I had a nice surprise this morning. PK over at Blogging Us-Exploring Colorado, gave me the “I Love Your Blog Award”. Thanks so much PK. Everyone should add Blogging Us to their daily read list. This blog has the most beautiful pictures and is fun to read. I learned so much and laughed a bunch while reading her post about learning to blow an Elk bugle. She was preparing to go Elk hunting!
I love reading the travel blogs and see that parents are taking trips with their kids. My kids still talk about the time we went to Niagara Falls. They loved going to Mammoth Caves and traveling to Kentucky to visit their cousins. I only wish we would have had the DVD players that parents are able to use these days. Traveling meant a long time on the road and sometimes it was hard for our guys to endure the long trip in the car. Now you can play DVD’s for your kids and make the trip enjoyable for everyone. One game that I remember playing as a child was car Bingo. We would watch for things that allowed us to check off the letter on our card. It was hard to wrestle with the paper and a pen but it helped pass the time. Parents today have it made. Screenlife has a new game your kids will love. Disney Bingo DVD game teaches while your kids are having fun. You will be amazed that when your kids are adults, like mine, how much they talk about the things they did as a child. They will love that you shared a fun game like Bingo while sharing a trip. Amazon.com or Drugstore.com has the game on their websites. Watch this video to see how much fun the new Disney Bingo can be!
Listening to all the information about Sarah Palin has been very interesting. The media is searching for everything and anything that they can come up with to let us know what this VP candidate is all about. I have been thinking about the past elections and how history is made. If you want to get back to the basics and remember what our country stands for, you should visit Gettysburg.
A few years ago, we enjoyed a trip to Gettysburg. One of our most memorable meals in Gettysburg was at the Dobbin House. Reverend Alexander Dobbin built a house to begin a new life in America for himself and his family. Today his home, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is a colonial restaurant where we ate a delicious meal. It was lit with candlelight, which was nice since our son was not feeling well. We were served soup in pewter bowls and the food was delicious. It felt as if we had gone back in time.
What remains is the fact that people struggled to make their lives in America. We are still building on those foundations and principles. It will be interesting to see what the future holds.
How uncanny! When I opened my mail here at work, there was a bill from Dex. They are the folks who produce the wonderful directory where we place our store advertising. I cannot tell you how many people have found us through that little book but it is plenty. They are such an easy directory to use.
What was uncanny was that I received an opportunity to write about their services. It is my pleasure to do so. Dex has online directories as well as the books where our ad is found. So, say you were planning a trip to the Mall of America in Minneapolis, and needed a hotel reservation. You could use their Minneapolis Yellow Pages directory and find a whole list of hotels from which to choose. Now, if you live near Minneapolis, you have probably discovered that Dex is the most comprehensive directory to find goods and services. From bakeries and pest control services to
auto repair in Minneapolis, you will be saved many detours and gasoline when you use the directory for phone numbers and locations. I love Dex. Like I said, they have helped customers find out that we sell floors. Dex lists our phone number and address so they know how to get to our business.
Just by looking at the screen shot of the listing for auto repair in Minneapolis, you can see that there are over 10 repair services from which to choose. Each listing gives an address and how many miles from downtown Minneapolis they are located. You can click on a tab and see a map for easy directions to the business you are contemplating using. There is also a rating system that satisfied clients of that business use to help others decide if a business is worthy of their patronage.
Dex makes your life so much simpler.
You will find southern charm incorporated with a bit of the exotic when you visit Amelia Island in Florida. The hustle and bustle of the former seaport can be found in the exotic shops but when you want to relax, you can find the perfect spot for that. Amelia Island’s Fernandina Beach escaped the mass commercialization of the 20th century and boasts a beautiful 50-block historic district with many original structures dating back to the late 19th century, including many Victorian-style mansions and Victorian cottages. Amelia Island is located at Florida’s northeastern shore, just 15 miles east of Interstate 95, and is a short, 30-minute drive from Jacksonville International Airport. It is connected to Florida’s mainland by two bridges.
The history of the island is remarkable. There are live oak trees everywhere on Amelia. One particular tree was saved by a resident of the island. She loved that tree and no one, with a mind intent on progress, was going cut that tree down. Not if she had anything to say about it. She said plenty as she stood on her front porch with a loaded shot gun. That tree stood watch over Kate Bailey’s stately Queen Anne home for years. It still stands today.
For more stories and a wonderful vacation visit, check out Amelia Island.
Living in the midwest has led us to many fun and interesting places. I love the midwest. There are so many festivals held all over Indiana that you could stay busy every weekend. There is the pork festival, the circus festival, the egg festival and the covered bridge festival to name only a few. We have been to many and always eat great food and have a good time.
When our daughter joined the military, it gave us a reason to travel outside the midwest. Her first base was in Grand Isle, Louisiana. We visited New Orleans and even went on an alligator cruise.
When she graduated from basic training in Cape May, New Jersey, we found ourselves staying in a beautiful and historic area called Wildwood. The Wildwood hotels motels and bed and breakfasts are wonderful. Most are in historic homes with the large wrap around porches and beautiful architectural features. We were thrilled to discover Wildwood Amusement park. Little did we know that this is one of New Jersey’s best amusement parks. We ended up there because it was close to Cape May! Morey’s Piers is a terrific place for a family beach vacation that your kids will never forget. Morey’s Piers offers weekly specials to enhance your visit. On Mondays they offer Magical Mondays where a lucky guest will be offered a fun prize. On Tuesday their All-You-Can-Ride wristbands are offered. There are specials every day of the week! What a great place.
My sister and her friends who ride, went to the Natural Tunnel near Kingsport, Tennessee. It looks like a beautiful area and a fun place to ride their Harleys.
Natural Tunnel, called the “Eighth Wonder of the World” by William Jennings Bryan, has been attracting sightseers to the mountains of southwestern Virginia for more than 100 years. Today it is the focal point of Natural Tunnel State Park, a park which offers visitors not only spectacular sights but also swimming, camping, picnicking, hiking, a visitor center, an amphitheater and interpretive programs.
The creation of Natural Tunnel began more than a million years ago in the early glacial period when groundwater bearing carbonic acid percolated through crevices and slowly dissolved surrounding limestone and dolomite bedrock. Then, what is now Stock Creek was probably diverted underground to continue carving the tunnel slowly over many centuries. The walls of the tunnel show evidence of prehistoric life, and many fossils can be found in the creek bed and on tunnel walls.
I want to go back to all the places we took the children when they were small. I love looking through pictures that remind me of all the vacations we took. Some of our most memorable vacations were spent camping. It was fun and stressful to take small children to some places. One year we had Kennedy space center discount tickets through a friend who works for NASA. The kids were at that antsy age where it was hard to stand in line. When I think about it now, it seems so funny. Back then I was ready to rip my hair out!
These days it is easy to get great ideas for vacations and even weekend travel. The Trusted Tours newsletter keeps us up to date on all the new places to visit. We always learn new things about some of the new features of the places we have been. That makes us want to go back all the more. Right now is the perfect time to sign up for a Trusted Tours newsletter. They are offering a $150 Magellan’s Gift Certificate just for signing up for the newsletter. Wouldn’t that be cool to win?! Online travel guides have certainly made traveling easier. I am thinking it might be time to go back to Las Vegas since hubby won $100 in the slots on Saturday. Who knows, he might be on a winning streak.
Yesterday when we visited the casino in Anderson, Indiana, we were lucky to happen upon a jazz festival being held on the grounds. The Hoosier Blues & BBQ Fest was being held at the Hoosier Park Racing & Casino. Since I don’t really get into playing the slot machines as much as my husband, I was thrilled to listen to the different groups perform. When we walked out onto the grounds where the bands were playing, we were given blues brothers sun glasses to help us get into the mood of the blues. The Gordon Bonham Blues Band from Indianapolis performed first. I enjoyed them as they sang clear and rhythm filled blues. Tom Harold played the harmonica and oh my gosh could he ever make that instrument sing. Next, a group from Chicago, Steve Specter & The Bluebirds played. I didn’t enjoy them as much because they played more instrumentally filled songs. That was until their featured acts began showing their stuff. Jimmy Johnson and “Brother” John Kattke showed what playing the blues was all about. They had so much fun. I didn’t hear the last two bands because hubby had won a hundred dollars and wanted to leave before he was tempted to put it back into the machines. I was ready to go before the mosquitoes began to feast on me.
We decided to take the day off yesterday and make a tour of Indiana. We had been wanting to check out the Triumph motorcycles ever since we passed by the dealership while in Indy for another purpose. So off we headed.
Our first stop was to get some breakfast at Panera Bread. I have to tell you that their breakfast sandwiches are very yummy. They use swiss cheese and a flat bread to make them and so they are a bit different than the ones you get at fast food places.
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