Fins UP!

There's only one week to go before we will be packing everything into 4 cars and trucks and heading out for a long day of FINS UP!  I can't tell you what a big production all of this has become.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining.  In fact, I LOVE it!  The annual trek to the Jimmy Buffett show has become one of my favorite events of the year.  Last year was awful.  We didn't get to go.  The concert was at Fair Park and on a week night and who tailgates on a weekday?  I mean except for those crazy Nascar people....  But anyway, this year, he's back in Frisco and we are planning a tailgate bigger than ever before.

You might wonder why I am writing about a Jimmy Buffett tailgate party on a travel blog.  Well where else would you write about it?  Seriously, Parrotheads travel all over the world to see Jimmy in concert.  Over the years it has become a ritual for many...  sort of a Parrothead Pilgrimage, if you will.  They plan their year around whichever Jimmy Buffett show they have chosen to go to.  I know several people who have gone to see him in Paris.  I talked to someone a year or so ago who was at the show in Sydney, Australia when he fell off the stage.  Parrotheads don't just plan their vacations around Jimmy Buffetts tour schedule.  They plan their lives around it.

So yeah, he'll be in Frisco on May 4th.  But the really important news is that he'll be in Boston on June 22nd.  Everybody says that's always a great show.  Cincinnati is July 16th and he has some sort of weird connection with Cincinnati so I've always heard that it's a great one to go to.  Paris is September 28th.  Who doesn't want to see Jimmy Buffett singing He Went To Paris IN Paris?  I know I want to!  A few years ago my travel buddy, Jenny and I were planning a trip to London and Paris in September.  That year the Paris show was scheduled for September 24th.  I remember that date vividly because I wanted to go so desperately.  But Jenny's birthday is at the beginning of September and she wanted to be there on her birthday so it wasn't going to happen.  But during that time that we were planning that trip, before it got diverted to Hawaii, I had this reoccurring fantasy of me refusing to come back and just staying in Paris and going to the show and getting a small apartment and a job there and never coming back.  A girl can dream.

Jimmy Buffett is actually becoming pretty huge to the travel industry.  You might think it is all about Frozen Concoction Makers and such, but there is a whole travel niche out there devoted to the Parrothead traveler.  There is a Margaritaville Resort in Pensacola, FL that I am determined to spend several days at.  The Land Shark Landing which is one of their bars was listed as #24 in CNN's listing of the 50 best beach bars in the world.  His new resort in Bossier City is scheduled to open around June 20th.  And reviewing his concert schedule, he has a big break between Frisco and Boston.  So I'm betting he'll be there.

He has casinos in Las Vegas and Biloxi.  Now I'm not a gambler.  I just don't enjoy watching people rake my money away when I set it on a table.  It hurts me.  But if you are into gambling and you want to enjoy a little bit of paradise without a passport, this could be your answer.  Bossier City will also be a casino in case you were wondering.  

Some of the biggest news in the last few years for Parrothead travelers though is the announcement that he is teaming up with Wyndham Resorts in Smith Bay on St. Thomas to open a Margaritaville Beach Club.  Construction will begin in July.  Wyndham is investing $90 million to renovate the old Renaissance Grand which was abandoned in 2004.  It will be a time share with units for sale.  So that means unless one of you buys one and invites to me to come with you, I'll never go.  But still, it's a pretty cool thing.  

So as close as I get to Jimmy Buffett is a concert in Frisco once a year or so.  I'll take it.  For one day a year, Frisco becomes a beach resort and people go nuts.  There is nothing better than 20,000 or so Parrotheads all getting together in one landlocked location for a day.  You never know what you might see.

  

There's a guy on Facebook who has a page called I'm Gonna Live My Life Like a Jimmy Buffett Song.  He has over 32,000 likes.  I've been trying to live my life that way for as long as I can remember.  I think I'm getting closer.  I better shut it down for now.... I have to go to the post office and pick up a Tiki Bar....