windmill arms

Remember this post with those giant windmills in Kansas?

Two summers ago my mom and I were on an antiquing girls trip.

In Hillsboro, TX we saw an 18 wheeler stopped in the town square with this HUGE thing strapped to it that sort of reminded me of a whale or a dolphin.

I had NO IDEA what is was. Finally, my curiosity got to me enough to go over and ask the driver (who was standing around waiting for a mechanic or someone to show up) and he told me that it was an ARM for one of those windmills. It doesn't look that big when it is way high up but it sure does when it's down near the ground!

Crazy, huh?

Kelly

you're right!

so sorry for the blurry picture, but yes, we next stayed the night in Kansas.

Our only hotel of the road trip but we wanted to get some miles in that night so we wouldn't have as far to go the next day . . .

We got to see Megan's beautiful Kansas. It was really neat.

I found two old cake pans at that antique shop. The bottoms come out of them meaning that you don't lose chunks of cake sticking to the bottom of the pan. You can just cleanly run your knife between the bottom of the pan and the cake.

We ate at a little cafe and had a cherry phosphate with ice cream added. :)

One thing I do miss about Texas when I'm away though . . . Blue Bell . . . the ice cream in the phosphate was soft serve! Oh my!

Have you ever been to Kansas? What do you like there? Favorite places to eat/shop?

I'm off to scrapbook with a friend today! What are you doing today? Kelly

next stop

what do you think?

Take me to St. Louie

Did you guess St. Louis?

You were right!

Kelly

this is an easy one

Okay, this is an easy one.

This was our next place.

Do you know what city and state this is?

Have you ever been here?

What are some of your favorite things to do here?

Places to eat?

People to see?

Kelly

ideas needed

Remember this post?

Well, I have these two old chairs out on the balcony. It's a nice little set-up actually except that the brown chair is not very friendly to sit in. :)

Can you see the split down the seat. Your skin can get pinched in there and it hurts!

It's not very practical to try to fix that existing seat so I'm ready to do something else.

This is where you guys come in.

I have thought about cutting a circle out of it and turning it into a planter. Always fun, but is it too overdone? Are there other fabulous ideas out there that I just can't think of at the moment? Have you seen anything neat done with an old chair? I would love to hear your ideas of what I should do with it and especially if you have a photo on your blog or one you can link to of a great old chair make-over I would be much obliged!

Kelly

Happy Fourth of July!

We are so blessed to live in this country!

Adrian and I enjoyed seeing so much of this diverse and great land on our road trip.

We are so blessed to have the freedom to be able to drive all around, go wherever we want, choose our careers, our worship, our dreams . . .

God bless America!

Kelly

road trip observations

great job Gina and Melissa in getting Illinois correct yesterday!

We enjoyed a wonderful visit and some great barbecue with our friends Jenny & Scott.

Now, onto some road trip observations:

Before this trip my opinion was that I didn't really like to stop at rest areas for bathroom stops.

I'm picky about a clean bathroom, I'll admit.

My top choice was to have bathroom breaks coincide with antique store sightings. Why not, right? I could take a spin through and see if anything caught my eye, use a bathroom hidden away in some back corner after going through a maze to find it. Why once there was even merchandise in the bathroom just waiting to be bought and I might not have even found those treasures! AND it was all half price!

Anyway, I am digressing.

We didn't have time for leisurely shopping/bathroom breaks on this trip. We had many miles to go.

We ended up stopping at many roadside rest areas in lots of different states and I must admit they are better than I remember. Some of them were very, very nice. What a great surprise. I don't remember them having soap before but they sure did. Many of them are indoors now and not open air and there is air-conditioning! I had to take a picture of the one above with those butter yellow hand dryers and the vintage looking green tile floors. :) Have you ever seen colored hand dryers? I haven't. Only white or black or silver.

Also, a big hooray goes to Wendy's. We stopped there one day and in their bathroom they had installed something on the door called a "step and pull". At the bottom of the door there is a simple little ledge. You put your foot on it and use it to open the door instead of having to touch the door handle with your hands or try to open it using a wad of paper towels, etc. Genius!

Have you seen any "step and pulls"?

Where do you like to stop on road trips?

Kelly

p.s. One other fun fact: There is an iphone app that will tell you how far till the next rest area, where it is and what amenities it has. Pretty neat.

edited to add: you know what my smart and observant grandma just pointed out?

There is a hand dryer next to nearly every sink. I hadn't noticed before she mentioned it. No more dripping wet hands across the bathroom floor and then having to do the "shuffle by the other people who are waiting to use a stall/sink/only dryer". Yea for this rest stop! Way to go guys. Kelly

after Pittsburgh . . .

We were not done!

We got back in the car and started off again.

We drove through:

and spent the night in the state:

that has a state dance - square dancing!

where Cracker Jacks were introduced

that boasts one it's cities as the "Pumpkin Capital of the World"

Any guesses?

Kelly

high atop Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh has a really cool mode of transportation. They're called inclines and it's a railroad type car that gets pulled right up the side of a hill.

There's a big cable like this:

and cool spinning wheels like these:

That pull this car:

up to the top so you can look out and see this:

This was Adrian's and my second time to go. We had gone before the first time we went to Pittsburgh when we were first dating. It's a fun excursion that I'd recommend if you're ever in the city of three rivers.

my husband knows me well

While we were in Pittsburgh, Adrian took me to a place where they sell recycled building supplies. He knows me so well. If we had a big ole truck I would have been buying pieces of trim like this.

If I had $50 bucks just lying around I would buy a REALLY cool old house number like this.

(Well, I wouldn't really spend $50 bucks on it but if they marked it down and my house number really was 5812 then we might start making a deal. :) )

There were bins full of these and yellow bins full of hardware pieces for a quarter each.

This chair was only $2!

But I didn't buy it.

But I did buy some stuff and pick up three things out of the free bin by the door. :)

Kelly

turquoise doors

I just love these turquoise doors with the big numbers on the transoms. The architecture in Pittsburgh is definitely different from what I'm used to in Texas.

happy day

I interrupt this road trip report to say . . . 

today is my birthday.  :)  

I hope you all have a wonderful day and enjoy doing something fun.  

I have already been the recipient of yummy Italian cream cake cupcakes and I think we're going to go to some garage sales, the farmers market and eat some ice cream.  :)  

I was out of pocket this week and had set some road trip updates to autopost but for some reason I guess they didn't.  Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled road trip updates coming up.  

need more clues?

do these help you out?

City of champions (don't worry, if I wasn't married to

Adrian I wouldn't have known this info either) :)

beautiful lamp post in someone's yard

I got a kick out of the juxtaposition here. :)

And finally, Steelers gear!!! Go Steelers

Now do you know? I'm trying to think of a good prize . . .

Also, have you ever been to this city?

What do you like to do here? Are there any restaurants where you like to eat? Places to shop? Kelly

next stop

After eating dinner and dessert in Ohio, we drove on here:

just in time for this:

and later some of this:

and definitely eating this:

chocolate cupcake, peanut butter buttercream and pretzels mashed into the top

If you're a long time reader of my blog you might remember this place being mentioned before and possibly what city/state it's in.

So, ladies and gents, what are your guesses?

City?

State?

Bonus details?

Kelly

Ohio!!

After Nashville, we drove through Kentucky and into Ohio.

We stopped in Columbus for dinner at a pizza place we found on tripadvisor.com called Rubino's. The pepperoni/double cheese pizza was yummy and piping hot. For those of you in Dallas, it was a little bit like Campisi's with it's thin, crisp crust.

As we were driving down the street to Rubino's to meet up with our call ahead order, we spotted Graeter's ice cream shop. I had heard that Graeter's was yummy from Modgirl and so we had to save room for an ice cream stop on our way back to the interstate of course! :)

I had mint chocolate chip on a sugar cone and Adrian had black raspberry chip and mocha chip. The mocha was AMAZING! We ate our ice cream and enjoyed watching a chipmunk and the fireflies beginning to blink. (Has anyone ever seen a chipmunk in Texas? I haven't and therefore find the little creatures especially cute and charming.)

AND they had the neatest ceiling fans inside. They all were connected by belts so that they all ran together off of one motor. It was neat. It was a very fun date on day two of driving cross country.

Have you ever been to a Graeter's?

What's your favorite ice cream shop and where is it?

What flavor do you like to get?

Cone or cup?

Kelly

p.s. you guys are right, the road sign was from Kentucky. I forgot and thought it was after we were in Ohio but I was wrong. Sorry for a misleading clue and way to go for those of you who knew Kentucky!

do these help?

Guess a state.

Guess a city.

Bonus points for other pertinent info guessed. :)

I've got one reader who I'm really hoping might recognize something in this photo because I went to one of these places because of your recommendation. :)

Kelly

clue #2

Do you know what state we're in now?

(without googling these places?  come on now!)

Kelly

where do you think we went next?

back to the guessing game!

so where do you think we went after Nashville and took this photo?  

arrggg . . . I make it hard, don't I?  Hey, if there ends up being a prize then this couldn't have been *toooo* easy a game, now could it?  

Another clue to come later today.  :)  

Kelly

Nashville

We went to Nashville!

We left Dallas and drove to TN and had dinner, visited and spent the night with my aunt, uncle and cousins. It was so wonderful. Family is just one of the most special things ever. Then we drove on to Nashville to meet up with a whole slew of friends from college days. It was SUCH fun! Thank you all for making the effort to come! It was WONDERFUL to see you. I feel so good after spending time with you. It is terrific.

We ate at the Pancake Pantry. A girl we met on a plane a few weeks ago had told us about it and who knew we'd make it there so soon! I had the sweet potato pancakes with cinnamon cream syrup - um yum!

Have you ever been to the Pancake Pantry?

What did you get?

What is your favorite kind of pancakes? Do you make them at home or get them out?

What is your favorite breakfast restaurant and where is it?

Kelly