Illinois Friends Visit!

I am still catching up on sleep from my weekend of adventures! I had two very special guest in town for a visit, Page Turner and Old Lady and boy did we sure have some fun! 

Our adventure began Thursday night when I picked them up from the airport. I got to sit in the nifty little cell phone lot which had a giant screen with all the flights and which gate they were at... very handy! I took PT to her home away from home at Arizona's house, and OL stayed with me. Those two crazy cats had an interesting flight adventure but they were starving, so we stopped at In-n-out for a quick bite.

We let the visitor's sleep in a bit before we started our day on Friday. OL, PT and I had lunch at Lucille's Smokehouse for some yummy BBQ lunch. PT was feeling under the weather so we dropped her back off so she could get some rest and OL and I headed to Old Town Scottsdale for a stroll around the shops.

OL and I took a break from the heat and stopped into the Sugar Bowl for some ice cream! I have never been to a place where you sit down and get a menu full of ICE CREAM! What a dream come true! 

I had the Buster Brownie Super Fancy Sundae and it was WORTH IT! 

Friday evening we found ourselves at a two story Barnes and Noble to discuss a book we had picked for our inaugural Arizona Page Turner meeting, we read The Shack. Did we really read it? Well I didn't and if the others did we sure didn't talk about it, we did talk a bit about books, but mostly it was just enjoying each other's company in the comfy chairs at Barnes.

Saturday morning we headed north, driving through Sedona on our way to Jerome. (Thanks Arizona for driving!) Along the way we started talking about the Saguaro cactus. Did you know that a 10 year old saguaro cactus may only stand 1.5" tall?! Or that a cactus with 5 arms would be about 200 years old?! Neither did we... thanks google! So many fascinating facts about the saguaro, check it out if you have time! 

It's easy to tell why Sedona is called Red Rock Country, just look at the beautiful red mountains! 

We thought this wispy cloud looked like a feather! 

As we continued our road trip adventure, we arrived in the old copper mining mountain town of Jerome, did I mention it's haunted too? 

Sunday was our last full day and I wanted to make sure OL got some good ol' fashioned sight seeing in so I took her to the desert... the place she said she would never go and we also drove up past the Superstition Mountains to Tortilla Flat! 

The Superstition Mountains are my favorite! They just look different than all the mountains around here... just look kind of ominous! 

up close and personal with a very pretty cacti

Did I mention we were standing literally in the desert and it was like 112°

Canyon Lake

We ate a light lunch at the Saloon in Tortilla Flat (the last stage coach stop on the Apache Trail) If you remember from when I rode my motorcycle up the rumble strip road to Tortilla Flat, I mentioned that the walls are covered with bills from all over the world. OL and I had to leave one of our own to commemorate our trip! So keep an eye out if you ever find yourself in the saloon at Tortilla Flat!

Sunday just happened to be PT's birthday as well. We got the whole IL work gang back together for dinner at the San Tan steakhouse. This place was not only very yummy but a really neat place as well. There was in the inside restaurant part but then when you went on through to the outside there was a whole outdoor area with live music, your own personal bon fire for making s'mores and an outdoor bar area. Awesome! It was weird that it was still about 95° but compared to the 112° it had been it actually felt really nice. OL even commented that it really is a different kind of heat our here! 

The whole gang back together again! 

I'm so glad I got to see my friends OL & PT again, I have missed you guys! I love that we still talk to each other on a regular basis and the four-way emails leading up to your trip out were the best! I hope you both enjoyed your time out here and really did get to relax a bit. I can't wait to see you guys again real soon! 

Now the countdown is on for the siblings to visit!! Only 16 more days!! 

Nashville Trip 2011: Part 2

As we drove out to where the Opry is located we drove past the Opry Mills mall, which is where the Opry land theme park used to be.  The mall is still closed from the 500 year flood they had last May. During the flood, the Opry had 4 feet of water at center stage. Everything we saw in the building had been replaced and they were able to save the circle of wood that was taken from the Ryman. All the repairs to the Opry house were completed in 4 months, but the Opry never missed a beat and was housed in another building for their weekly radio show, it's the longest running radio show ya know so they couldn't just up and stop. The backstage tour was very cool, we came in the artist's entrance and got to look at a few of the dressing rooms and even got to walk across the stage, it was very cool, I'd love to see a show there sometime. http://www.opry.com/

Every Opry member has a mailbox backstage

All the dressing rooms have a theme

A great quote by Brad Paisley (click to make it larger)

The lockers for band members and artists

This chair rail shows the flood line from the flood in May

The green room area where the artists wait to go on stage

The view from backstage area looking out

Stage

The circle

A.Drama.B and I in the circle

After the Opry tour we headed back to relax a little bit ordered some pizza, watched TV and listened to the Tuesday night Opry show on the radio. Then we waited for our hearse to arrive for our Ghost tour!

 I stole this from their website http://www.nashvilleghosttours.com/ so you could see our pimpin ride, we didn't have the canopy on for our tour. Every time we went by someone they would hoot and holla at us, it was pretty cool. We decided that this would be a good idea for the drive-in so if you ever see a hearse for sale cheap, let us know!

Our first stop was the old Capital records building, it now sits empty after several tenants had moved out due to crazy happenings, which made it that much more creepy. It is haunted by two sisters who used to live in the mansion that was torn down to build the tower. Google Jacob Schnell mansion to find the story.

Outside the music studio where Kevin Hughes was murdered, he was going to blow the whistle on a pay for play scheme where the record companies would pay the radio and charts to push their singles higher on the hits list. http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=132437&page=1

Belmont Mansion

http://www.hauntedhouses.com/states/tn/belmont_mansion.cfm

http://belmontmansion.com/

Nashville City Cemetary

http://www.thenashvillecitycemetery.org/

The oldest single residence home in Nashville, now a fancy restaurant

http://www.smithhousenashville.com/

The Tennessee State Capital

http://www.prairieghosts.com/cap_bldg.html

The Hermitage Hotel

http://www.thehermitagehotel.com/homepage.aspx

http://www.thecabinet.com/darkdestinations/location.php?sub_id=dark_destinations&letter=h&location_id=the_hermitage_hotel

The Redneck Comedy Bus Tour took us around Nashville and pointed out some sights we had already seen but gave us some good stories and was really funny, we had a good time and was a great way to end the trip.

http://www.theredneckcomedytour.com/index1.html

If you love country music Nashville is a must see, there are so many more things to see and do we just didn't have enough time. The weather was perfect and the company was great, I had such a great time and it was definitely nice to get away for a little while... I just wish the warmer weather would have followed us home, I'm still waiting on Spring to get here!

We got to visit all those places with the Total Access Attraction Pass you pay $50 then get to pick from a list of 17 activities and free entry to the Parthenon, it paid for itself in two visits, totally worth it. Hope everyone enjoyed the pictures, leave comments of places you visited in Nashville that I didn't get to see so I can add them to my list OR better yet leave me some comments on places I need to see next, I'm leaning towards Savannah, GA because everyone knows I heart Georgia! Shoutout to my Georgia fans! (hopefully you'll be up for a visit soon otherwise I'm definitely going to have to come visit y'all!)