envy and Michter's were the other two in Louisville we visited and definitely would have needed better planning to visit Angel's Envy doesn't have a bar to try stuff and Michter's was full with an hour wait to get in. On the plus side when you visit Louisville almost all the big distilleries are on one road and there is other places to visit. Across the street from Envy we went to Against the Grain brewing and had some good beers and smoked meat which was good, and across from Michter's we went to Barrels and Billets which had their own bourbon which wasn't great and was connected to the Louisville Slugger location so we got to see the giant bat outside the building and get some souvenirs there. Just down the road from Michter's was a Art Eatables which has a huge selection of bourbon chocolates using liquors from many of the distilleries on the trail.

Bluegrass Distilling in Lexington is where we took a tour of the production of bourbon and they have a small area where they distill the liquor and age it, but they are building a much bigger facility near Versailles so I don't know how much my time here will reflect on them in the future which could be good. I had a great experience with the tour guide and the small nature of the facility, but the bourbon left a lot to desire. They had a bunch of bourbon adjacent food products that all tasted really good that we did pick up so don't write them off just yet and maybe once they have their own aging facilities they'll be able to get better product out. For lunch afterward we went to West Sixth Brewing which had some nice beers and I did bring home some of their Oktoberfest that I didn't finish there. Smithtown Seafood is connected to them and provided much better seafood than you would expect from a place in the middle of the Kentucky.

The other two distilleries in town are right next to each other, but sadly Barrel House wasn't open so we only visited James E Pepper where I really liked their products and picked up a barrel. Their facilities are pretty small, but they offered a more rye forward bourbon which was smooth with a nice spicy not to it. After that we took a break at Crank & Boom craft ice cream which is right next door and if you're not tired of flights yet you can get a flight of four of their different flavors and I'd recommend it because you get a lot of ice cream and it is amazingly good ice cream.

The final distillery we visited was Willett in Bardstown on our way home. Perhaps the best example of what you'd hope to find on your trip to Kentucky and visiting distilleries it's just a bit down the road from Heaven Hill which has its own road going through it, but Willett is a dirt road that takes you past their homemade signs to direct you through a pretty good sized complex with rickhouses and several fountains on your way to their gift shop and restaurant. They have a small menu, but with some nice looking stuff and the trout dip we chose was excellent. I got a flight of bourbons from here and they were very good and the best part is that the price on the bottles was some of the cheapest that I saw and came away with a Bottled in Bond Bardstown Bourbon that was around $20 and will serve as my mixing bourbon. Definitely a place you're going to want to make sure you stop in to visit.

For the non-drinking parts of the vacation we had two real destinations which were the Louisville Zoo which I found to be a nice zoo. How much animal activity you get depends on the temperature and it was pretty good for seeing a lot of movement when we went there. It was pretty cool out and feeding time when we saw the polar bear and it's impressive to see an animal that size move when you can get so close with just a glass barrier when the other bigger animals tend to be further away. One of the nicer things was that the animals who were trying to stay warm or were napping tended to do it near the viewing areas so you got some nice close up views of the animals. They had some really nice displays and while it's kind of annoying as a visitor it's generally good for the animals that there was space between the displays. Although since it was near Halloween the zoo had a bunch of displays setup between the enclosures to add some fun to it. It's not a top tier zoo, but it's a really good one and has a good selection of animals to enjoy.

The Mammoth Caves was a very fun excursion as well. An important note that I found out the wrong way is that when you go there you will enter the Central Time Zone so we were super early for our tour, but I managed to switch it to the Domes and Dripstones tour earlier and the visitor center there has tons of shopping with two separate gift shops and a big display of the history of the caves and current exploration going through the caves which is a lot of fun to walk through as well. The onsite hotel was undergoing renovations, but I imagine spending a night there would be very cool. Going into the caves is just a very cool experience. It does have modern steps in it, but you're still twisting through some narrow areas and going down steep descents. Photos you take don't really do it justice and it's just so cool to see with all the drops and areas that aren't on the stairs or path to look at. The first stop when the tour guide tells the story of Floyd Collins who got caught in a cave trying to explore it and turns the lights off so you're in the pitch black of the cave as he continues was very cool. A pure experience of what pitch black really is. The tour we took ended in the Frozen Niagra area which is the one part of the cave with stalagmites which is just so cool looking.

A small excursion about halfway between Bardstown and Louisville was Bernheim Forest and the giant wooden sculptures there. The three giants are very cool to look at and it was a very nice walking area and you can drive to most of the areas and have less of a walk if that's what you prefer.

The Bourbon Trail proved to be a very fun vacation with a ton of great and interesting stops for people interested in trying out a bunch of different bourbons, but many stops for people who were looking for excursions that don't involve drinking. If you're into horse racing you can also plan your trip around that as well. We went in the right month, but the distilleries in Louisville tended not to be open on Tuesday when there was horse racing which would have been cool to see. So my biggest take-away from this trip is to be a planner and schedule things out, but don't let that deter you, because it is a trip well worth taking and fall weather in Kentucky was a great break from the Florida heat.

AEW Revolution and Dynamite

This week I went to my first wrestling pay per view when I traveled to Orlando for AEW's Revolution and followed that up with the Dynamite afterword since it was just twenty minutes down the road from me. I went solo to the PPV, but went with my girlfriend and sister to Dynamite. Revolution plus the preshow was a long show, but full of damn good wrestling and the crowd noise died out in some of the later matches after Punk and MJF. Personally it was hard to still be loudly into the matches no matter how good the matches are.

Honestly the Punk/MJF match probably should have main evented as it had the hottest story going into the show and it was going to feature a lot of blood. I get why they put the world title match as the main event, but it just didn't compare to the emotion in the dog collar match. All of the matches on the preshow over delivered and were just as good as anything on the main show and really Statlander/Hirsch was better than a lot of the singles matches on the show. House of Black vs. Pac, Penta, and Redbeard was just an insanely fun fast paced match that I didn't really care for going into the show and then fully captured my attention. Redbeard really impressed me as he really showed a lot of skill in this match and was fun to see him facing off with Brody.

The crowd was loud and into the show, but of course there were annoying people and they were like two rows behind me and to the left and kept shouting annoying shit. The guy sitting next to me just went “I fucking hate those guys,” after one of their attempts at a joke which got a laugh out of me.

Starting with Kingston vs Jericho ruled. I loved the start with the half and half suplex from Kingston and Jericho being on the back foot right away. Kingston is in charge all the time unless Jericho goes for the eyes and unloads offense from there. I know it's because Kawada is his favorite wrestler, but it never doesn't impress me how Kingston does the enziguri exactly like Kawada did. The selling especially, but everything about how the match was worked and paced felt like a classic All Japan Kings Road match. Jericho did a bunch of eye work to trying and slow Kingston down, but he was determined to win and after Jericho accidentally hit the exposed turnbuckle with the Judas effect and Kingston nails a couple of backfists before getting the submission win. This match was great and exceeded my expectations for it. Kingston really brought out the style that Jericho hasn't wrestled in a long time and it really helped the match even if the crowd wasn't always responsive to booing Jericho's cheating despite being strongly behind Eddie.

I don't really want to review every match because being there live makes every match seem better so its going to be more the high points of the show although some of the matches were that good and I felt the need to really going into detail on them. The tag title match was really good and the ladder match was fine with some really cool spots by Orange Cassidy, but didn't have any really good hoss off moments except them facing off a couple of times. Jade vs. Tay was the best match of Jade's run so far and had a lot of really good moments including Tay getting some good offense in.

Being there live for CM Punk coming out to “Miseria Cantare” and in his RoH gear made the show for me. After Punk leaving wrestling for seven years getting to see him come out to that song and in that gear was just the best experience. The match afterword lived up to that feeling as well. A nicely paced match and they tease out the violence and really utilize the gimmick match well using the chain to choke each other and whip each other. Punk is bleeding early and gets an intense crimson mask. I was surprised how well that popped even though I was up in the second level. Punk's tombstone on the apron was phenomenal and it was nice that both men had an injured body part and sold it throughout the match. Definitely the highlight of the show and a great match.

Britt vs. Rosa really had no chance to follow the dog collar match and nothing on the show did. As a follow up to their hardcore unsanctioned match this couldn't live up either as there is a ton of bad blood and it was a normal match and Rosa not being prepared for the interference from Rebel and Hayter just didn't seem right considering how long they have been feuding even if it is a loss to setup a big title win in Rosa's hometown. Danielson vs. Mox was a really good match that took a while to really get the crowd into it, but was largely fought like a classic NWA style battle for control with grappling and hard hitting strikes that didn't necessarily get an advantage they were struggling for. I loved the match, but it wasn't the kind of match that gets the crowd loudly behind it.

The tornado six man tag of Sting, Darby, and Sammy vs. Andrade, Matt Hardy, and Isaih Kassidy surprised the hell out of me. Except for the chance to see Sting wrestle live I would have been happy to have dropped for time. And then the match started and it was an insanely fun brawl between these two teams. Darby nailing Jose the assistant with a suicide dive while he had a trashcan over him was crazy and it kept escalating from there. Marq Quen and Butcher and the Blade joining into the brawl made it more fun as well and almost let the heels get the win. Sammy's insane Spanish fly off the set through two tables to Kassidy was nuts and then Sting jumped off the balcony onto Andrade through four tables which was even crazier.

The main event was really good even if I did get tired of the “Adam” chants that people were doing. The ones were it was just the normal cheer for a wrestler, but we chanted Adam for both was great, but once they just started replacing random words with Adam I got tired of it. The Halo gear that Adam wore out to the ring was pretty half-assed and looked goofy and for a little bit I thought he the backpack was going to shoot off fireworks, but if it makes him happy good for him. The crowd reactions were pretty muted after the Punk/MJF match, but this got the people awake and back into it. I don't know why the good guys friends are always so slow at saving their friend when the heels friends are there cheating so much earlier, but other than that it was a really good match and the Deadeye off the apron through the table was fucking nuts and looked brutal for both guys. I was really worried about Cole winning so when Page got the win it was awesome. I kind of thought they were teasing a slow heel turn for Page with how he finished the match, but Dynamite kind of put a rest to those thoughts.

I loved the show and had a great time even though I took a lyft to the venue and with how busy it was after I couldn't get one back to the hotel and had to walk two miles back to my motel. The show wasn't setup correctly to build up to the best match, but it was still a great show with a lot of great wrestling. It was a great time and I was so happy I made the trip up to Orlando to see it.

After I had bought the tickets to that PPV they announced the show in my hometown of Fort Myers so I got tickets to that, but I knew my girlfriend would be willing to make that trip and got my sister to come down as well since its been a while since she's been to a live show and she's a huge fan of Moxley.

We got there a little late into the Dark taping and saw half of the Emi Sakura/Bunny vs. Kylinn King/Kelsey Reagan match I believe and it was a lot of fun and a great way to start the night. The rest of the matches on the preshow were fine and ending with the Dark Order against Chaos Project was great.

Since it was a post PPV show Dynamite was a little heavy on talking segments which my girlfriend who doesn't follow stuff wasn't really into, but she also made jokes about the wrestling so its tough to say the right move for her. Loved Kingston's promo and how well he plays off of Jericho and the inevitable heel turn for Jericho wasn't surprising to me, but was well played out here. I really like the contrast in Jericho's more polished promo style and Kingston feeling more raw and realistic and dealing with his emotions. The surprise World Title match with Hangman vs. Dante Martin was really goddamn good, and does the thing that I appreciate the most from AEW which is that when a surprise guy gets a title shot its still a back and forth match. Dante got some great offense in and looked really strong in that match.

The next match is the one my sister was most looking forward to as her two favorite wrestlers were teaming up even if they did just run through The Workhorsemen. It was nice seeing JD Drake in person again after buying a shirt from him at a local show even if he didn't get to do much tonight. Regal cut a good promo after the match and has me really looking forward to the future of this team and whatever young guys they add to the stable. Pac vs Yuta was a short but fun match. Pac dominated, but Yuta got to showcase a little bit of what he brings to the table as well.

Next was what ended up being the segment of the night. The Andrade/Hardy Family Order fell apart as we knew it was going to. After the family turned on Hardy we got Sting and Darby to try and fail to make the save and then the Hardy Boyz music hit and Jeff Hardy came out. The crowd came unglued and while I'm not excited about current Hardy Boyz ability in the ring I'd be lying if I said I didn't get super excited about this moment. Jeff helps the rest of the good guys clear the ring and hits a Swanton bomb on Blade.

Wardlow talked next in a solid promo, but since it was one on one it really felt weird that Schiavonne and Wardlow were looking at the hard cam were almost nobody was sitting. Jurassic Express vs. The Acclaimed was an awesome match. I though this was going to be a glorified squash match, but Acclaimed really came close to winning at times and this was a lot of fun. Rosa vs. Hirsch was a fun match with Rosa picking up the win. Scorpio Sky vs. Sammy Guevera was a pretty boring match with a lot of time spent on a fake injury for Sammy although at least the 630 off the top through a table looked awesome. It was cool seeing Scorpio get the win here as I've been a fan of his since seeing him in early PWG shows.

The Rampage taping was fun although it took quite a while for them to change the ring apron and mat which they did quickly between Dark and Dynamite. Marq Quen vs Darby lasted too long for my taste especially since Darby got nearly no offense in and Quen doesn't really have the kind of offense that works well to control a match against a baby face. The 450 from the top to Darby on the floor was fucking awesome to see though. Keith Lee squashed QT nicely and destroyed the rest of the nightmare family. Mercedes Martinez and Jamie Hayter had a good match which was nice to see. The main event of Swerve vs. Nese was good, but after that much wrestling it was a little hard to get too invested in the match.

It was a fun pair of nights and even though both shows were quite long to sit through I had a great time both nights. Obviously Revolution was way better than Dynamite, but Dynamite had stuff going for it as well. It will be a long time before either show is topped for as live experiences go. My ass wishes that the seats were more comfortable and Revolution definitely could have used an intermission, especially since AEW PPVs don't have terrible matches that I'm happy to miss to take a piss break. The prices for the show were much more reasonable than WWE PPVs so I'd definitely recommend checking out a show if its near you.

ABBA - Super Trouper

 

The overall impression for this album is fine. It's got a lot of songs I really dug and some that are fine and none of them are bad, but almost all of them just kind of keep going and last like a minute too long. I'm a fan of long songs when they've got something to say, but for this album its largely repeating the chorus a bunch of times and not introducing anything new too the song.

“Lay All Your Love on Me” its just a fun song that has a great tempo and feel to it. The standout songs are “On and On and On” and “White Sombrero” the first is a really fun upbeat song and Sombrero is a nice song with a bit of latin flavor to it that sets it apart from the rest of the songs on the album. “The Piper” is the best song on the album. I liked it at first and it was good, but its the song that has been stuck in my head since then and has really grown on me.

I found it funny that I really liked the B-sides on this album better, especially more than the title track and other big songs from it. “Super Trouper” was the most surprising because I remember liking it before and it's still fun, but damn it goes on too long and the parts of the song that aren't the chorus are just kind of there. And both of the songs end with the chorus getting repeated too much to even take out the joy of the best part of the songs.

The rest of the album is mostly fine, but it doesn't really stand out and everything is pretty samey except for the weird inclusion of “Happy New Year” which feels weird to listen to not on New Years although, it is January and not that far from the holiday. If you like ABBA you'll enjoy the album, but its not one of their stronger works.

For how long this album is its definitely not something I'd recommend listening to, but checking out the best tracks on the album aren't a bad use of your time.

Universal Studios

I went to Universal Studios Florida yesterday since I had two days off from work and a season pass so why not. Spring Breaks are starting for schools so it was pretty busy at the park, but not too crazy for the most part. There were some long lines, but there were plenty of rides without too much of a wait. Plus since I was by myself I got to walk as fast as I want to which is pretty fast. The day started off rough as I waited for over an hour to ride The Hulk, but then I started using the Universal app and hitting up the shorter line rides. Granted this only works well as a strategy for a season pass holder since I'm not trying to hit every ride on every trip I'm just trying to get some rides in. So lets talk about some of the rides that Universal has.

The Race Through New York with Jimmy Fallon

This isn't the best ride in the park, but it is kind of the most impressive. The Minions ride and Shrek both do a similar thing, but nowhere near as well. It's six rows of riders and about 15 people across and all on one platform for a 3D ride. The motion in this ride is super smooth and very effective. The fact that they can do that so well with such a big platform is impressive and the ride does a bunch of different stuff. The 3D projections are really good. With the 3D glasses over my actual glasses the effect is kind of hurt, but still really good and people like to buy into the stuff coming at them. It feels like a real thrill ride and is worth the wait. One thing that really helps the wait is the loading system which is color coded and lets you sit down and rest in the “green room” before getting back into line. Good stuff all around and it always had a short line or used virtual queue so I hit it up a bunch of times.

Kong Reign of Skull Island, Fast and Furious

I'm going to group these two together because they both use the same ride system and are similar. But they are also very different in that I think one of them is great and the other is pretty bland. Full disclosure my mom has the opposite view of the rides. I think Kong is awesome. The 3D effects on the screens are there, but not hugely over the top. The story moves well between the screens and the water spray effects are used very well in the second scene. The third scene is where the ride becomes awesome and why my mom doesn't like it. There's a screen on both sides and stuff happening on each side as well, but the main battle can be tracked by following Kong and his fight with the T-Rex effects the car and bumps it around. After a fast paced chase you get knocked off the cliff and the ride makes you feel like it's happening so well. Then the most important part of the ride occurs as you turn the corner and see the Kong animatronic which is impressive as hell. Make sure you take off the glasses to really appreciate the animatronic.

Fast and Furious doesn't use any 3D effects and uses a bunch of screens to tell a story. The opening scene is acted so flatly by Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez and it just kind of drags before you move into the fast paced chase part of the ride. Action happens on both sides with either side getting a different set of actors beating bad guys. It ends with a ramp jump that feels good and that's the end. It's a pretty short ride and doesn't really do a whole lot of anything cool. You don't have to follow the action and the CG parts of the video don't look very good. I will say the line section has two show sections where a cast member interacts with a video which was good both times I've gone through it.

Kong just has more going on and a more solid story its built upon, not to mention better work put in by the actors. And that kills me to say because I'm a big fan of the Fast and Furious movies. The ride just doesn't do much of anything, especially when it uses the same ride system as Kong which does more stuff with it. Especially considering Fast and Furious makes a fuck ton of money.

The Simpsons Ride

This is just a great motion simulator ride. It lampoons theme parks in a fun way that the Simpsons is so good at doing, and it does it while still providing a good ride as well. As an older ride it's rougher than Jimmy Fallon, but with a smaller ride vehicle it does feel more visceral, and the story of the ride lends itself to stuff being more rough as Sideshow Bob is trying to kill you. Beyond just the lampooning of theme parks you do get a good bit of Springfield near the end of the ride going through the town and seeing all the characters you love, if you like the show. It's still airing and kind of relevant, but not like it used to be. I think everything about the ride is good enough to overcome the Simpsons losing relevance, especially since a large part of the park is themed around the Simpsons. It's a really fun ride and I hope it stays around.

Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit

I love this rollercoaster. Getting to choose your own music for the ride is so cool. I've done it with five of the different songs so far and the only bad choice so far has been “Paralyzer” although “Devil Went Down to Georgia” is close because the best part of that song is kicking in as the ride ends. NERD's “Rockstar” is my favorite so far while “Sabotage” and “Hellagood” are both really solid choices. As I keep going back I'm going to try out more of the choices except for country. The ride itself is cool. The vertical lift hill is fast, but just feels dangerous and builds the excitement well, especially with a well paired song. The first drop doesn't look like much from the side, but it feels intense as hell and the loop with a barrel roll in the middle is so awesome. Sometimes the braking system kind of interrupts the flow of the ride, but I've had some rides where the brake sections don't need to go and the ending part of the ride is so awesome. A really fast paced intense coaster with a lot of inversions, and a lot of banked turns, including a 90 degree bank which doesn't go into a turn it just gives you the cool feeling of falling to the side.

The Hulk

When I visited my parents two years ago I rode Hulk before it was redone and it was a head rattler, now it's smooth again and a lot more fun to ride. The addition of the music in the car as you're going down the track is really cool. I don't know if any ride will ever top the first time I rode this coaster and it goes from being a normal lift hill to propelling you up the rest and into an inverted drop. That is my favorite theme park memory of all time and it's so fucking cool. The rest of the coaster whips too with a cobra roll being fucking awesome as well as a bunch of other inversions as well as some mist elements as you're close to water as well. It's just a great coaster with a lot of fun elements.

The Mummy's Revenge

This is really fun indoor rollercoaster, but it also borrows a lot of elements from dark rides and blends them together very well. It does so many things other rides don't and it's very cool. When you have to wait the ride queue tells a very good story that leads into the ride itself. It does have some rough stops on the ride, but they do kind of fit with the story being told so it's not that bad. It's got some backwards stuff, rotates the cart on the track and has a propulsion lift up the hill instead of a chain lift. It's got a fun section of classic rollercoaster type stuff and then stops you. Imhotep kills the woman in the control room, the entire ceiling bursts into flames and then you are dropped down into another rollercoaster section before coming to the end of the ride. This ride does a great job of telling a story in a rollercoaster and is just such a cool ride and is probably my second favorite ride in the park right behind the next ride I'm going to talk about.

The Forbidden Journey

This is my favorite ride in both Universal parks. It's a great combination of screens and animatronics, and it has a really cool ride vehicle as well. There is a lot of action with the screens and it creates a lot of fake free fall feelings and it does it very well. There is an animatronic of the whomping willow on the ride and it looks really fucking cool. It also tips you very far backwards when seeing it and makes it feel super creepy. There is a segment with a lot of dementor animatronics that is pretty creepy as well in a good way. This ride just does a great job of mixing screens with live action elements and making it feel like there is a lot more movement and action than there really is. It's just a really impressive ride in every way.

Dudley Do-Rights Ripsaw Falls

The animatronics on this ride are pretty basic and nobody cares about Dudley Do-Right anymore, but the actual ride is good. It's a really good log flume ride with a bunch of fake big drops. I like that the big drop goes into an uphill section before you go down again and get the real big splash. And let me tell you it delivers a big splash. I was soaked after riding this ride. It was an 80 degree day starting at 10 AM so it didn't matter, but if you are there in the colder times don't ride this ride without a change of clothes or being will to spend five dollars for the people dryers that the park has. It's also a pretty tight fit for adults. Thankfully there were only four people in my flume so I left an empty seat between me and the rider ahead to fit in better, but it's fun and worth the tight fit.

Jurassic Park

This ride has a bunch of really cool dinosaur animatronics. But most importantly it has the Jurassic Park theme playing while you pass through the gateways and that's probably the coolest moment in all of the rides in the park. There are a bunch of animatronic dinosaurs to enjoy on the tour with the Hadrosaur ones being the coolest as they pop out of the water and surprise you. Once you get shunted into the restricted area it gets even better. A raptor cage nearly drops down on you and people who don't know its coming react in a great way. A bunch of raptors and dilophosaurus animatronics line the bath through the building. Then T-Rex comes out and you make the big drop which is cool. The second time I rode it some guy had his hat on and they stopped the ride til he took it off which meant I got to look at the T-rex animantronic more which was cool.

The Draw of Cryptozoology

Cryptozoology is a subject I was really interested in for a good part of my life, and something I still think about occasionally. Hours spent looking through poorly designed websites on geocities and angelfire at different peoples write ups about different cryptids as well as books at the local library.. Some are fairly well known creatures like Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, the Mothman, and Chupacabras, but there also looking at the lesser known ones as well like Mokele Mbembe, and the Wendigo. Some of those with more grounded and realistic explanations than others.

For the most part the existence of most of the these creatures is completely explained away by science, and investigations that have been done. They've scanned all of Loch Ness and there is no way there is a monster somewhere in the lake. First of all they would have found it in the scans, and second of all even if they somehow missed it, there's not enough food in the environment to support a creature of that size. Big foot is in a populated enough area that is visited by people and scientists regularly and one of them should have been found. Or at least a corpse or further decayed remains. There are some creatures sighted in remote enough areas that could host such a creature. The Amazon basin has a lot of unexplored area and there are remote areas in the Congo as well. Mokele Mbembe would have enough foliage to support itself, unfortunately that area has no archeological record of sauropods living there so there is no way for it to get there in the first place. But maybe they somehow avoided those explorations.

There are three big draws to cryptozoology in the modern world. First is the thrill of finding something new that nobody else has discovered. There's still lots of chances to do this in the jungles, deserts, and depths of the oceans as we haven't full explored those, but a lot of those lack the excitement of the discoveries that cryptids present. Species that are discovered are generally new insects or variations of animals we already know about.. There are many animals we know of and consider normal that were once just folklore creatures that Western scientists didn't acknowledge because they ignored the stories of the locals. Some of them were still exaggerated, but that was caused by either the lack of research or the accounts from explorers. Gorillas, Okapi, and Tasmanian Devils are all animals that were originally considered cryptids that were proven to be real. It's the kind of discovery that really draws attention to your work and gets your name out there so you can be profiled in magazines or get interviewed on tv, and maybe prove that you're not wasting your time.

Secondly there's the idea of having knowledge that most people don't have. There really is no reason to have that knowledge since it's probably all bullshit, but its a fun topic to know, and be able to talk about. The draw of having secret knowledge is very potent and a big factor into what made cryptozoology so interesting to me. Mothman and Bigfoot may have movies about them that got people interested in the subject, but that just made a convenient gateway to getting into the topic and letting more people write about it. But having that knowledge wasn't enough there was still the hope that maybe these creatures were real.

The biggest draw of cryptozoology, especially the view of cryptozoology that myself and the internet focuses on, is that the creatures of folklore are really cool. It would be awesome if the Loch Ness monster is real and we found a living sauropod hanging out in a lake. The existance of Coelacanth's still existing despite being thought to have gone extinct sixty million years ago offers that glimmer of hope that maybe dinosaurs have survived and are still around. Some of the cryptids could still be real. Most of the ones that fit into this category are larger versions of animals we already know exist. Giant Anacondas would be a great example. Scientists have already found versions larger than they though possible and the Amazon has plenty of space for large snakes to have remained hidden so far. Any cryptid that lives in the ocean could still be hiding in the depths that we haven't explored yet. The giant squid used to be a myth that was mocked until one was caught by a fishing net and brought to shore. Maybe there are more creatures waiting to be found.

This feeds into the same kind of feeling that I have about ghosts and other paranormal phenomenon. I know, intellectually that they aren't real. We've done too much research in the areas that the cryptids live in for them not to have been found. But the fun comes from retelling the stories, and hoping that one of the creatures will be real. Its easy to invest too strongly into these hopes and making a belief in Bigfoot a cornerstone of your personality isn't really healthy. I'll happily watch an episode of hunting sasquatch or some random documentary about chupacabras. I know in the end nothing will be conclusive and all of the stories are going to be pretty sketchy hearsay, but that's how lots of stories started and maybe, just maybe we'll get a story that has the real proof about the cryptid existing. I remember the story of the two hunters who alleged they had found a big foot carcass and had stored it in a cooler and brought it in for testing. It turned out to be a costume they had frozen, but I remember hoping it was real, while preparing for it being fake. Although what their end game of taking a costume to a bunch of experts is still really confusing to me. But maybe the next one won't be a hoax.

So Big Foot probably isn't hanging out in the forest waiting to be found by some team of hunters setting up trail cameras and using sasquatch calls to lure him out, but its exciting to hold onto the hope that he is. Maybe there are still large species of animals waiting to be found by humans yet. Maybe there are dinosaurs that somehow survived the extinction event beside just some fish. Maybe there really is a reptile that sucks the blood out of goats. Maybe.