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Almost Wordless Wednesday

Posted in Entertainment, Fun, Gardening, Green/Sustainable Living, Photography, Travel, tagged Barn At Red Gate, Kentucky Green Living Fair, Photography, Somerset on April 10, 2013 | 1 Comment »

A few more shots from the first Kentucky Green Living Fair held on March 30th:

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Almost Wordless Wednesday

Posted in Entertainment, Fun, Photography, tagged baskets, Kentucky State Fair, quilts on September 19, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

My last fair post…fun sights at the Kentucky State Fair

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Almost Wordless Wednesday

Posted in Entertainment, Fun, Photography, Travel, tagged Newport On The Levee, Travel, Wordless Wednesday on June 20, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Fun in Newport, KY…

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Thoughtful Thursday

Posted in Entertainment, Fun, My Thoughts, Travel, tagged Nashville, Opryland Hotel, Thoughtful Thursday on November 10, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Today’s thoughts are a continuation of the last post about C & my weekend trip to Nashville. Let’s see…we covered our reason for going (to see the awesome Broadway show, Wicked) and we covered the local restaurant we tried and LOVED, 417 Union. Today, I wanted to show you some of the local “flavor” of Nash-vegas, the nightlife!

On our way to the show, we drove down Broadway in search of dinner. We had allowed ourselves 2 hours to eat before showtime, but it wasn’t enough. I guess I just wasn’t thinking clearly…downtown Nashville + beautiful autumn Saturday night = HUGE CROWDS! The restaurant we had planned on going to called The Big River Grille had lines down the street and most of the other eateries had the same kind of crowds. We ended up grabbing a snack at TPAC’s café before the show instead. It was a giant brownie and a bottle of water. It was good and I am glad of it since that was our dinner. The photos below show some of the early evening scenes on Broadway.

When Wicked was over, we made our way back to Broadway heading to our hotel. It was around 11:00pm and it was a different scene then. The nightlife crowd was out and about and people were cruising the streets looking for fun or, like us, cruising the streets just to see what we could see!

The next morning we made our way to the Opryland Hotel. Now, if you have never been there and you are ever in Nashville, it is a must-see! C & I stayed there on our honeymoon with a garden view room which has a little balcony attached. It was beautiful. The hotel suffered major damage last year due to flooding and re-opened last Thanksgiving weekend. I wanted to go see if there were a lot of changes. There really wasn’t. The builders just restored it back to its previous opulence, but most of the gardens still looked the same. Still beautiful, and still well worth the time to go through them.

We really enjoyed our weekend and can’t wait to go back!

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Thoughtful Thursday

Posted in Entertainment, Fun, My Thoughts, Travel, tagged Doc Taylor's, Doumar's, Five Guys Burgers and Fries, Norfolk, Staunton, Tautogs, The Pi-zzeria, Travel, Tripadvisor, Tudor's Biscuit World, Urbanspoon, Virginia Beach on August 4, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

I hope you have enjoyed the last few week’s worth of Thoughtful Thursday posts which detailed C & my 10th anniversary vacation to Virginia Beach. This post highlights the neat little restaurants we visited while on the road. I had done quite a bit of research on local Virginia Beach restaurants because I wanted us to get a local taste of the place. Thanks to sites like Tripadvisor, Urbanspoon, Google, and Yahoo travel, I found several local hot spots to try.

On Tuesday of our trip, which was our official anniversary, we ate at two local restaurants which had gotten really good reviews. These eateries are in side-by-side houses and are owned by the same people. One serves breakfast and lunch while the other serves dinner and late night eats.

We ate at Doc Taylor’s for lunch and it was so good!! Here is the exterior…

This is the only advertising that you will see so you have to know where they are.

I think the interior probably looks a lot like it did when someone lived there. The ambience was great!

C ordered the Philly cheesesteak with fries and I got the OBX shredded BBQ sandwich with fries and the absolutely best Cole slaw I have ever had! If you are ever in the Virginia Beach area, go to Doc Taylor’s! It was awesome!

For our anniversary dinner that night, we went to Doc Taylor’s sister restaurant, Tautog’s. This was a Tuesday evening and the place was packed. We had to wait about 45 minutes to get a table. We were seated in the screened-in porch back to back with many other diners. The food here was good but a little too pricey for what you get. I think they should at least throw in a salad or bread to go with the main entrée. C had their Steak au Poivre with roasted potatoes and I had the Wesley’s World Famous crab cakes with roasted potatoes. Good, but expensive.

The next day we headed into Norfolk for some sightseeing and to go to a little drive-in/diner called Doumar’s that I had heard about on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives from the Food Network. This place was famous for their homemade ice cream cones, so we absolutely had to try them. This was a neat little joint that was full of locals there for lunch. I think that is always a good sign!

C had a cheeseburger with fries and I had their shredded BBQ sandwich with slaw and fries. The food was great and the best was yet to come. C & I both ordered a chocolate ice cream cone and it was soooo good!!!!

Here I am trying not to lose a bite.

After a full day of touring, we made it back to our hotel room to decide where to eat supper. I wanted something quick and close because I wanted to head to the beach before sunset. We found a little pizza place just a block or two from our hotel called The Pi-zzeria (as in Pi, or 3.14). Kind of cute, isn’t it? The brick oven gave this pizza a great thin crispy crust and the cheese and homemade sauce were good, too.

On our way home through Virginia, we stopped in Staunton to pick up some supplies and decided to eat there. C has a neat app on his smartphone called Where. You can pick what you are looking for, such as a restaurant, gas station, hotel or store and it will search from your current location. One of the eateries listed was Five Guys Burgers and Fries. I had read about this place but there aren’t any close to where we live so we decided to check it out.

You order at their front counter and then take a seat to wait for your number to be called. They have peanuts in the shell you can snack on while you wait, but don’t eat too many because you get huge portions. I ordered a regular burger and fries and I got a double patty hamburger with enough fries for 3 servings. If I ever get to eat there again, I will definitely order the “little burger”. The food was really good though!

This is ONE serving of fries!! Oh my!

As we headed home through West Virginia on Friday morning, we had a late breakfast at Tudor’s Biscuit World. I had gotten a tip about this restaurant from someone I had met through work and was eager to try it. I think I was expecting something like Cracker Barrel so I was a little disappointed. The Tudor’s we stopped at was in a truck stop/mini mart kind of store, but it was busy. The prices were extremely reasonable and the biscuits were huge, but I have had better. It was ok, but not great.

I hope everyone has enjoyed these glimpses into our first trip to the ocean and all of the sites and tastes along the way!

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Thoughtful Thursday

Posted in Entertainment, Fun, My Thoughts, Travel, tagged Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, Virginia Beach on July 21, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Our virtual vacation is starting to wind down…”today” is the day we leave the beach and start toward home. Sigh! I knew I would like the ocean, but it was even better and more awe-inspiring that I could have imagined. I would love to go back sometime!

We spend a couple of hours on the beach that morning just soaking it up a little longer.

We left Virginia Beach and headed toward Colonial Williamsburg. Since we only planned on staying a couple of hours at Williamsburg, we didn’t buy tickets that would have given us access to the interiors of some of the buildings and the storytellers, but we still enjoyed it. If you are a history buff and have a full day to spend there, then the tickets are probably worth the money, but it worked out perfectly for us to just walk the streets and sight-see instead. A lot of the houses along the paths are private residences anyway and you won’t have access to them even with a ticket. Here are a few photos of the sights at Colonial Williamsburg…

That afternoon we drove to West Virginia and spent the night. Friday morning we headed toward Kentucky.

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Thoughtful Thursday

Posted in Entertainment, Fun, My Thoughts, Travel, tagged Chesapeake Bay, Chesapeake Bay Bridge, Hapton Roads Naval Museum, Nauticus, Norfolk, Old Fort Story Lighthouse, USS Wisconsin, Virginia, Virginia Beach on July 14, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Welcome back to your virtual tour of C & I’s 10th anniversary vacation. We are up to day 4 of our trip and it was the busiest day yet. That was Wednesday of the week we were gone and we decided to make that day sight-seeing day. Once we started out that morning, there were so many things to see that we ended up staying out and about longer than I had planned and didn’t have quite as much beach time as I had hoped, but that was okay. We saw some amazing things while we were touring!

We started the day going to see the first lighthouse built in the United States. In fact, it was the first public works project in the newly founded country. It is located at Fort Story military base which was just a few miles up the street from our hotel. Since it is on an active military base, we were required to show our driver’s licenses and our vehicle had to be inspected. After that we were instructed on where to go and that we could not take any photos except at the old lighthouse.

This is actually the “new” lighthouse that is still used today so we didn’t get to go in it.

This is the “old” lighthouse.

There were many, many steps to climb!

Upon leaving the lighthouse, we headed toward Norfolk to continue our touring. Now, let me tell you a little “secret”, I usually DO NOT LIKE BRIDGES, especially shaky swaying bridges. As C was driving along he looked out over the water and asked what something was. That “something” was the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, a 20 mile long bridge with, not one, but two underwater tunnels. He asked if I wanted to go over it and, before I could chicken out, I said yes!! I am so glad I did, too. That drive was one of the most beautiful and interesting 20 miles I have ever been on.

Notice how it says “no stopping”.

Well, we had to stop. Once you are in the tunnels, there is only 1 lane per direction. We had to stop our way to let a wide-load hauling semi-truck come through the other way.

This was a helicopter that looked like it was chasing this boat. It just kept getting closer and closer!

We are officially standing in the Chesapeake Bay.

There is a restaurant and the fishing pier below on one of the man-made islands at the tunnel entrance.

After this wonderful little side trip, we headed into Norfolk.

Norfolk’s downtown has been revitalized and it was so pretty. We were heading to the Hampton Bay Naval Museum, Nauticus Science Center and the USS Wisconsin Battleship. When we got to the end of the street to find a parking garage, this was our first view of the ship…

Pretty awesome, isn’t it? This was one of C’s favorite stops along the whole trip. He loved the museum and science center, and especially the battleship. You give yourself the tour and you have access to many parts of the ship. Here are a few shots of the museum and ship.

As we were leaving to head back to Virginia Beach, I spotted the MacArthur Memorial. We didn’t take time to stop, but I snapped a couple of photos from the street.

We returned to Virginia Beach, hungry and tired. We found a little pizza place just down the street from our hotel and went there. I’ll have more info on that in a later “foodie” post. We spent some time on the beach and enjoyed an beautiful sunset and full moon.

There are only a couple of days left of our vacation to share with you, so please check back next Thursday for the next installment!

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Thoughtful Thursday

Posted in Entertainment, My Thoughts on February 17, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

C & I are big movie fans. C loves action movies, comedies, and sci-fi. I like those, too, but I also love a good romance or period drama. If it is about England many years ago, I will watch it every time! In fact, while we were dating, movie night was our go-to date plan. If there wasn’t anything at the theater that we wanted to see, we would rent one at the local movie rental place (how quaint does that sound in the time of on-demand ) and grab a pizza. What is amazing is that even though we watched lots of movies, we never went to a 3D movie at a theater until a little over a year ago; and, yes, it was Avatar. This James Cameron blockbuster that had been hyped for months was every bit as good as the hype!

The 3D effects were amazing! I think it helped that this movie was set in a fantasy planet and the creators’ imaginations could run wild. It was well worth the extra couple of dollars that the 3D added to the ticket price.

What I don’t understand is…now movie makers are adding “3D” to ordinary action movies where, in my opinion, it does not call for it. For example, a little while ago C & I went to see The Green Hornet at our local movie house and it was good. There was plenty of action and funny moments, too, but…the 3D was wasted. Luckily, we had free tickets thanks to a cereal box giveaway, but I would have been disappointed to have paid extra for the 3D and then experienced this movie. Don’t get me wrong, we had a great time and would watch this again but the movie companies are going overboard trying to make money.

All theaters charge a premium for the 3D experience and I can understand that. I am sure many people don’t return the glasses and they cost extra. We always recycle ours at the theater.

I recently read an article on Yahoo news regarding movie companies and television manufacturers cranking out 3D movies and televisions to catch the wave of this phenomenon. The irony lies in this…the article also states that there are many, many people who can’t watch 3D because it gives them headaches or, what I refer to as, motion sickness. I can relate to these people. The old red and green 3D glasses would make me feel that way, too. My vision is far from perfect and I wear glasses all the time. The newer 3D glasses are a lot easier to use with regular glasses so I can now enjoy watching.

My thought is this…movie companies are in business to make money and that’s fine, but they are not helping themselves by force-feeding options to viewers for extra bucks when the viewers may not even want them. I know we don’t go to as many movies as we used to. Time is a factor, but so is the cost and the quality of movies that are available. Most of the time, we are fine to wait the few months until they are available by mail and enjoy them at home. So, what is your opinion? Do you feel that the movie quality is getting better or worse? What would you like to see at the local cinema? More effects or cheaper ticket prices?

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Mastering the Art…

Posted in Books, Entertainment on July 7, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

When C & I recently spent the weekend in Lexington, we shopped at the Joseph-Beth Bookstore which is one of my favorite places to browse. If you are a book-lover like me and you happen to find yourself in Lexington, please take the time to visit this wonderful place! I could spend hours just browsing their shelves…fiction, cooking, gardening, decorating, Kentucky books…you name it and I think they will have it!

The real reason for this post is the paperback book I purchased that night, Julie & Julia by Julie Powell. Many of you may had probably already read this, but I had not had the opportunity. I grabbed it up and started reading it that night. Maybe it is because the writer and I are close in age or maybe because our love of cooking is a respite from the daily grind, but I loved this book! For those of you that don’t know about this book, the author attempts and succeeds in cooking all of the recipes in Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in exactly one year and blogs about it. Ms. Powell’s writing is sharp, poignant, funny, and sometimes a little profane, but she definitely gets her point across in a most entertaining way. Her experiences with these difficult, detailed French recipes that included killing a lobster and boning a duck were hilarious! She wrote that her bedroom white noise machine was really singing “lobster killer, lobster killer, lobster killer” all night long, but she gathered her strength and did what she had to do for the greater good. Ok, maybe not the greater good, but definitely for her blog readers.

Tonight, I watched the movie that was made based on her book. It was good…very good in fact. It stars Meryl Streep as Julia Child (which was perfect casting) and Amy Adams as the author. I really should know by now that I need to watch the movie first because there are always so many details that are left out. If you are a “foodie”, you should definitely watch the movie and read the book, but be warned that they are not the same. The movie focuses much more on Julia Child’s life than the book does. I really enjoyed both, but the book was my favorite!

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The rest of the story…

Posted in Entertainment, Fun, Photography, Travel on June 20, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

In this past Almost-wordless Wednesday post, I mentioned that there might be a story behind the beautiful fireworks display and there is. We decided to take a short getaway to celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary by traveling to Lexington, KY. It was just what we needed…a weekend of eating out, movies, shopping, swimming, sleeping in, baseball, and fireworks.

The trip began late Thursday afternoon when we drove to Lexington and checked in to the wonderful Hampton Inn on I-75.

Friday was a day of shopping, eating, and movie watching…The A-Team to be exact. It was a great summer action movie; it was non-stop thrills and it didn’t take itself too seriously. We decided to do a little sight-seeing on Saturday. It is amazing what can be right next door to you and you don’t even realize it. We drove down a “Kentucky Scenic-byway” Saturday afternoon and the views were so pretty. There were several different horse farms along the drive and many barn quilt-squares as well. For those of you who don’t know what they are, the Kentucky tourism people started this project a few years ago. They would get farm owners to hang a painted quilt square on their barns and then the tourism board would print maps of these hangings for people to drive and see. We weren’t looking for these in particular, but I tried to snap a photo of the ones we saw. I think I may have missed one or two, but I got most of them.

We watched another movie Saturday afternoon, The Killers with Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl. It was a really funny romantic comedy, perfect for a date afternoon. That night we went to see the Lexington Legends minor league baseball team take on Delmarva. C & I had never been to this stadium before and it was really nice. This is where the fireworks come in to play. There was an awesome fireworks show after the game. If you are looking for some great family entertainment, don’t look any further than the closest minor league stadium. It is awesome!

We kept seeing this little park when we would drive from our hotel to where the restaurants were. Sunday morning, we stopped and investigated. Turns out it is a horse cemetery! We were just a little surprised that the gentleman who started this decided to put it in the middle of a developing area. There is a shopping center on one side, a Lowe’s and Wal-mart on another, and a large subdivision across the street.

When we came home Sunday, we decided to take the scenic route home instead of a parkway. Well, we ended up missing one turn and took the VERY scenic route home, but it was still fun and we got to see some pretty country.

This was a home-made suspension bridge over a creek that ran next to the road. I don’t think I would have crossed that unless it was my ONLY way out and I absolutely had to get out!