When my oldest daughter Brooke was born I quickly realized how woefully inept I was at Mom-ing. Sure, I breastfed and we rocked it out at weekly Gymboree session but for the life of me I couldn’t remember any nursery rhymes or lullabies to sing at sleep time.
Enter Sisqo’s”Thong Song” (hat tip to ‘99 Dayton 2 Daytona trip) and “Rocky Top.” She was a huge fan of both.
Maybe it was a stroke of fate that, around seven years later, my brothers-in-law Luc and André ended up as baseball players for the University of Tennessee.
Enter many, many trips to Knoxville, the city that began our healing grounds.
Jess and I quickly realized that attending the boy’s baseball games would not only allow Jess to feel like it was ‘99 again and he was pitching at George Mason, but we could spend time as a family enjoying sunshine and all the peanuts one could shell. Add in the fun dinners out as a family (with even more family in attendance), and hotel time together … and we had lots and lots of special moments created.
The Downtown Hampton Inn became our home away from home for many weekends. Great rates, comfortable room and of course a pool gave us the backdrop we needed to relax and recharge together. Also, you had me at “free breakfast.”
Baseball games occasionally run late, so our proximity to Market Square allowed us to run over to what became one of our favorite restaurants, Soccer Taco. Ah, Soccer Taco. Where one can drown themselves in guacamole while watching Scottish Curling on one of their 876 million sport-show-giant-screen-TVs. Bonus: your kids can be as loud as they want! Affordable, enjoyable as, as a bonus, they carded me for alcohol! Needless to say, they could’ve spit in my food and I’d still give them 5 stars after that move. Even better, Soccer Taco has 3 locations around Knoxville (downtown, discussed above; a little West; and a little further West of downtown).
Knoxville is chock full of the friendliest people I’ve met. Maybe it’s a Southern thing (as Jess proclaims)? We always felt safe and comfortable walking back to the hotel after dark.
Jess and I would stay up late talking, hashing through things that just seemed easier to discuss in a “neutral setting”, away from home. We’d then drift off to sleep, perhaps dreaming of ‘99 and the like.
‘99 was a good year, folks.
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