Life in Loraland: July 2010

Girls Just Want To Have Road Trips

I have become a fan of short trips. These long trips we take with the family end up being lots of work for me. Not much of a break if I’m doing all the work, packing, laundry, cooking….. you name it. So when I had lunch with Paula and Alex (to celebrate Alex’s 17th birthday) us girls decided a girly road trip up to Nashville was in order. This way Alex could look at Vanderbilt University and see if it appealed to her as she heads into the college selection time of her life! All she wanted to do was see the campus, walk around and see the lay out of the school…hey I can walk and since I’ve been around Vandy for years, I can show her the basic layout of the campus (it’s not complicated). She did not want an official tour or to meet with admissions yet so this was a perfect quick trip for the three of us! Walk, eat, giggle, have fun…yep I’m all about those things so we found two free days and headed up the road for a quickie!

Paula drove the “Princess” van and we had such a good time chit chatting on the drive up. We ran into NO traffic in Chattanooga (miracle) nor Nashville. We stayed at the Vanderbilt Marriott, which is located very near the campus. We got checked in and headed out on our walking tour. We had arrived at 3:30 (CT) and we walked nearly 2 hrs. The only thing we didn’t plan on was the heat wave hitting Nashville that day! OMGoodness, it was a scorcher. Later that evening we were told it had gotten up to 105°… yikes!

Well we survived the heat, got back and cooled off and went out to an early dinner at BB King’s Blues Club. Had some surprisingly good Cajun food and got to hear a really good blues band. We walked around downtown, something I had never done, nope, not something my Nashville family was ever interested in doing, too touristy!!

Here we are on stage at BB King’s…..

…..and waiting for the shuttle bus back to the hotel after our country music stroll…
The next morning, Alex and I went for a run from the hotel through Centennial Park. We had a really good time and she was so fun to run with. Wish my kids would jog with me!

We got back and headed out to the Pancake Pantry for breakfast. We always recommend this place for breakfast as we’ve been going there for years. It’s a King tradition. Looks like it will be a Jones tradition too the next time they visit Nashville! Some of the best bacon in the south! And the pancakes are to die for! Here’s Paula’s selection….

Paula’s food truly looked beautiful when it arrived. But I was proud of my low fat breakfast with my sugar free pancake syrup that Paula thought was awful and uninspiring……I can live “healthy” with that!!
gordon & Nashville 027 We went to a neat vintage shop and bought a few things. Paula is now the proud owner of a delightful 1960’s hat that is truly precious on her! Since I thought she looked like a cupcake, we decided a trip to Gigi’s cupcakes was in order. Does she look like a lemon cupcake or what! Cute as a button…..
We checked out the Parthenon in Centennial Park. Here are my girls in front.
Paula snapped this photo which is my absolute favorite photo from our girly road trip. Alex is smiling and it reminds me of our run around the Parthenon that morning! I know I will treasure this photo. I Love it so much!!

We headed home after a brief visit at The Hermitage where I was a docent oh so many years ago. Paula and I decided we needed a Starbucks when we got near Chattanooga. Well, her Garmin GPS decided we were only 4 miles from one so we got off the interstate and followed that thing all the way up Lookout Mountain! It took us to Rock City for Pete’s sake. How could that be the closest one in all of Chattanooga!
One last photo in Rock City then it was home to Hot-lanta!! What a blast. I think more girly road trips are in our future for sure. I don’t think I’ve smiled as much as I did on this trip in a long time! Love my girls!

Laid Back Fourth

Fourth of July weekend was pretty uneventful this year. The kids didn’t really want to go see any fireworks. Jackson absolutely didn’t want to go, the noise really upsets him. Clayton asked us on Sunday night around 8pm if we were going after not saying a word all weekend. Sorry buddy, should have spoken up sooner! We grilled and got some sun (like I’m not dark enough already), read some books, watched some TV, did a little shopping. Pretty laid back.

I did make a commitment to run 4 miles each day over the weekend in honor of the 4th! I got my first two days in and then on Monday Hows asks us to come up to Forsyth and walk with him……………….
Soooooo ….Shelby, Jackson and I drive up to the center to meet H and we then drive over to the Big Creek Greenway. The Big Creek Greenway in Forsyth County is a 12-foot wide concrete and boardwalk path that meanders through the woods along the Big Creek. The greenway is a beautiful setting for walking, jogging, dog walking and biking.

Here we are setting out on our walk:

(Photo taken on H’s phone and this is about as good as I can make it in Photoshop! I think the Duke Visor draws the eye away from my Carolina blue shorts)

Our goal was to walk the 6.8 mile path but about 2 miles in Jackson was pretty hot. We had water bottles waiting for us in my car at the end of the walk, but that was still over 4 miles away. So H and Jack walked back to the start where H’s car was and Shelby and I headed out to walk the whole way!

We got to a scenic area and I got Shelby to jog with me for one mile…that was all she could do. She was really overheated. Soooooo ….we walked and talked. Sometimes I would jog ahead and then back to her, it was just a perfect path for a jog! I just wanted to run. But she never could run again so we just walked.

We saw a beautiful heard of cows playing in the Creek, mooing and looking picture postcard perfect. Shelby did a Paula and just had to pee in the weeds. Up ahead of us we came upon an ambulance taking a woman away after (we guessed) she overheated biking. I didn’t think it was that hot, but the lady must have been pushing herself too hard.

H and Jack met us at the other end about 1.5 miles in from where my car was parked. They brought us some water and walked to the end with us. So they got in about 4 miles. I can highly recommend this path for anyone who wants to bike or walk/jog in a beautiful, mostly shaded, wooded area. I could have shaved off some time from our 1 hr. 45 min. walk if I could have run a few of those miles, but it just wasn’t to be today. It really was fun and quite a challenge so I’d love to do this again, maybe when Shelby gets to a point where she can jog a mile, walk a mile. Now that would be fun! I love interval training.

I’m hoping next year someone in my family or one of my friends will get in shape and run the Peachtree Road Race with me. Unfortunately, 2010 was the perfect year to run as the temps were 66 degrees at the start of the race, low humidity ….now that doesn’t usually happen. Wish Susan had wanted to run it this year when I’m healthy and in shape as opposed to last summer when I was too heavy and sedentary!! I’m not going by myself to run that race, half of the fun is the camaraderie of doing it with someone you know. I’ll just keep running my 3 and 4 mile runs around here and try to do some 5K’s this fall…by myself.