It's been a while...

We are such bad people! Our last post was over a month ago! Not too much has been going on here - just work and play. Oh, and trying to our taxes done on time - who out there dreads tax season every year? We have been out of town for the past two weekends. Last weekend we went to Pickwick Dam, TN to spend time with our families and celebrate the slew of birthdays we all have between February and March. The weekend before that, we went home - John went off to Super Bulldog Weekend and I went off to a friend's baby shower.

This was the view from our hotel room in Pickwick Dam...

Here we are at our family birthday celebration at the Catfish Hotel, one of the oldest family-owned restaurants in the country...

And what birthday celebration would be complete with a delicious cake from Edgar's? The cake was huge! We ended up giving the bulk of it to the waiters and waitresses in the restaurant!

Here we are at with some of Pickwick Dam in the background...

On the way back from Pickwick, we took the Natchez Trace back to Nashville and stopped at some of the sights along the way. We try to take the Trace home whenever possible. It's so peaceful, there's hardly any traffic (no stoplights or stop signs whatsoever!), and it's conserves gas b/c of the speed limit. Plus, it takes the same amount of time for us to go home by the Trace as it does the Interstate.

This is a creek that runs across the original Natchez Trace. There are places along the new Natchez Trace where you can get off road a little bit and travel down the original Trace. This is one of the spots where we traveled the original Trace.

This is the sight where Merriwether Lewis of the great Lewis and Clark explorer duo died - this was erected over the spot where his remains were found. According to the plaques here and at the Grinder House close by (the Inn where he was staying), his gun accidentally went off and killed him.

Here is a picture of part of the original Natchez Trace. You can't really tell from the picture, put the pathway is extremely narrow. I don't know how a buggy with two horses pulling it side by side would have made it. It would have been a stretch for one horse and a buggy in my opinion. Of course, I guess it's always possible that the original Trace has changed some over the years.

Is the Kraker house crumbs?

Okay, I don't know about everyone else but it was REALLY windy around here last night. Wind gusts stayed in the 50 - 60 mph range for what seemed like hours. Actually, I really think it was for hours. Last night, after John and I came home from going out to eat, we unlocked and opened our door to come inside and almost couldn't get it shut again because the wind was blowing so hard.

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Down further south in Columbus, MS, my parents were having worse problems. A tree fell on the their house! Now, keep in mind their house has survived EXTREMELY high straight line winds (much worse than yesterday) and tornadoes (Columbus has been nicknamed "Tornado Alley" in the past) and has never had a tree fall on it (in fact, it just survived a two tornadoes a couple of weeks ago). Yes, we've had trees fall AROUND it, but never on it...they have fallen in the yard, in the pool, on fences, across both ends of our driveway (blocking us in), and on the garage we have in the back but never actually directly on the house. Wouldn't you know that it would be a cold front to break their streak of luck. The two windows on the front porch belong to my old bedroom. I am so glad I wasn't in there asleep when this happened - I would have had a heart attack....

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Oh, and FYI, I am really upset with our Sanitation Department. We had the trash put out ready to go today (Wednesday is our trash day) and the wind blew it over. Although I was home at the time, I didn't realize it. The trash can was only half full and while it was indeed laying on its side in the grass (six inches away from the curb), the top did not come off. I could understand them not wanting to pick it up if it had blown half way across our parking lot and had gross trash all around it, but seriously, it just tipped over in its designated place with all its contents still completely inside. And, yes, they did not pick it up. I know sanitation workers probably don't enjoy their jobs but how hard would it have been to pick up our trash? What happened to people taking pride in their work and doing their job to the best of their ability no matter what? I'm afraid these are values that are disappearing from our generation at a rapid rate.

And the winner is....

NASH STREET!!!

Starkville, Mississippi

http://www.nashstreet.com/

Last night, John and I attended the 26th annual Colgate Country Showdown (http://www.countryshowdown.com/) at the Ryman here in Nashville. The Ryman is the former home of the Grand 'Ole Opry. Basically, the Showdown is the American Idol of country music with a slew of famous former contestants including Billy Ray Cyrus and Martina McBride. People compete at their own local, state, regional, etc. levels and the regional winners wind up here, competing for the chance to win $100,000. Congratulations to Nash Street on their success - they're on their way! Afterwards, we went to a reception for the band at the Sheraton downtown. We had a lot of fun and enjoyed seeing some people from back home!

The Ryman Auditorium (http://www.ryman.com/)

The Showdown was hosted by LeAnn Rimes.

Here are all the finalists on stage right before the winners were announced singing short clips from their most favorite songs...

Here is LeAnn Rimes singing before the winners were announced...

And here is Nash Street with their grand prize...$100,000 from Colgate!