Roberta & Kasey's Excellent Road Trip - Day 3

We decided to head to downtown Nashville today, after one of the ladies at our table last night shared about some good places to hit, ones that had bands starting as early as 10 a.m., so after snapping some photos of our cool hotel & jamming on the giant guitar, we headed out for more fun!


Yikes!! A spaceship landed on a building downtown!!

Kasey and Elvis had a thang going on!













We spent about 2 hours here at Tootsie's Bar, listening to the great group!
Hey, it's 5 o'clock SOMEWHERE, right?? *G*




A lot of country singers got their start here at Tootsie's. It was rumored that Roger Miller wrote the song "Dang Me" here. Willie Nelson got his first songwriting job after singing at Tootsies. Charlie Pride gave Tootsie a jeweled hatpin as a gift and she used it to stick unruly patrons. Several movies and TV Shows have also been filmed on location at Tootsies! The walls are covered with hundreds of photos, some so old they are yellowed and tattered.












A bit down the street was The Stage, we stopped for lunch & to listen to another talented singer perform. He did really well with the popular country songs, and had a couple of songs he wrote himself which were excellent too! Maybe we can say, when he is famous, that we saw him when he was first starting out too? *L* But, unfortunately, we forgot what his name was?












After a short power nap in the car, we headed on down the road to Chattanooga....
We had a little rain, but it ended up being beautiful, 86 degrees, and nice drive!

Road Trip 2009 - Day 2 - The adventure continues...

We slept in a little late this morning, but after getting some addresses for a couple of Louisville's more odd attractions online, and loading all our stuff back into the van, we headed out to find them. (This is just KASEY's stuff for a few days, good thing she packs light, eh? *L*) So, we were off...thank God for our GPS, there is NO way we'd have been able to find some things without it! We started with Colonel Sanders gravesite, in Cave Hill National Cemetery. A yellow line from the Cemetery entrance leads to the grave, and there are security guards as you enter, along with video security all over the cemetery. But what a beautiful cemetery it IS!! Lots of great landscaping, and monuments. Since it was pretty late in the morning, we decided ahead of time to get an order of Kentucky Fried Chicken and bring it with us for a funny photo op with the Colonel. *G* I really liked some of the statues and monuments, other ones, like this creepy man who seemed to be wanting to usher us to our grave (?), I didn't like so much. *G* We found a part of Louisville that was a lot like Brady Street in Milwaukee, and stopped at Lynn's Paradise Cafe and Gift shop for some "coffee". And I met a moose friend...(too bad I couldn't bring this back for John and our moose garden & deck in our backyard. *L*) The gift shop here was a lot of fun, and had some unusual things! We tried to find some other odd things, but some of them turned out to be just really stupid or not at all what they were billed to be, or we just couldn't locate them...ah well... we headed down the road, 60 degrees and overcast when we left Louisville... and rain, sometimes really heavy as we headed toward Nashville. We stopped to see the "world's largest crucifix" in Bardstown, KY, and along the way saw a giant rooster (everyone has these roosters these days it seems!.*L*) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I have more photos to add to this day's travels... just no time to do it right now... too tired...*yaaaawn* We had a wonderful time on a dinner/show cruise on the General Jackson Showboat in Nashville tonite... much more photos and stories to come!! +++++++++++++++++++++++++++

MORE PHOTOS ADDED FROM DAY 2.....

oops...we missed Dino World... oh well...











We headed toward Nashville, and when we arrived it was 82 degrees, sunny and wonderful!! Checked into a great hotel, (Hampton Inn), and went on the General Jackson Showboat dinner show cruise. This photo is one they took of us as we boarded (this is a photo of the photo and doesn't turn out as good as the original)...


These are some photos of our time on the 3 hour cruise... a fun night and delicious dinner too!! The people at our table were fun to talk to as well!















The singers at the Country Music USA show onboard the General Jackson Showboat were GREAT!! Here's the final piece they performed ...check out the video here!

One of my assemblages is featured at Image & Spirit

A few days ago, C. Robin Janning the Director of Episcopal Church & Visual Arts Communications & Editor-In-Chief of Image & Spirit (an ECVA blog, which is a journal of images and words that explore life lived in community, where art and faith are a primary focus), emailed me asking if some of my assemblage photos could be sent to her to be used at Image & Spirit. I was excited that she liked them enough to use them, and I sent a few to her.

Robin combined the two together, overlapping them, making one more transparent and created this - a clever idea that I really like too. She then used it with words by Leopold Sedar Senghor (noted French poet and essayist, president of Senegal, West Africa, in the 1960s) in An African Prayer Book, Selections and with Introductions by Desmond Tutu.

Check out the Image & Spirit blog for the "Seek Ye First" entry, and be sure to scroll back and check out other posts & art there too!

Thanks Robin, I am honored to be included at Image & Spirit!

Road Trip 2009 - Vacationing & Fun with my Daughter!

Last year Kasey and I went on a road trip to Mt. Rushmore, it was a short 4-5 day trip, where we stopped and saw the weird, the whacky & fun oddities along the way. We had so much fun, we said we should make it a yearly tradition! SO, this is our 2nd Annual Road Trip. We had planned to go to northern WI and the upper peninsula of MI, but the weather reports call for rain, cold weather, and possibly even SNOW, so last night we made the decision to head south. We decided to go to TN, heading for the Chattanooga area, and Memphis area too...as well as any points inbetween home and there that look like fun!

We didn't have much time to research much since we decided late on going to TN, but we stopped at a couple of places today before settling in for the night at a hotel in Louisville, KY. There are several fun places to explore in this area tomorrow before we start heading south again toward TN.


Here are some photos from today ... Kasey in the car as we travel...

...some signs advertising Fair Oaks Farm, there were a lot of interesting signs advertising this farm, so we just HAD to stop and see what that was all about..*L*





Kasey looks like she's picking the colorful cow's nose in this one...

















..And she thinks her tractor's sexy here...*L*



It was a short break from driving, but we didn't stay long....



We went on down the road in search of more interesting things... turned off here, looking for what we were told was "a grave in the middle of a road", and "Jesus crucified on the side of a barn"... we didn't find either thing, but Kasey took some photos of some of the old town architecture. So, so far, we haven't seen much... we headed off into the sunset...


...and decided to stop for the night in Louisville, KY, where we have a list of several places we want to try to find in the morning... checked into our hotel, found an "authentic mexican restaurant, where we had a drink while waiting to get our dinner to go.



Looking forward to MORE fun tomorrow seeing sites here and then on down the road toward Chattanooga....
More to come...

Blessing of Animals Sunday & Animal Garden Field Trip

Our church does an annual "Blessing of Animals" each year around this time honoring St. Francis of Assisi whose love for all of God's creatures, especially animals, is remembered. Here are some of the animals brought in for blessings...




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The Sunday School, parents, grandparents and teachers also went to Animal Gardens and the Dancing Horse Show following the church service. Fun times!!





The Dancing Horse Show there is a lot of fun too!! Especially if you sit in the front row!

Every little boy loves a good scar, right??

Grandsons overnight fun included some cool stick on scars that Gramma had bought for them! A fun night, sleeping in blanket and pillow "nests" on the living room floor, and tomorrow it's the annual Blessing of Animals at Church, and the Sunday School field trip to Animal Gardens and the Dancing Horse Show!
More photos of that to come....

Super Bowl Champs!! *woot*woot* Yay Cougars!!

Our grandson's team had an exciting "Super Bowl" game this morning ... tied 6 - 6 against the Beloit team at the end of the 4th quarter, they went into overtime and WON 13-6!! Way to go Cougars!! It was an exciting game and fun to see the excitement of the kids, parents (and grandparents too!). *S*

Here's Jake with the team trophy and his personal trophy.

And some of the team and family too.



We are all proud of you Jake, and your team!! Way to go!!

It was a great football day in Wisconsin!! The WI Badgers won their game too, and the axe is in WI!! YAY!!