Concerts in the park

Sometimes, living in a smaller town has some great perks, particularly when the town cares about making itself a nice place to live.

Fayetteville has many charms, and one of them, recently discovered by us, is a summer concert series.  It's no Millennium Park, either in music or venue, but nice anyway.

The series is held in a local park called Gulley Park, which Doug and I had never been to before attempting to go to a concert.  I say "attempt" because the first time we tried, last month, it was raining and the concert was moved to an airplane hangar in South Fayetteville.  One of my new teaching camp buddies went and said it was neat, both the music and the hangar, but we opted to go home and re-watch Season 1 of Survivor instead.

The concert we went to was the last in the summer series of 6.  Doug picked me up from work, we drove to the concert and set up foldable chairs and a blanket on the grass.  Doug had made some salads and packed our picnic basket, so we took off our shoes and sat in the grass, munching on salads and watching other families (most larger than ours) with their kids and dogs.  After the salads were done, we moved to the chairs and listened to the music as the sun started to go down, holding hands and gossiping about those around us.  It was a lovely night, and I feel certain we'll be back at concerts next year.

I snapped this photo on the way out:

Gotta say, one advantage Fayetteville has over Chicago is the smaller crowd and manageable parking.  We were on our couch 15 minutes later.