The Southern Voice

I have to do a little bit of back-tracking. Since Emily and I don't have any children yet and are therefore a little more free than most parents we have always tried to go somewhere after each semester just to catch up on the time together that we missed because of work, school, studying, and the ever-present Marines. Some of these trips out of town have been more extravagant (Brazil) while others have been quiet and simple (camping). Well, as this past semester was drawing to a close I realized that we hadn't thought of or planned anything to do yet. I told Emily not to worry about it and that I'd think of something and surprise her with it. So...the pressure was on. It took me about a week to come up with something and still another week to work out the logistics. What was it? Tickets to the Tim McGraw/Lady Antebellum concert. Where? Atlanta.

You may be wondering why the heck we would go all the way to Atlanta for a concert. My sister and her family just happens to live an hour south of Atlanta so I figured we could spend a little time visiting them. And, Emily absolutely loves Lady Antebellum so I thought that she would really enjoy the experience of seeing her favorite country group perform live for thousands of drunk southerners and at least two sober Mormons. Then she could say she went to the 2010 Southern Voice Tour in the South.

We flew to Atlanta on a Friday and drove to Warner Robbins where my sister lives. We spent the rest of the day and the next morning hanging out with them and meeting her new baby. It was a lot of fun seeing her and her family. Her 4-year-old, Gavin, didn't remember me so it was easy to play with him since he doesn't remember how bad I teased him when they lived in Arizona.

On Saturday, we drove back to Atlanta and checked into our hotel. Since we weren't going to have enough time before the concert to do a whole lot we had to choose between visiting the Coca-Cola factory or the Atlanta Aquarium. After much debate we finally decided on the aquarium and spent more than an hour figuring out how to get there and where to park. This being accomplished we went inside and spent another hour with our faces pressed up against the glass like two little kids gaping at the HUGE fishes, sting-rays, and whales. I even got to touch the slimy wing of a baby sting-ray but just missed the baby shark by a few inches.

Traffic on the way to the concert was way, and I mean WAY crazier than I thought it was going to be so we had to settle on a very romantic gas station for dinner. Considering the fact that I proposed in a parking garage, the gas station didn't seem all that bad...besides, she's stuck with me. After parking in a dark corner of a suspicious parking lot and paying the even more suspicious parking attendant we finally made our way to the gates of Aaron's Amphitheatre for the show. I never thought I'd see my shy, timid Emily party but something about seeing her favorite band in concert transformed my little Nervous Nelly into a dancing, singing country girl. My favorite part was watching the drunk, shirt-less redneck guys trip on themselves while flirting with the sauced up and booted Georgian girls.

Once Tim McGraw was done singing his hair extensioned head off we made our way to the car and to my surprise, it was still there and not a single window was broken. Emily got a shirt or two to commemorate the occasion and we made it safely home to the desert the next morning. Despite a few hick-ups in my plans the trip went fairly well. I'm pretty sure Emily had fun and I didn't have to knock anybody out for feeling her up at the concert.