ok, so here's the story on our weekend, Sept 21st through the 24th. i wrote copious notes, and will now attempt to translate them into some semblance of a travelogue. or something. so here goes.
Friday:
got up way too damn early. took boy over to my parents. got home, got sis on the school bus. (that tells you how early, she gets on bus at 7:10am). got on the road sometime thereafter. We headed to Louisville Ky. on the way we saw a Mosque being guarded by real police officers. not just rent-a-cops. sad that its necessary. Dave saw (i was sleepin in car at this point) a sign for some guys non virginal sisters. or something. i guess it actually said "used cows for sale". so how would you have interpreted that??
so we made it to the zoo (which i'd link to, but am having no luck with links, still, i need to figure whats up with that). at the zoo, we saw the most amusing bats (the teddy bear ones, not the ugly nosed ones), climbing all over branches to get to food, threatening each other, and one that was apparently a LARP'er. he hung in the corner very actively lookin around at everything, but his arms/wings were crossed over his chest, so apparently we couldnt see him. they were ADORABLE. in another area were orangutans. they seemed to think we were there to amuse them. they watched us, with much the same intensity that we had just watched the bats with. it was rather unnerving. at one point i was very excited to see that according to the zoo map there was a "leprechaun area". of course once i looked a little closer, it said "elephant area". which was not nearly so exciting as the leprechaun area would have been. but, oh well. We saw an escapee bird in the penguin area--he looked cold and grumpy. there was a WONDERFUL butterfly exhibit. with BIG geckos. which eat butterflies. this "pissed off" the British zoo worker there. i asked if the lizards regularly munched on butterflies, his answer was a succint "shit yeah!" which was wonderful tinged with his accent. he was threatening to string up the 10 geckos and hang them up outside. he seemed to think maybe the zoo would soon be putting the zebras in with the tigers, as they appeared to like the predator and prey in same enclosure thing. he was quite a character. showed me a butterfly with a huge CHOMP out of his wings. told me it bothered him much more than it did the butterfly. pretty much EVERY single animal that we approached proceeded to turn its butt at us. refusing to be photographed. to the point that i was laughing uncontrollably as more and more of them did it. zebras, rhinos, monkeys, tigers, they all did it. began to think it was a conspiracy. got some good pictures anyway. oh, and at this point we were amazed at the change in accents that 3 hours makes. these people were virtually incomprehensible in their kentuckyishness. 3 hours! like a foreign country. and i think that was all at the zoo. thats all the notes i have anyway.
we left the zoo, and headed to Nashville. which we fell in love with. for reasons that i shall outline below. we got to the hotel, which was PINK of all colors, and dave checked in. came out, we loaded up with our bags and such, and trooped in. as we went in, he was telling me about the amneities of this hotel. they had a pool, complimentary breakfast with REAL food, not just toast and juice, etc. well i was lookin around as he was talking and gesturing, and as i was looking at a pair of birds off to my left he motioned and said "and they have complimentary cockatiels over there" now, of course, again, my brain was making things up. what he had actually said was "complimentary cocktails". but as i had been looking at two cockatiels in a cage, it made much more sense to me that way. of course maybe you had to have been there. we got into the room, which was very very nice, and crashed for a bit. (remember we had been awake waaaaaaaaaaaay too long). then we looked through brouchures lookin for some place to eat. Found one called "Safari's". sounded cool. it had a huge aquarium over the bar with big fish in it. and after we got done eating there, man i wish this was a chain restaurant. (yeah, those two sentences didnt flow well, but i'm tired of editing) as its waaaaaay too far away to drive just for food, but it sure was good. marvelous bread, soft, sweet, buttery. and butter mixed with honey to put on it. then my food was literally a half a pineapple, with green stuff and all, slit lenghtwise, scooped out with fruit in it. just my thing. and the tea! ok, you have to realize that i make "southern tea" with real tea bags, and tons of sugar. when i make tea, its the color of cocacola. the waitress came to take my order, she indicated they had Pepsi products. so i asked for tea. she asked "sweet or nonsweetened?". i answered "sweet". this is the closest to my tea that i've had outside of my house in years! (it was wonderful, but i did put some of the "raw sugar" into it anyway, on principle). ok, at this point, i had my shorts unbuttoned and was stuffed beyond belief. and ready to go to the hotel and sleep it off. i had completely forgotten about the bars! nashville has a street that they block off, and its all bars with live music! we paid to get into two bars (got free mardi gras beads too! yes in nashville in the middle of september, hey, they were free, and its the thought that counts). the second bar had the greatest band "Stacey Mitchum and Blues-U-can-use" , and it was LOUD and cool, and this guy who played the horn was much fun. and in the middle of this blues set they were playing, in the middle of a song, the horn guy goes to a mike, and starts this totally risque rap. that worked, but was hilarious in its unexpectedness i guess you'd say. when he was done, he ducked his head, smiled a shy looking smile and went back to his horn. it was pretty cool. round 2 we headed back to hotel to crash. we saw 2 guys dressed as girls, badly in the other bar district. must have been a contest or something. they were each with girls, and looked quite straight. and drunk. so maybe it was all a big practical joke? had been a LONG day. but much much fun.
Saturday:
We got up late? i think? and went to the "Opry Mills Mall". i am not a big shopper. but this was a cool as hell mall. lots of shops we dont have here. Big Dogs, a HUGE Hot Topix store, lots of cool stuff. we walked right by a popular country singer, Mark Wills. he was out with his family, so i didnt bug him. though i did honestly debate whether we should take a picture of something "right behind" him, so as to get him also, but decided against it. at the Hot Topics store (is it with an "X" or a "CS"??) i saw Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure shirts!!! made me jump up and down! too much money though--have to wait til they mark them down at our stores here. I did get a shirt for dave for Christmas, one for Rick, and a "atari" shirt for me. got a bunch of christmas presents at that mall, which is cool. half my shopping for this year is done. saw these cool water relaxation thingies. you get in a tube, in a sort of a plasticy sleeping bag, and they shoot water on you? hard to explain, looked like something that would put me to sleep, then make me all grumpy when it turned off. we went to a huge music store. oh, and in nashville there are tons and tons of musical instrument stores and repair shops. little hole in the wall places. but literally tons of them. and at night in nashville they have the Bellsouth building. well, they have it in the day too, but at night its sooooooooooooo cool looking! its a bat building. cute cute. go look it up on the internet or something. really cute. i think it was at this point that we went to the parthenon and the WW2 memorial. they were interesting. but i cant begin to describe them. so again, go look it up on the internet. this is an interactive travelogue. and then, we headed to gatlinburg. (oh, and on the way we got SONIC!) which i love. (oh, in nashville, the accents were very soft and sweet. not at all the twangy horror of kentucky) we got to gatlinburg to our hotel and were informed to beware of bears. apparently bears hang out around our room. this was not so comforting. as far as i can remember, and as far as my notes indicate, that was it for saturday. (though dave did go out and get taco bell i think)
Sunday:
got up, leisurely, to the sound of a duck quacking intermittently. (should explain here that we had a balcony overlooking the river). apparently the duck was looking for food, or company or something. but he made a good enough rooster. we went to the Nascar Cafe for lunch. had catfish (yuuuuuummmmmmmmmmm). looked at nascar stuff. dave looked up and realized we were seated in the "3" area. which made me smile. touched one of dale's cars. looked at uniforms and stuff. really neat place. saw a/the coca cola car up on the wall, it revved up and spun its tires in honor of my birthday. we watched the beginning of the race there. then headed back to hotel. i believe it was at this time that a coyote ran across the road. i could be wrong about that as my notes dont indicate when this happened, but if nothing else it works well in the story to say it occurred here. just went jogging across the road. went back to hotel, and napped for a bit, watched the end of the race. Dale Junior won,along with his "Wilson" volleyball. long story there. interesting, but i'm gettin tired, so if ya want details, email me. then we went to the outdoor heated pool, and swam/flew for like 2 and a half hours. watched bats fly around. dave got chlorine in his eyes and swore he saw HUGE rainbow haloes around the lights. so we went back to the room, after getting our free milk and cookies (no complimentary cockatiels here). didnt see any bears. we did see a cat walking along the roof of a 2 story hotel building. i think that was it for sunday?
Monday:
got up, tried to go indoor skydiving, but that didnt pan out. definitely next time though. so we went to the Ripley's aquarium. and I GOT TO TOUCH STING RAYS! cool cool cool! and saw sharks and stuff. but saw HUGE STING RAYS! and other stuff i think. oh yeah, baby sting rays too. and otters. somewhere. that may have been at the zoo though. it all begins to run together. so we did the aquarium, and came home i think? and Gatlinburg has tons and tons of airbrush/tattoo shops. just millions. we heard a cool song on the radio, which i havent yet been able to track down locally--called "I hate you bin laden" with lyrics that go "you crossed the line, you got your sand in my grass, this is an open invitation to KISS MY ASS" heard it 2 or 3 times that weekend. wish i could find it here. and we got home, picked up the kids, who missed us at least a little, thanked my parents for having them all weekend, and came home to recuperate. ug. so now you know.
Friday:
got up way too damn early. took boy over to my parents. got home, got sis on the school bus. (that tells you how early, she gets on bus at 7:10am). got on the road sometime thereafter. We headed to Louisville Ky. on the way we saw a Mosque being guarded by real police officers. not just rent-a-cops. sad that its necessary. Dave saw (i was sleepin in car at this point) a sign for some guys non virginal sisters. or something. i guess it actually said "used cows for sale". so how would you have interpreted that??
so we made it to the zoo (which i'd link to, but am having no luck with links, still, i need to figure whats up with that). at the zoo, we saw the most amusing bats (the teddy bear ones, not the ugly nosed ones), climbing all over branches to get to food, threatening each other, and one that was apparently a LARP'er. he hung in the corner very actively lookin around at everything, but his arms/wings were crossed over his chest, so apparently we couldnt see him. they were ADORABLE. in another area were orangutans. they seemed to think we were there to amuse them. they watched us, with much the same intensity that we had just watched the bats with. it was rather unnerving. at one point i was very excited to see that according to the zoo map there was a "leprechaun area". of course once i looked a little closer, it said "elephant area". which was not nearly so exciting as the leprechaun area would have been. but, oh well. We saw an escapee bird in the penguin area--he looked cold and grumpy. there was a WONDERFUL butterfly exhibit. with BIG geckos. which eat butterflies. this "pissed off" the British zoo worker there. i asked if the lizards regularly munched on butterflies, his answer was a succint "shit yeah!" which was wonderful tinged with his accent. he was threatening to string up the 10 geckos and hang them up outside. he seemed to think maybe the zoo would soon be putting the zebras in with the tigers, as they appeared to like the predator and prey in same enclosure thing. he was quite a character. showed me a butterfly with a huge CHOMP out of his wings. told me it bothered him much more than it did the butterfly. pretty much EVERY single animal that we approached proceeded to turn its butt at us. refusing to be photographed. to the point that i was laughing uncontrollably as more and more of them did it. zebras, rhinos, monkeys, tigers, they all did it. began to think it was a conspiracy. got some good pictures anyway. oh, and at this point we were amazed at the change in accents that 3 hours makes. these people were virtually incomprehensible in their kentuckyishness. 3 hours! like a foreign country. and i think that was all at the zoo. thats all the notes i have anyway.
we left the zoo, and headed to Nashville. which we fell in love with. for reasons that i shall outline below. we got to the hotel, which was PINK of all colors, and dave checked in. came out, we loaded up with our bags and such, and trooped in. as we went in, he was telling me about the amneities of this hotel. they had a pool, complimentary breakfast with REAL food, not just toast and juice, etc. well i was lookin around as he was talking and gesturing, and as i was looking at a pair of birds off to my left he motioned and said "and they have complimentary cockatiels over there" now, of course, again, my brain was making things up. what he had actually said was "complimentary cocktails". but as i had been looking at two cockatiels in a cage, it made much more sense to me that way. of course maybe you had to have been there. we got into the room, which was very very nice, and crashed for a bit. (remember we had been awake waaaaaaaaaaaay too long). then we looked through brouchures lookin for some place to eat. Found one called "Safari's". sounded cool. it had a huge aquarium over the bar with big fish in it. and after we got done eating there, man i wish this was a chain restaurant. (yeah, those two sentences didnt flow well, but i'm tired of editing) as its waaaaaay too far away to drive just for food, but it sure was good. marvelous bread, soft, sweet, buttery. and butter mixed with honey to put on it. then my food was literally a half a pineapple, with green stuff and all, slit lenghtwise, scooped out with fruit in it. just my thing. and the tea! ok, you have to realize that i make "southern tea" with real tea bags, and tons of sugar. when i make tea, its the color of cocacola. the waitress came to take my order, she indicated they had Pepsi products. so i asked for tea. she asked "sweet or nonsweetened?". i answered "sweet". this is the closest to my tea that i've had outside of my house in years! (it was wonderful, but i did put some of the "raw sugar" into it anyway, on principle). ok, at this point, i had my shorts unbuttoned and was stuffed beyond belief. and ready to go to the hotel and sleep it off. i had completely forgotten about the bars! nashville has a street that they block off, and its all bars with live music! we paid to get into two bars (got free mardi gras beads too! yes in nashville in the middle of september, hey, they were free, and its the thought that counts). the second bar had the greatest band "Stacey Mitchum and Blues-U-can-use" , and it was LOUD and cool, and this guy who played the horn was much fun. and in the middle of this blues set they were playing, in the middle of a song, the horn guy goes to a mike, and starts this totally risque rap. that worked, but was hilarious in its unexpectedness i guess you'd say. when he was done, he ducked his head, smiled a shy looking smile and went back to his horn. it was pretty cool. round 2 we headed back to hotel to crash. we saw 2 guys dressed as girls, badly in the other bar district. must have been a contest or something. they were each with girls, and looked quite straight. and drunk. so maybe it was all a big practical joke? had been a LONG day. but much much fun.
Saturday:
We got up late? i think? and went to the "Opry Mills Mall". i am not a big shopper. but this was a cool as hell mall. lots of shops we dont have here. Big Dogs, a HUGE Hot Topix store, lots of cool stuff. we walked right by a popular country singer, Mark Wills. he was out with his family, so i didnt bug him. though i did honestly debate whether we should take a picture of something "right behind" him, so as to get him also, but decided against it. at the Hot Topics store (is it with an "X" or a "CS"??) i saw Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure shirts!!! made me jump up and down! too much money though--have to wait til they mark them down at our stores here. I did get a shirt for dave for Christmas, one for Rick, and a "atari" shirt for me. got a bunch of christmas presents at that mall, which is cool. half my shopping for this year is done. saw these cool water relaxation thingies. you get in a tube, in a sort of a plasticy sleeping bag, and they shoot water on you? hard to explain, looked like something that would put me to sleep, then make me all grumpy when it turned off. we went to a huge music store. oh, and in nashville there are tons and tons of musical instrument stores and repair shops. little hole in the wall places. but literally tons of them. and at night in nashville they have the Bellsouth building. well, they have it in the day too, but at night its sooooooooooooo cool looking! its a bat building. cute cute. go look it up on the internet or something. really cute. i think it was at this point that we went to the parthenon and the WW2 memorial. they were interesting. but i cant begin to describe them. so again, go look it up on the internet. this is an interactive travelogue. and then, we headed to gatlinburg. (oh, and on the way we got SONIC!) which i love. (oh, in nashville, the accents were very soft and sweet. not at all the twangy horror of kentucky) we got to gatlinburg to our hotel and were informed to beware of bears. apparently bears hang out around our room. this was not so comforting. as far as i can remember, and as far as my notes indicate, that was it for saturday. (though dave did go out and get taco bell i think)
Sunday:
got up, leisurely, to the sound of a duck quacking intermittently. (should explain here that we had a balcony overlooking the river). apparently the duck was looking for food, or company or something. but he made a good enough rooster. we went to the Nascar Cafe for lunch. had catfish (yuuuuuummmmmmmmmmm). looked at nascar stuff. dave looked up and realized we were seated in the "3" area. which made me smile. touched one of dale's cars. looked at uniforms and stuff. really neat place. saw a/the coca cola car up on the wall, it revved up and spun its tires in honor of my birthday. we watched the beginning of the race there. then headed back to hotel. i believe it was at this time that a coyote ran across the road. i could be wrong about that as my notes dont indicate when this happened, but if nothing else it works well in the story to say it occurred here. just went jogging across the road. went back to hotel, and napped for a bit, watched the end of the race. Dale Junior won,along with his "Wilson" volleyball. long story there. interesting, but i'm gettin tired, so if ya want details, email me. then we went to the outdoor heated pool, and swam/flew for like 2 and a half hours. watched bats fly around. dave got chlorine in his eyes and swore he saw HUGE rainbow haloes around the lights. so we went back to the room, after getting our free milk and cookies (no complimentary cockatiels here). didnt see any bears. we did see a cat walking along the roof of a 2 story hotel building. i think that was it for sunday?
Monday:
got up, tried to go indoor skydiving, but that didnt pan out. definitely next time though. so we went to the Ripley's aquarium. and I GOT TO TOUCH STING RAYS! cool cool cool! and saw sharks and stuff. but saw HUGE STING RAYS! and other stuff i think. oh yeah, baby sting rays too. and otters. somewhere. that may have been at the zoo though. it all begins to run together. so we did the aquarium, and came home i think? and Gatlinburg has tons and tons of airbrush/tattoo shops. just millions. we heard a cool song on the radio, which i havent yet been able to track down locally--called "I hate you bin laden" with lyrics that go "you crossed the line, you got your sand in my grass, this is an open invitation to KISS MY ASS" heard it 2 or 3 times that weekend. wish i could find it here. and we got home, picked up the kids, who missed us at least a little, thanked my parents for having them all weekend, and came home to recuperate. ug. so now you know.
