What's happening in my world…
Karen and I went to one of the Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween nights as the King and Queen of Hearts. We had a blast interacting with the characters from Alice in Wonderland especially the Queen of Hearts.
We collected three bags of candy between us. As Karen said, “I’ll start dieting when I get home.”
You can see more photos here.
Karen and I had feared that the weather was going to be freezing, but it turned out great. We hadn’t been in the gate for minute before running into Kris Lutz of Community Shares, which puts on the festival. Community Shares is an outreach organization the east Tennessee area.
We talked to guys from Foothill Brewing of Winston-Salem to congratulate them on their Gold Medal at the recent Great American Beer Festival competition.
Community Shares had arranged for accommodations at the Knoxville Hilton, which were super. We had view of a Tennessee river, access to the concierge room, walking distance to Market Square, and walking distance to the festival.
The music was much better this year, but the band started later and later throughout the day. This caused the last band, “The Everybodyfields”, start around 7:30 PM when the beer tents where told to stop serving.
Speaking of beer tents, we like the new layout of the the food and beer tents. The beer ran out early at many tents just like last year.
Karen and I talked with Matthew Chiaro of the Knoxville News Sentinel. We ended up in his article about the beer festival. You read it here.
Karen and I headed to the Monte Sano Art Show in Huntsville, Alabama. We have been going to the show for a few years, but this year the show didn’t have the variety of artisans as past years have had. Karen enjoyed the art show, but she missed some of the pottery and other similar items. The show primary had paintings.
The setting is just wonderful in Monte Sano State Park for an art show. As you can see in the photo, Monte Sano State Park is a forest which covers Monte Sano Mountain in Huntsville, Alabama. The weather was great, too.
My sister has been in town for the first three weeks of August. And, we wanted to go out one time before she left Huntsville, Alabama. Karen and I knew our friend Larry Woellhart would be performing down at Kenny Mango’s Coffee Shop so we all went for a wonderful evening of folk rock. Larry was great as usual. Kenny’s drinks were great as well. You can check out Larry upcoming schedules here.
To see all of the photos click here.
Karen and I had a wonderful time on our anniversary trip. With it being our 10th anniversary, we considered many different trips. We decided to include train travel on the trip, because we travelled by train on our honeymoon.
We started out by flying to Seattle, Washington. After picking up our rental car, we checked-in to our hotel and headed to Pyramid Ale. We had fun finding their restaurant and brewery, because we thought it was located at 1201 North 1st Street, but it was actually at 1201 South 1st Street. The lady working at 1201 North 1st Street said she is asked about the brewery all the time. As for Pyramid Ale, we tried a number of their beers along with a great sausage dish featuring three types of sausage.
For our actual anniversary on August 3rd, we decided to travel to Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada. Our destination was Granville Island, which is a small area within Vancouver that has open markets, artisan shops, boutiques, and restaurants. The artisans make a wide variety of items including metal works, blown glass, fabrics, and clothing. Karen had a blast looking in all of the shops. You could watch many of the artisans work their craft. We had a great lunch outside at Dockside. We purchased some bread and sausage to have for dinner back in Seattle.
For our anniversary dinner, we headed back to the hotel and had our bread and sausage for dinner while watching “My Favorite Spy” starring Bob Hope.
The next morning, we went hiking on Mount Rainier near the Paradise lodge. The trails were surrounded by meadows filled with flowers, which were in full bloom. On the way to and from Mount Rainier, we stopped in Eatonville, Washington.
As we were driving by Eatonville, Karen spotted a sign for the Eatonville Lion’s Club Art Festival. Karen loves art festivals. We found an artisan that had made dishes shaped like fish. They are shaped such that chips can be place in the body and dip can be placed on the tail. On our return from hiking, we stopped again tried their famous roast beef sandwich, which was great.
On Saturday, August 5th, 2006, we headed south to Tacoma, Washington to see the Museum of Glass. Generally, we were not impressed with the museum. It was very small and this is especially true given the cost of $10 a person. I suggest that you find a coupon, which we did. A lot of the pieces are note even glass. On a positive note, the hands on area, the bridge of glass, and the Hot Shop Amphitheater were great. When we visited, the hands on area allow us to make something out of glass pieces and wire. 
Karen and I made bracelets. Mine was not as nice as Karen’s. The picture about is from bridge of glass, which was designed by Dale Chihuly. The Hot Shop Amphitheater is a place where visiting artisans can build their glass art while you watch.
We went to Point Defiance Park to see the beach and enjoyed the five mile loop around the park. On the drive, we take pictures of raccoons. We stopped by the Camp 6 Logging Museum.
On Sunday, we went to the Pike Place Market in Seattle to see the fish fly at Pike Place Fish. If you order a fish, I suggest that you stand back, because the fish will start to fly. We had a great lunch at the Athenian Inn.
On Monday, we started are train ride back to home, but I will post more about that later.
Everyone had a great time at the reunion. The main course was 40 pounds of shrimp which everyone enjoyed. Of course, it was more food than we could eat. Karen and I had left over shrimp the whole week.
The weather was great with a light breeze and the water was great. Reynolds Powe water-skied for the first time; while, a number of the adults had see if they could still water-ski.
Karen and I stayed with Uncle Tommy for the whole week. We had a blast boating out to the Middle Bay Light.
Here some more pictures from the reunion, just click the picture to see them.
My wife, Karen Allen, is running out of mystery books. You never want the avid book reader in your life to run out of books. Never fear, we have found a great mystery book store called the Book Sleuth, but it is in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Karen is in luck, because I travel to Colorado Springs on a regular basis.
Helen C. Randal is the owner, but I will have to confess that Karen and I thought she was dead the first time we walked into the store. She was slumped over and the book she was reading had fallen out of her hand. Given a door bell rang as we entered, we argued for few minutes about who was going to check her vital signs. This went on for a few minutes more, but we soon decided that we would make a large noise, which I am thankful to say she was not dead.
Lyman Mark manages the store for Helen. Lyman must have read very book in the store. You can barely describe a book that you are looking to purchase and Lyman will be able to put his hand right onto it.
Mammoth Cave was cool as in 54° F or 12° C, which is to be expected. Karen and I were on limited schedule of time, because we were heading over to Lexington, Kentucky. Due to our limited time, we decided to only go on the self guided tour of Mammoth Cave. This tour enters through the historical entrance and takes you by the saltpeter artifacts and walks you through some of the largest trunk passages in Mammoth Cave.
The saltpeter artifacts are from the time period around the War of 1812. Mammoth Cave became a valuable commercial property with the outbreak of the War of 1812 between the United States and England. Cave sediments with abundant quantities of nitrate, an essential ingredient of gunpowder, were mined by slaves during the war.
Helpful maps: Park Map & Detail Map.
Karen and I are heading to Kentucky for the Memorial Day weekend. We have never been to Kentucky. Karen has been wanting to see the bluegrass, which not actually blue.
We will start our trip by heading to Mammoth Cave in central Kentucky. As I understand this is the longest recorded cave in the world with over 360 miles of explored and mapped. 
We are going to be staying at our first Bed & Breakfast while we visit Mammoth Cave area. We found the Serenity Hill Bed and Breakfast at BBOnline, which a web site dedicated to providing information about any and all Bed & Breakfasts.
After Mammoth Cave, we will head north to drive the Blue Grass Parkway over to Lexington, Kentucky. 
From Lexington, we will visit the surrounding area including Richmond and Berea. In the Lexington area, we could visit the Kentucky Horse Park (pictured at the top of the page). In Berea, we will surely go to the Kentucky Artisan Center. The center looks to be a great place to pickup a souvenir for our trip.
Karen and I got out and did some hiking today. The weather was great with the temperature around 74º.
If you haven’t hiked the Land Trust trails, you are missing out on some great trails. The trails are primarily located on Monte Sano Mountain in Huntsville, Alabama, but there are others located throughout Madison County and north Alabama. The Land Trust has over 3,400 acres of land. The trails include many levels of difficult from easy on up.
We hiked all over the area between the Land Trust Parking lot and Cleermont Drive. I highlighted our hike on the map. It is a beautiful area with a creek running between the Fagan Spring Trail and Wildflower Trail. We found a lot of wild life on the hike. I saw a large black snake that was over three foot in length, but it move to quickly for Karen to catch up and see it. Soon after the first snake, we saw smaller two foot long black snake similar to the first. The snake did not move. I guess warm of the sun was to good to leave. The under growth was jumping with life, too. We saw chipmunks, squirrels, and lizards frequently. Karen spotted a pool of tadpoles. They were too young to see any legs or arms.
If you are interested in hiking the area, I have provided a link here to the trails in PDF format.