The Apostle Islands are absolutely beautiful. I am ready to go back. We stayed in Ashland, WI on the mainland, but I've already started researching lodging on Madeline Island, the largest island in the chain and the only one with any kind of development other than a lighthouse. (The other islands are all part of the Apostle Islands National ( Read more... )

My hometown is Ashland, VA so my parents thought it would be cool to stay in Ashland, WI this weekend as a base for our tour of the Apostle Islands. If you're ever up this way, you must dine at the Deep Water Grille. Amazingly delicious food and invitingly (that's a word, right?) friendly service ( Read more... )

Using my dad icon for Father's Day!

My parents are coming up for their annual visit this week and we're heading to the Apostle Islands in Wisconsin on the south shore of Lake Superior. I've never been, but I've run across a handful of people in the past few weeks who have and they've all had only awesome things to say. I love these outings my ( Read more... )

Ok. That's the best I could come up with (all 20 seconds I thought about it) for a country singing group featuring me and mj_notes. Get it? Gilman & Wilson? Yeah. So anyway, as soon as you enter the Grand Ole Opry for the tour, they hand you some instruments and get you to pose in front of a green screen. (They had to change the color of my St. Patrick's ( Read more... )

I'm not a huge country music fan, but Nashville is an AWESOME city! Hanging out at a honky-tonk (one of the top three famous ones!) on a Thursday afternoon drinking beer and listening to an amazing live band was a great start. Reminding myself that I wasn't at work only made it better. The Bruins lost to the Predators that night, but the game was ( Read more... )

So much to do tonight... and I just got home from work a little while ago. Why is it that the days you want/need to leave early are usually the days you get stuck there working on emergencies until after 7pm?? No matter... I am off until next Monday and headed to Nashville first thing in the morning to meet up with mj_notes (who is already there and ( Read more... )

I checked on flights to Nashville a couple of weeks ago and the lowest ones I saw were in the $400s and they all had layovers. Ugh. (I'd gotten my non-stop flights to Raleigh and back from Richmond for less than $300.) Luckily, I didn't buy them at that time, randomly decided to check again tonight... and found a DIRECT round trip flight for only $ ( Read more... )

Even though there were a couple of trying moments during my vacation back east, I'd say overall the trip was pretty great. I have plenty more pictures to share later, but wanted to show this one of me and my niblings (nieces and nephews) now. I visualized this photo before I even headed home and, even though my sister wanted to leave ASAP after ( Read more... )

I came here looking for a distraction, but there are no new posts since last I checked. Guess I'll have to finish packing and getting ready for my flight tomorrow morning. I'm heading to Raleigh, NC to visit my sister and her family. My dad's coming down Tuesday night and we're all going to our annual Bruins @ Hurricanes game. Then Dad and I are ( Read more... )

The four day weekend with my parents was AWESOME! We did a ton of stuff that none of us had ever done before. Their first night in town we attended a Twins game at shiny new Target Field and then spent a couple of days exploring many points along the North Shore of Lake Superior between Duluth and Canada including Silver Bay, Beaver Bay, Grand ( Read more... )