Nantahala Lake & Don Williams Concert

Josh had Saturday and Sunday off this weekend, so we got to do some fun stuff. On Saturday morning Josh made me breakfast and got us fancy coffees :) A little before noon we decided to head out for a drive to see Nantahala Lake.

We are basically surrounded by the Nantahala National Forest. We live in the mountains, so everywhere we drive is up & down & twists & turns! I never knew how carsick I could get in a short drive till we moved here!

It was a little too chilly to be out for too long, but we loved the fresh air and beautiful view!

 

We skipped rocks and laid on the dock for a while before continuing our drive through the mountains. We love exploring!

 

We found some more little towns and communities. We stopped at a thrift store in Andrews, NC. It wasn't as neat as we expected. Since we decided to stop, we took a drive through town. Downtown was really cute, and we found 3 more thrift stores and a Coffee House! Guess what!!! They were roasting fresh coffee! Now that Josh has started roasting coffee, he can smell it a mile away! It is a very distinct scent :) We enjoyed browsing through the shops and talking to some of the locals. We also found this funky house! We aren't sure what or why, but it IS under construction :)

We continued our drive all of the way around to end up back on the road to Franklin. We came back home to get ready for our night on the town! We wanted to do something fun for our "long" weekend (this was the first Saturday Josh had off since we went to Charleston.) We got tickets to see Don Williams here in Franklin! I knew his name, but I didn't know any of his songs. Josh just saw country artist and said, "Sure! Why not?" We googled him and had to laugh a little because we found out he was popular in the late 70's and just started touring again in 2012. But we were up for anything! There isn't a whole lot of night life here in Franklin lol When Josh told his dad we had gotten tickets to see him Gary said, "Don Williams is still alive!?" Hahaha that should have been our first clue!

Nearly every car has
a handicapped sticker

For those of you who have no idea who he is…. He was the original singer of "Louisiana Saturday Night" & "It Must Be Love". In the end we were pleasantly surprised, but when we went to pick up our tickets we realized there were more handicapped stickers than there were people!

Youngest people in the crowd!

When we found our seats we couldn't believe how many old people were in there. We thought for sure there would be a few other youngsters looking for a concert right?!? We were wrong! The couple sitting next to us (I would say early 40's) said they were so glad to see us! They thought they would be the youngest for sure! They joked with their kids saying they were going to bring them a t-shirt. The kids said, "No thanks!"

The opening act was an Irishman with a fiddle accompaniment. That was a nice surprise for St. Patrick's Day Weekend! He played country music, but we couldn't understand him very well. Josh really liked him, but I wasn't much of a fan. After he finished his 15 minutes on stage we had intermission! REALLY??? They hadn't even shut the lights off yet! They couple next to us joked again saying, "Everyone has to go take their medication again!" I know it sounds mean, but we really were the youngest people there by choice! I counted 3, yes 3, kids in the whole audience. All of them with their grandparents! 

Don Williams in his padded chair

I knew we were in for a real treat when the band finally walked on stage… beside the newest member whom Don didn't even know the name of.. the youngest member was 60+, and they had coffee cups in their hands! Don sat on a padded high top chair with a box under his feet the entire concert! The only time he moved a muscle was to drink his coffee (at least we think it was coffee!) 

It was very comical how slow and monotone he talked. When he introduced the band he said about 3 words for each person, but I think it took him 15 minutes to introduce all 7 people! Ladies in the audience kept yelling, "We love you Don!" One lady said, "I need a hug." He replied, "Everyone needs a huuuugggggg." At the beginning he was very hard to hear, so someone yelled, "Turn up Don. We can't hear him as well as we want to." He misunderstood the last sentence, and was literally speechless! His bandmate had to tell him what she said before he said anything inappropriate. He then asked the sound guy to "Crank it up!" Also in the very sloooow, deep voice. It is safe to say we had quite a few laughs for the evening! Check out the guy on the far left..he seriously looked like Eric Mathews from Boy Meets World! He was rockin' out the whole time! He didn't even care that Don had no idea what his name was! 

Here are a few videos we took at the concert. They turned out very well for cell phone recordings!