Margaritaville

Whew! We're home again..and finally rested. Boy, were my phins tired! You know you're getting older when it takes eleven hours of sleep to catch up from a road trip of singing and dancing into the wee hours. When I was in college, I could have made that road trip, drove home and made it up for a 9am class without batting an eye. Not anymore. No convenience store burritos at 3am for me anymore either. I'm waaaay past that.

A good time was had by all. Jimmy was in fine form and performed a few of his oldies but goodies I've never heard live before. I have pictures but can't post them today. I had to take them the old fashioned way, with a disposable camera, so I have to get them processed and scanned first. The St. Louis crowd was fun but not nearly as...hmmm...lively...as the crowd we're used to in Cincinnati. The Cincinnati group starts dragging their RV's onto Kellogg Avenue the night BEFORE the concert, tailgates all day and then rolls into the venue across the street right before the show. Their costumes are outlandish, and their party barometer is off the chart. It's where the parrot head thing started, and they have a reputation to maintain. The St. Louis folks were tame, partly because the tailgating started just a few hours before the show after a thundershower rolled through. There were no portables beaches, kiddie pools or slippin' slides at St. Louie. There were a few portable tiki bars, but in Cincinnati a tiki bar is the minimum requirement for setting up stakes in the tailgating arena. This venue was different but still very fun (aside from the ridiculously long wait in the t-shirt line).

Among the highlights: I had my picture taken with a pirate, a pirate took a picture of me, our taxi driver seemed embarrassed to pick us up at the hotel and I got a temporary LandShark Lager tattoo...or two. The Good Sport of the Night Award goes to the 60-something lady in the orchestra pit doing sign language for an hearing impaired audience member. Jimmy said he was going to challenge her, had them put her on the big screens and then launched into Why Don't We Get Drunk and Sc**w. She met his challenge and signed the song with great gusto on certain words, while the audience sang along. It was hilarious, and he came down to shake her hand when it was over. The Funniest T-shirt of the Night Award went to the man who sat near us whose shirt read "If a man speaks in the woods and a woman is not around to hear it, is he still wrong?" Hee, hee. Of course, he is, sir.

The man with the longest tongue in the world sat in front of me. I know this because he tickled the toes of his pregnant wife all night long with it. In fact, our whole row was ready to shout "get a room" by the fourth song. They were young and in luuuuuv, and he was quite inebriated. He bought her one of those silk roses they sell at concerts, which made me and the middle aged lady next to me roll with laughter at how clueless they were as to how much their lives are going to change in about three months. Talk about sobering up.

When I bought a margarita I thought about asking if I got a kiss with it 'cause I certainly got...well...you know. $11 for a small and $16 for a large. Yikes! $11 for a beer, $9 for a cheeseburger. The snacks at the old Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in St. Louis do not come cheap. Not that that stopped us from partaking of their refreshments. Oh, and she who spills strawberry margarita down her white shirt multiple times looks like a real slob in the BP while scrounging for snacks at 1am. Or so I've been told.....

Just a tip, if you have to spend the night in St. Louis near the airport, the Drury Inn was clean, very well kept and manned by a great staff. I highly recommend it. Now, I must go and catch up on laundry and all sorts of other stuff that fell by the wayside while I was in Margaritaville. My summer if off to a nice start, but I'm a little sad that I don't have a reason to drag out my grass skirt any time soon. I'm thinking the Hula-gens need to have a little tiki time together with friends on the deck....soon....very soon. After all, it's always five o'clock somewhere, and it's a whole year before the next tour....unless I snag tickets to another show. Hmmm. Pictures coming soon, I promise!