Vacation - part 3 - St. Louis - Final Installment

This is a long series of posts, I realize that.  I will move on after this last one, promise! ;)  We spent only one day and night in St. Louis.  We left Nashville and headed for St. Louis and Kevin decided to get off the mail expressway in Paducah, KY.  We took a lot of back roads until we got to Cape Girardeau, MO.  It was a pretty drive.  He and I enjoyed it, the girls, not as much.  They were nervous that there were not many cars and buildings along the way.  They really are city girls.  We stayed at a hotel in the St. Louis Union Station.  It was a beautiful building.  They have tried to revamp it by having a mall in the main level but it was half empty and the stores that were there were not that great.  It is a shame as the facility was cool.  We drove around a bit that night and happened upon the City Garden.  It takes up a couple of blocks and has a huge fountain to play in with dancing waters and lights and many cool sculptures to check out.  We all enjoyed it a lot!  The next day was spent at the St. Louis City Museum.  Coolest place!!  If you get a chance to take your kids, you MUST go!  I only have a few pictures there because my big camera was getting in the way of my climbing and sliding and playing.  Check out all the places to climb!  We decided to just get home after that and we were all ready to sleep in our own beds.  Especially me.  All in all, it was a quick and fun road trip! 

city museum!

This is when we noticed the dust...on the way home!  UGH!

So tell us, what are your favorite states to visit and why?  I'm hoping we have many more road trips ahead of us!

Vacation - part 2 - Nashville!

I sat down a couple times to write this post and it was overwhelming to try to label each picture so I will share with you what we did while there and follow it up with a *few* selected pictures!

We arrived in Nashville on Sunday evening.  We were there Monday through Wednesday.  All four of us loved it!  Things we did while there:  visited the Country Music Hall of Fame, toured the Ryman Auditorium (original home of the Grand Ole Opry) and did the backstage tour as well (beautiful place), walked down Broadway, the main street in Nashville with all the honky tonks, took the girls to their first honky tonk Tootsies where they thought it was cool to write their name on the table (we just solidified that we won't be winning the parents of the year award), visited Hatch Show Prints (very cool store...old school print shop), ate at an aquarium restaurant, saw a show at the Grand Ole Opry*, toured the backstage of the Grand Ole Opry (very cool!), walked around the Gaylord Hotel and took the boat ride that is INSIDE the hotel (that should give you some sort of indication of how big this place is), drove out to the Loveless Cafe (SO worth the trip...sorry Sara that you got sick!), visited Franklin, TN, stopped at the Blackbird studios, drove through music row, visited the Antique Archeology shop (from American Pickers fame), and the girls swam every day.  Oh yea, and no visit to Nashville is complete until you have stopped at Cooters and toured the museum.  Who didn't love The Dukes of Hazard?  Yee haw!  ;)  Now some pictures for your viewing enjoyment!

*Performers at the Grand Ole Opry show:  Oak Ridge Boys, Lee Brice, Little Jimmy Dickens, Bradley Garret, Kevin Costner (yes,the actor) and his band Modern West and Charlie Daniels Band!!

BTW, as you can see, we have a piece of dust on the sensor of our camera.  We didn't notice it until we were on our way home.  The guy at Wolf Camera told me it would have to be sent out to be cleaned and that to would take FOUR to EIGHT weeks!  I cannot be without my camera for that long so not sure what I'm going to do about it.  Sorry, these pics are not edited in any way. :(

vacation - part 1

We started out our trip heading to Nashville, TN!  Kevin and I have been through Nashville but neither of us had ever visited there.  On the way he wanted to drive through Champaign and show the girls the house he did most of his growing up in!  I think he was in 5th grade when he moved there with his Mom and Dad.  He easily found it and had lots of good memories and remembered where his neighborhood friends lived as well.  The house has changed a bit.  He couldn't get over how big all the trees were.  I suppose we will be saying that about our house here in Frankfort someday. :)

2711 Rolling Acres Drive  Champaign, IL

The "downtown" area of Champaign has changed a lot.  Most businesses he knew of were no longer there but for the most part, they have updated it for the better.  If only Garcia's Pizza was still around...he could relive his days as part of the ground crew for the Flying Tomato Brothers and their hot air balloon that flew across Assembly Hall during the football games!  We're glad we took the time to drive through Champaign and show the girls that part of his youth.

No road trip is complete until you stop at such ridiculous places like Metropolis, IL!  It is why we drive instead of fly, right?!  It is at the very tip of IL, just before you get to Kentucky.  We spent a bit too much time there but I think we were all ready to stretch our legs and just move around a bit.  There really is not much else there.  Well, that's not entirely true...Big John lives there, too!

 Not sure why the grocery store mascot statue is bigger than Superman but whatevs. 

We were getting pretty close to our destination and made it to Nashville Sunday night!  We found a great hotel right away and really all that Jess and Sara cared about was whether it had a pool. :)

They should know by now we only stay at hotels that have pools!!  We had a nice surprise in the morning when we found out that they served a full breakfast and it was included in our stay!  Stay tuned, there is more to come... 

 



Home sweet home!

We had an AWESOME time in Nashville!

We went to the best museum in the history of museums in St. Louis!

We are happy to be home!

Thankfully all the laundry is done and Kevin has already started a big painting project.  We are all catching up on our sleep and I will share some photos from our trip soon!

Its good to go away and its better to come home!

:)