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Thoughtful Thursday-Travel Edition

Posted in My Thoughts, Travel, tagged 417 Union, Nashville, Tennesee, Tennessee Performing Arts Center, Travel, Wicked:The Musical on October 27, 2011|

I mentioned in my Menu Plan Monday post that C & I took a weekend trip to Nashville so I just had to give you all the gory details. We had a wonderful time in a beautiful city. Nashville, to me, is one of those places where I just can’t seem to see everything there is to see. We stayed downtown for the first time and were able to do a little sight-seeing that we hadn’t done before.

Before we get to that, I have to mention the little reason we actually went there for…WICKED: THE MUSICAL!!! I have the most wonderful husband ever! I told him he must love me a lot since he doesn’t seem to mind dressing up and going to Broadway musicals with me! The tickets were a birthday present, also from my wonderful hubby and we had enough hotel rewards points from our summer vacation to get a free night. Score!! We saw the show at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center which is a fabulous venue.

If you have a chance to see this show, DO NOT HESITATE!! It was incredible! I know I am using a lot of exclamation points, but they are well deserved in this case. The songs, the sets, the characters…there’s just too much detail to describe here. Go see it! There is one scene where Elphaba (future Wicked Witch of the West) is singing “Defying Gravity” and it looks like she is being lifted up on something but the theater is mostly dark except from her torso up. When she hits that last long note, all of the stage lights come on and she is hanging there like she is flying. Awesome, all I can say is, AWESOME! The actress in this touring company filled the theater with her voice and it literally brought me to tears and there wasn’t anything sad about it. It was just that good! By the way, you also need to read the book by Gregory Maguire. It makes the show that much more enjoyable to know a little more detail.

Anyway, I searched online for a local restaurant to try out while we were there and found 417 Union. It is located, not surprisingly, at 417 Union Street. It is a pretty little diner decorated 1940’s style.

They seem to be most know for their breakfast so I ordered the pancake platter with maple vanilla syrup and it did not disappoint. These pancakes had a delightful crunchy exterior and the fluffiest interior I have ever seen. So very good!

C had the burger and fries. He said he thought it was the best burger he had ever had and believe me, that is saying something because C loves his burgers! It was made out of ground sirloin so that might have something to do with it. C says that he is going to get me the grinder attachment for my Kitchenaid mixer so I can make them, too.

This is the only new restaurant we had the chance to try, but it was a huge success. We would definitely go back to 417 Union again. This is just part of our little trip though. Check back for the next edition of Thoughtful Thursday where some of the local ambience of Nashville will be featured.

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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|

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 Fun, My Thoughts, Travel, tagged Ohio, Travel, West Virginia on July 28, 2011|

Today is the last travel day for the virtual re-telling of our anniversary vacation. We stayed the night in West Virginia and started toward Kentucky Friday morning. Before we got too far, we stopped for brunch at Tudor’s Biscuit World. Check back next week for a post all about the food we enjoyed on our trip.

This was the first time that I had travelled through West Virginia and it was an eye-opening experience. The interstate was like a roller coaster. We would go up, up, up and the go down, down down. Usually I don’t have any trouble pulling hills with my little SUV even with the cruise control on, but these weren’t just hills. After one particularly steep incline where I had to take the car out of cruise and creep up the “hill”, there was sign that read Sandstone Mountain. No wonder my little car was taking its time going up!

We drove through Charleston, WV and caught a glimpse of their capital building. This is a very industrial area with lots of factories and coal everywhere.

As we were getting closer to Kentucky, we took a very short little side trip. As you leave West Virginia going into Kentucky, you are right next to the Ohio River and Ohio itself. Since we were that close, we decided to cross (yet another) bridge and add Ohio to the list of state we went to on this trip, along with Virginia, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

Finally, it was back home to Bluegrass Land! Well, almost back home. We still had a four hour drive after we crossed the state line, but we were getting close. We made it home that evening around four o’clock and were worn out, but it was so worth it.

We are at the end of our virtual trip. Some of you are probably thinking “FINALLY!” I will have one more post next week highlighting the restaurants we ate at while we were gone.

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Thoughtful Thursday

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

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|

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 Fun, My Thoughts, Travel, tagged Aquarium, Beach, Sunrise, Virginia, Virginia Beach on July 7, 2011|

Let’s see…I think you are now up to Tuesday (our 10th anniversary) on your virtual vacation with C & I as we explore Virginia Beach a little more thoroughly. Since we were on the East Coast and our hotel room faced the beach, we had an amazing view of the sunrise over the ocean. There was also a little action on the beach before the sun came up. The work crew use big John Deere tractors to smooth out the sand and vacuum up any debris that is on the beach.

No wonder I couldn’t find any good shells! Anyway, here comes the sun! Just sit back and enjoy the view.

The colors were just breathtaking!

Dolphins!

All of the above photos were taken between 4:30 and 5:00am so needless to say we went back to sleep for awhile after that. We spent some time on the beach that morning and decided to go the Virginia Aquarium that afternoon. The aquarium and aviary were enjoyable, but we agreed that the one in Gatlinburg is just as good. Don’t go to Virginia Beach just for the Aquarium. Go for the beach!!!

This is a salt marsh which is where the ocean’s salt water meets the river’s fresh water. I learned this fact from a handy-dandy info sign on the pier, but I also learned that salt marshes stink!!! The smell was bad.

Since this was our anniversary, we ate at two really good restaurants that are next door to each other and owned by the same people. I am going to tease you with that information for a little while, because I think the food and restaurants need their own post. Come back next Thursday for our continuing adventure. The trip just got better and better.

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Thoughtful Thursday

Posted in My Thoughts, Photography, Travel, tagged Photography, Travel, Virginia on June 30, 2011|

Today’s post is the second installment of our virtual vacation. I am taking you on the journey that C & I enjoyed on our road-trip vacation a couple of weeks ago. Last week, we drove from our home to Lexington, Virginia, via Foamhenge. Today, we finally see water!!!

We left Lexington, Virginia on Monday morning heading toward Virginia Beach. Richmond was the next bigger city that we would drive through and we busted rush hour wide open! Even the interstate was curvy! I kept watching the road signs all the way just counting the miles down until we got to our destination. When we arrived in Hampton, we were met with a surprise…the 2nd tunnel of our trip, and this one went under the water of Hampton Bay. I could tell that we were really landlubbers, because when we saw the bay, we just oohed and aahed over the size. We thought it was amazing, and we hadn’t even seen the ocean yet.

C loved seeing all of the Navy ships that were in the bay. He can name just about all of the different types.

Next was the tunnel. Here we go…

I hope you can tell from these photos that you go down and down in to the tunnel and then climb back up to the light at the end. Boy, was I glad to see that light, too! This tunnel brought us into Norfolk, which is a beautiful city. We really enjoyed the time we spent there, but that is a story for another Thursday.

I was getting so excited and it seemed like it took forever to get to our final destination…Virginia Beach. Why was Virginia Beach so special that we picked it for our first ocean view ever? There are a few reasons. One was that C wanted to see Foamhenge and it was along the way there. Another is that my Mom played on the shores of Virginia Beach when she was just a toddler. My grandfather was in the Army and stationed near Williamsburg, so he, my Nanny, and Mom (my Aunt M wasn’t around yet) would go to the beach and play. Nanny has always talked about being there and I thought it would be a special thing to walk where they walked when they were at the ocean, and it was. I felt Mom’s presence with me on numerous occasions and I so wished that I could talk to her in person to tell her I got to go, but deep down I know she knows everything that we got to experience. Here is a photo of my mom at Virginia Beach…

We had finally arrived and made our way down to Atlantic Avenue where our hotel was located right on the beach front.

We stayed at the Hampton Inn-Oceanfront North and it was an awesome hotel. All of the rooms have oceanfront balconies, mini-fridges, and microwaves. I highly recommend it.

Here is our first view of the Atlantic Ocean…

…and our first self-portrait there.

One thing I definitely noticed was the wind. All of the pictures that I am in look like this or worse…windblown. The ocean and beach were so amazing and gorgeous that it was overwhelming. I could have sat there and watched it the whole time we were there, but I didn’t. We saw and did some really cool things that I plan to share with you in the coming weeks.

That evening we walked the boardwalk, got our toes wet in the surf, and watched the sunset which was a beautiful end to an amazing day!

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Almost-Wordless Wednesday

Posted in Photography, Travel, tagged Boat, Photography, Travel, Vacation, Virginia on June 29, 2011|

Sailing, sailing…somewhere beyond the sea…

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Thoughtful Thursday

Posted in Fun, My Thoughts, Photography, Travel, tagged Foamhenge, My Thoughts, Travel, Vacation, Virginia on June 23, 2011|

Today starts your virtual journey on C & I’s 10th anniversary vacation we took last week. I hope you enjoy, but I warn you that you may get tired of all of the photos I put on here from this trip. We had such an amazing time road-tripping through parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Ohio before making our way back to bluegrass land. It was an adventure I will never forget!

C & I started out on Sunday with the plan to drive to Natural Bridge, Virginia to see Foamhenge. That’s right, I did say “Foamhenge” not “Stonehenge”. Here is a little history…I was watching Ace of Cakes on the Food Network one night and, in that episode, Duff and Geoff take a road trip. One of the stops they made was at Foamhenge, which is a free road-side attraction built by an artist. It is a full-scale replica of Stonehenge made of huge foam blocks. C was hooked! He had to see this. We had already been talking about a beach vacation to celebrate our 10th anniversary and that pretty much sealed the deal for Virginia Beach. Anyway, back to our story.

We arrived at the Kentucky/Tennessee/Virginia lines (yes, they are that close together) and realized that we would have to go through the Cumberland Gap Tunnel. Gulp! I am not that fond of being underground, but here goes…

After that, we took Highway 58 through a good portion of Eastern Virginia. This is a main highway, but it wraps around a mountain so it is really, really curvy. Then it started to rain while we were on the really curvy road. Thankfully, we made it without any problems and the scenery was great to look at.

We finally arrived at Foamhenge and it was so cool! The place is not fancy, but if you like Stonehenge and have a sense of humor, you really need to go!

It was kind of desolate. I was a little afraid someone would sneak in and lock the gate behind us.

There is even a levitating Merlin!

This is the path back down to where we parked.

We were being watched! I think it was an attack deer!

Once we had experienced Foamhenge, we headed toward Lexington, Virginia, where we were spending the night at the Hampton Inn-Historic District. This hotel is partially housed in a historic house called Col Alto. You can stay in those rooms, or did like we did, stay in the separate hotel in the back which is quite a bit cheaper. You can still walk through the historic home and enjoy the ambience without having to shell out the big bucks. I was saving my hotel budget for the beach!

This is it for Day 1. Please check back next Thursday as we travel to the coast!

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Almost-Wordless Wednesday

Posted in Books, Travel, tagged Big Stone Gap, Travel, Virginia on June 22, 2011|

One of my favorite books is Big Stone Gap and here is proof that the town really exists…

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