"Black Knight"

My irises haven’t done well since I moved them a couple years ago.  Great leaves… no flowers.  So I was delighted this year when three different varieties decided to bloom for me.

 

 

My favorite is “Black Knight”.

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve got to find more of these!

AKA Road Trip: All Aboard the Dinosaur Train!

(Spoiler alert!  Sis, don’t let the babies see this blog.  I’m making a book for them with the photos.)

 

 

After breakfast in our room (have cooler, will travel!) we headed out for a bit of fun kitsch.  Anyone care for a bit of time travel back to Dinosaur World?  (www.dinosaurworld.com )

 

 

Once again there was a lot of laughter and eye rolls!  You enter the park thru a very nice gift shop.  You want dinosaurs; this is the place to find them!!  Prices were good too. 

 

When you exit the gift shop into the park, there are a variety of things for the kids to do (big kids too). 

 

 

There is the “fossil dig” where kids can sift thru ‘seeded’ sand for fossils. 

 

 

 

They can take three home as souvenirs.  They aren’t half bad either.

 

 

There is a cute playground too for burning off some energy. 

 

 

Covered picnic tables line two sides so it is also a good place for parents to take a break.

 

A small museum has all sorts of interesting displays.

 

 

 

 

I thought they were well presented for a fun learning experience.

 

 

Some displays were outside, like this ‘Ultrasaurus’ from the Jurassic period.  (I think they are the ones you see at the beginning of Jurassic Park). 

 

 

There are a few funny photo op sites too. 

 

After exploring all this it was time to walk thru the dinosaur forest.  I think I was as excited as the kids! 

 

 

It’s a nice walk with a concrete pathway. 

 

 

All along the route are dinosaurs tucked in here and there as tho you were going thru “Jurassic Park”. 

 

 

Each display has an information sign near it.

 

We had a blast just walking along taking in the various displays.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think they did a nice job placing them about the woods, so you would come up on them here and there.

 

 

There was also a display of wooly mammoths in an area away from the dinosaurs.

 

 

That’s a big baby!

 

We took a bunch of silly photos too, for that above mentioned book for the kids.

 

 

 

It’s going to be fun creating those!

 

 

We had a blast at Dinosaur World!  I would highly recommend it for any dinosaur lover of any age. 

 

 

Summer Plans Week 2

Week 1 of my summer plans went very well.  The master bedroom is now organized.  I even have some unused space!  The front entry way is looking much better and the deck is spruced up.  Had to regroup on the studio.  The frame shelf is going to take two sets of hands to build.  So later in the summer I'll have a friend come over and help me get it done.  Until then... the frame things will be stored in the garage. 

Time to focus on a new week of projects!

The room of the week for organizing is an easy one.  It’s Himself’s office.  Which means I won’t be doing all that much.  But I will give it a good neatening and put away a bunch of bins from a project he was working on.  (I told him not to worry about putting them away before he left). 

I have two yard projects; one in the front of the house and one in the back.  That way I can work on the west side in the morning while it’s shaded by the house and the east side in the evening while it’s in house shade. 

1) Weeding (they’ve really taken over!), putting in ground cloth, and putting on rock mulch of HALF the area along our front sidewalk. 

2) Beautifying the area around the AC unit. 

And it’s Paint Week in my studio!  I had a tremendous amount of leftover paint from the LR and kitchen, so that is what I’m going to use.  I like the color for down there, so it’s all good!  I’m also going to put shelves along one wall and start loading them with my creative supplies.

So another busy week is lined up.  There will be more creative projects that I’ll have up on my Friday blog post and I have an outing with some girlfriends on Thursday. 

Fun stuff! 

AKA Road Trip: Sleep in a Wigwam!

After our long day touring we were looking forward to getting some rest.  I promised Himself that this time we wouldn’t be sleeping in a “junk yard”  (http://teri-gonewalkabout2.blogspot.com/2011/05/southern-adventure-our-next-lodging-was.html ).  Nope, we didn’t sleep in a shack…

 

 

…we slept in a wigwam!!

 

 

The look on his face was priceless!

 

 

And it just kept getting better!

 

 

The room was small but adequate.  A bed, chair, dressing table and stool, and a TV on a stand. 

 

 

Himself got a kick out of the ceiling.  Said he felt like he was in a spider web.  LOL

 

 

Wigwam, sweet wigwam. 

 

 

The Wigwam Motels, (http://www.wigwamvillage.com/ ) also known as the "Wigwam Villages", is a motel chain in the United States in which the rooms are built in the form of tipis, mistakenly referred to as wigwams. It originally had seven different locations: two locations in Kentucky, a location in Alabama, another location in Florida, one in Arizona, one in Louisiana, and another one in California. They are very distinctive historic landmarks. Two of the three surviving motels are located on historic U.S. Route 66, in Holbrook, Arizona and on the city boundary between Rialto and San Bernardino, California. 

 

Frank A. Redford applied for a patent on the ornamental design of the building on December 17, 1935, and was granted design patent 98,617 on February 18, 1936. Seven Wigwam Villages were built between 1933 and 1949. 

 

Wigwam village #2 was built in 1937 a few miles south of the original wigwam village #1, but on US-31W in Cave City. It was built consisting of 15 wigwams used as guest rooms and a much bigger concrete and steel central structure that originally served as a restaurant. The 15 wigwams are arranged in a semi circle around a common area with playground and recreation area. Each wigwam has a paved pad to accommodate one car. 

 

The diameter at the base of each tipi is 14 feet (4.3 m), they are 32 feet (9.8 m) in height. Behind the main room of each unit is a small bathroom with sink, toilet, and shower. In 2008, the rooms contain the original restored hickory furniture, cable TV and a window mounted air conditioner. There are no telephones to maintain the original atmosphere of the motel, though there is internet access. The restaurant is no longer in operation, but the motel is still open and welcoming guests. 

 

Wigwam village #2 is close to Mammoth Cave National Park and listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The motel is located on 601 North Dixie Hwy, Cave City, Kentucky.   ~~ Wikipedia ~~

 

 

Directly behind our ‘wigwam’ was the pavilion.  So we pulled out our brand-new Kingsman grill and fired it up for a cook-out. 

 

 

 Cooking up our ‘foil potatoes’ and some home canned green beans I bought from an Amish lady at a roadside stand.  So good!

 

 

Himself enjoying supper:  grilled steak, green beans,…

 

 

… and cheesy foil potatoes.

 

 

And nothing is more “Americana” than an apple pie for dessert!

 

Soon it was time to get some sleep so we would be ready for the next day's travels. 

 

Creative Friday - 14 June '13

Now that my routine has slowed down for the summer I have more time for fun creative endeavors.  I’ve missed working on the various “challenges” at the creative blogs I follow. 

 

 

This one was for the challenge at Word Art Wednesday, Psalms 127:4-5a. 

 

 

And this was for Artist’s Play Room, where the challenge was “bizarre”.  I’m not into ‘bizarre’ unless you’re talking a shopping ‘bazaar’. 

 

Besides the regular challenges, I’ve found a couple fun just-for-summer challenges.

 

The first one is ICAD: Index Card A Day.  The challenge is to create SOMETHING on an index card every day of June and July.  It can be doodling, art, mixed media, writing, quotes … anything that fits on an index card.  There are optional themes and prompts if you get stuck but you can do your own thing.

 

 

 

These are my first week of cards.  I’m having a lot of fun with these and have started carrying some cards in my purse so if I have to wait somewhere… I do a card. 

 

Second challenge is SOC:  Summer of Color.  The challenge is to use the two colors of the week to create anything you’d like as long as it uses those colors.  It could be a painting, something knitted, jewelry, sculpture… anything with the colors.  Fun! 

 

And of course I’ll be working on some things I come up with myself!