Riverfest 2006 First half

My favorite time of year. For most of my life, I've gone to Riverfest events. Tammy & I started going as teenagers back in high school. We'd love to get dropped off in the early afternoon on the last Saturday and spend all day in the sun before being picked up after the Fireworks late that night. We'd spend the day wondering along the river looking for "hot guys". It's amazing how much fun it would be. As an adult I still love going early and staying late. Now instead of the focus being on "hot guys", I love going to the flea market and looking for old friends. People who live in the same city that you never see. Don't get me wrong those "hot guys" are still in the back of my mind :). I just consider them a "bonus" now. I've also always loved going to the Parade and the country concert night.

This year Laurie & I went to the Parade together because the Nick Lachey concert was scheduled to start shortly after the Parade. We met my friend from poker Andrea & Jen Ulbrich plus kids at the parade. The parade has gotten fairly lame but, we made the best of it. After the parade, Laurie & I headed towards the West Bank Stage to see the concert. He was scheduled to start at 8:30 pm so we headed over there about 8pm. As we are getting close, we notice there are tons of people. As we get closer, we discover the event planners forgot to put out ramps to get up the curb onto the grass where the concert is. The had the curb cuts at the corners blocked by fence so getting where we could see was impossible. Well, people make mistakes so we decide to make the best of it. We thought well, at least we'll be able to hear. Wrong. At about 8:45pm the DJ's announced he'd be out in a couple of minutes. This went on over & over until we'd had enough. By 9:20 pm, he still hadn't taken the stage. We left & the next day, we read in the paper the he took stage at 9:30pm and was done in time for fireworks to start on time at 10pm. Pathetic!

I'm happy to say the the country concert was much different. Tammy was in town & staying with me so she & I met Chris, Jennifer W. & Katie downtown about 6:30pm. Josh Gracin was who we were headed to see. He was set to perform at 8:30pm so we wanted to get there early to get a good view. Lucky for me, he was at Kennedy Plaza instead of West Bank Stage. Anyway, by the time we got there..."Good seats" were a joke. "Oh well, we'll at leaset be able to hear". This time we got lucky. We could sorta see and we could hear great. He came out on time and sang for over an hour. As a matter of fact, he was still singing when we left. Awesome show. We sat near my little sister from my college sorority so if we she sends me pictures, I'll try to post one.

Well, there's ton more to write but, I'm tired for now. Stay tuned...