Since we are now 6 months (almost) after this trip, and I took no notes anywhere that I can find, I’m hazy on details. Forgive me. When last I left you, I was in Conway, AK. There is nothing substantially exciting for me to say about Conway, except that one of my friends (shoutout for Alisa!) grew up there, and there was some excitement when I made Todd drive all through Deliverance country so that I could use FourSquare to check in at a place called Toad Suck Park.  In the dark. Yes, in this context “excitement” means a lot of “whyarewedoingthisagainithinkwearelost”. There were also some sort of ridiculously loud bugs outside that were really, really, freaking me out, as I decided anything that made that much noise was probably people sized, man eating, and deviously intelligent. We drove from Conway to Memphis. I don’t think it took long. There was probably some geocaching along the way, but since I am hazy on those details and can’t remember what the date was, even looking at my geo-log is not helping me out here.

By looking at my pictures, our first stop was at Central BBQ.  This should be of no surprise to anyone that knows me, because up until a few weeks ago when I experienced the wonder that is the new Carthay Circle Theater Restaurant at Disney’s California Adventure, Central BBQ was my favorite restaurant ON THE PLANET. It’s still a close second. The line is always long, but it moves fast.  If you find yourself in Memphis, go there. We sat on the porch and enjoyed ourselves some lunch. There was a dude playing some music out there, it was a beautiful day, and the food was delicious. Bliss, I say.

That would be my lunch.

Our entertainment.

We then went downtown to visit Mud Island River Park. This park is super fun. You ride across the Mississippi River in a suspended monorail deal, and on the island they have a scale model of the river that you can wade (or float rubber duckys!) in, walk along, etc.  All the cities along the way are marked on the sidewalk, and at the end theres a lake type deal meant to be the Gulf. There’s also a Mississippi River museum, which was interesting. We had a great time wandering through there, and Charlie managed to fall into a fountain and get himself soaked, which was his favorite part.

A view of part of the River Walk from above.

Look, Charlie is just across the river from Paducah! That would be his ducky there. Also, you can see that for some reason, the model of the river was not as full of water as it could have been.

A panoramic look at the view from the island of the river and bridge.

I really have no idea what we did once we were done at the island. I want to say we left very close to closing, and that we then went to like iHop or something like that. Whatever it was, wasn’t picture worthy at all, I guess.

Day two in Memphis, we went and did some shopping here:

Because, you know, yay!  I got more Elvis ashtrays. Don’t judge me, there are worse things to collect.

I think this is also the day we ate at a little Italian/sub shop type place that was cute. Something I’d expect to find quite a bit farther north and east then Memphis. They had Yuengling on tap, which is only exciting if you live where you can’t get Yuengling anywhere, like I do. On the subject of things they don’t have in Colorado, we went here also:

Yum.

Let’s see if you can recognize this porch from where we ate dinner…

Yep, we were back at Central BBQ.  Can’t say enough good things about this place, seriously, if it were up to me we would have eaten there for every meal those two days. Important note, though… there are two locations. The one to go to is the one ON CENTRAL. The one on Summer looks like a Chili’s, had no cars in the parking lot, and when I opened my door and could not smell the meat a’cookin’, I lost interest and made Todd go back to the right one.

That’s it for Memphis… the next trip installment will be an overview of time at Dad’s!

It spoke to me. I identified with it, you might say.  It appears I saved it to my phone on August 6th. Because the interesting, creative work that I like best is using my camera, I have taken pictures every single day since then, and will continue to do so. Because I desperately want that work to be as good as my ambitions. But here’s the thing: I like writing as well. So watch this space. You may see both the photography and the writing, all of my art. Unless you consider color coded Disney vacation spreadsheets to be art. If you do, my last three trips worth are for sale.

And says, “Hey, you ought to think about coming out this month.” So we did. After much discussion about Todd’s deployment dates and a quick decision that he could just as easily (in fact, easily-er) deploy from Knoxville, TN as from Colorado Springs, CO.  A few days before we left, Pops and Mimi got called to Michigan on a family emergency, and that turned out to take longer than anticipated, so they were delayed getting to their house.  We in turn took our sweet time getting there ourselves, beginning with an agonizing tour of southeastern Colorado (fields! of… nothing! and… um… no cell service!) and the panhandles of both Texas and Oklahoma, along with the worst Taco Bell in the nation. This would be located in Clinton, OK, so you can avoid it on future travels yourselves. This was not, as you might gather, the shortest route to our final destination. We were adventuring. Also, I wanted to go to Memphis, which the shortest route bypasses completely. Also, remember, we had time. That first day, though… ick. We stopped many times along the way to engage in our newest hobby, geocaching. If you don’t know what that is, it’s like a treasure hunt by GPS.  We use our phones, and an app that goes along with this here website: Geocaching. For a free way to get some outdoor time and amuse children, I highly recommend. This was the highlight of that first day, even though there is a casino in Clinton, Oklahoma (home of the worst Taco Bell on the planet!) because at said casino, I managed to lose $20 playing poker in three hands, ran into some serious gender discrimination on my way into the poker room, and lost another $20 at the slots in about 20 minutes. So let’s move on to day two, shall we?

At least there was interesting stuff to look at on the road. Trees and such. We stopped for lunch at a place in Henryetta, OK, called Huckleberry’s Pig Out Palace. With a name like that, and the stunning reviews on Trip Advisor, how could we not? Ignore the reviews, folks. It was cute, with a buffet of barbecued stuff, and I can see the potential if I squint a little and tilt my head. I’m pretty sure the producers of Restaurant Impossible don’t read my blog, but just in case… GO THERE, it’s a prime candidate for the show. If I remember right, this is also the day we first discovered a geocache with a note about poison ivy… after we had already found the thing.  Luckily no one ended up with it, and we learned to keep our eyes open in the future. We ended up in Conway, Arkansas, for the night, which is worth mentioning only because I have a good friend that is from there and so I found it amusing that it’s where we ended up at the end of the day. Truly. That’s the only reason to mention Conway. At all. Ever. Moving along…

The third day we went from Conway to Memphis.  Yay, Memphis!  I LOVE Memphis. We ended up staying there for 2 nights, and the drive from Conway was short and uneventful, so I am saving Memphis for a whole different post. It’s where things finally got interesting.

In this post, we have traveled 1100 miles, looked for 14 geocaches, found 12, over 2 and a half days. Next up, adventures in Memphis.

I look kinda goofy, but there’s an art to taking pictures while moving through water and holding a beer, I got it down now, so the next one will be better.

When I post stuffs here, I tend to talk about my people as if everyone reading already knows them. So I figured it might be time to actually introduce you, at least to the people I usually travel with or see on my travels, so you’re all up to date.

First, my family, who actually does travel with me from time to time in between my solo trips to Disney.

Todd is my husband of *cough*awholebunchof*cough years. He’s also my best friend, and an all around stand up kind of dude. Love him bunches. He likes music and me. And he’s cute. And funny. Also in Iraq most months of the last few years, including now. Well, not RIGHT now, right now he’s in Georgia getting ready to go to Iraq. Close enough.

Charlie is my son, he’s high functioning autistic/aspergers we think but haven’t redone the diagnosis, smart as a whip, hilarious at times, not so much at others. He loves anything technology related and… well, that’s about it at the moment. He does online school so he’s home with me most days, and will start 7th grade in August.

Kayla is my daughter, she’s a social butterfly who hardly has time for the rest of us between parties, playmates, and ventures to the playground or park to meet even more friends. She loves music, American Girls, and animals of any type except spidery, and will start 5th grade in August.

Lyn is my mom, AKA Mooley. She’s an adventurer at heart and one of my favorite people. The kids call her Grammy.

Tom is my dad, AKA Pops.  He’s retired to a lake cottage in Tennessee, likes to fish and take his boat out with a stash of good beer on board. The kids call him Grampa Tom.

Mara is my stepmom, AKA Mims. She’s a lovely and gentle woman, with a rowdy side if you cross her… I won’t ever forget the Orlando hotel incident… it’s the only time I have seen her raise her voice, I believe, but I was glad she was on my side.

Now we get to my DS people. Once upon a time, in a land far, far aw- No. Wait. It was around the turn of the century, on the Internet, there was a website called DisneySites, with a forum where I met all these people. It’s since gone off to cyber Never Never Land, but the people are still about. There’s a ton of them, but I am just mentioning the ones I see often, so don’t go getting your panties in a bunch if you didn’t make the list, please.

Kerri is my bestest friend, fellow Schmolland mom, Bears fan, Oreo lover and one of the very few people allowed to live in holly.world.  I think I gave her quadrant away though, I really can’t keep track. Sometimes she’s two years older than I am. *smooches* to you, love.

LaRelle AKA Relle AKA California Cohort is also allowed in holly.world. where she is in charge of rum rationing (since it’s never gone, just always in her trunk) and wardrobe (pirate regalia really, but wardrobe sounds better) and deciding whose day it is with Johnny Depp/Josh Holloway/Nathan Fillion.

Natalie AKA Nat is simply one of the sweetest people I have ever met. Her son Alex is my boyfriend and no matter when I show up at Disneyland, she makes sure there is time for them both, and often her husband Pete as well, to visit with me. Since Alex isn’t legal to drive yet, she always chaperones our dates.

Traci is the first person I met on DisneySites. Actually I think that may be true for both on the website AND in real life, as she just hopped on a plane to come visit me sight unseen so to speak many years ago. She’s a barrel of fun, and cute to boot. *waves*

Now my outliers.  (Outliers is a statistical term I learned while teaching 6th grade math to Charlie. Never heard of such a thing til then.)

Scott belongs to Kerri. He’s in my email address book as Scott Too the Sequel, which I vaguely remember has something to do with Kayla and was really funny, but I don’t remember why. His favorite pastimes include smart ass comments and trying to kill me with vodka.

Terry also belongs to Kerri, being her mom and all. She’s another barrel of fun, and really its a miracle Kerri even likes me at all when I have so much in common with both her husband and her mother, if she was a combination of my mom and Todd I’s probably never speak to her again. Anyway, Terry is pretty cool for a GiGi.

Melissa belongs to… no one really. She came from Traci, though, her and Traci have been friends for a long long time. So I met Melissa through Traci, and we hit it off. She cracks me up, and we have a super fun time together. Unless its 4am on the train and the conductor won’t let us sleep, that is. Then we are just cranky.

Anne is my tech support wizard, and though I don’t really so much travel with her or see her in person much, we FaceTime or Skype a LOT. Her kids are the cutest, she is the most super-mom-like person I know, she does a lot and has oodles of talent. Love her.

Saving the newest for last, there is Kat. Kat runs both Drinking Disney and A Kat and the Mouse, and writes for Orlando Informer as well. I met Kat through Twitter, my refuge from FaceBook, when I won a contest she was running. Super glad I did, because she is fabulous. She’s the newest resident of holly.world. and has no responsibilities here yet. We have lots in common, and hope to meet in real life soon, as it seems both of us share a hobby of making plans to meet each other then changing them then making them again and so on. Currently, she’s on the list for October, and is the reason for the Hollypalooza since she’s in the state with the BIG castle. Her other hobbies include keeping up with her super cute boys and explaining to me why I have to go to Halloween Horror Nights.

Once again, I would totally link everyone’s blogs up here, if I knew they wanted them linked, or if I knew they were still writing, or if I knew where to find them anymore. If any of that applies to you, just let me know and I will link and add you to the residents list. Anne and Kat are the only ones I know are actively blogging at the moment, so they’re the only ones I linked.

I’m posting this tonight from my Dad’s porch along the shores of Watts Bar Lake in Tennessee, where my view is:

and that is as close to live blogging as I may ever get seeing as how I am generally way too interested in what is going on around me to be typing to y’all about it as it happens. There will be posts about this trip coming up!  :)

It’s been a while since I have done this regularly. In fact, I don’t have a good record at all of doing it regularly. I plan to, then it doesn’t work out. So, I’m trying again. No guarantees. Since it’s been so long since anything really got posted, I will attempt to update you on my bloggy life as quickly as possible.  We left off with the dip guy from Knott’s dying…

Good news, they make the dip again. I know you have all been mourning for me and my dip loss, you can stop now. It’s insanely expensive since I have to order it online or send one of my CA minions after it and then pay for shipping, and I have found a reasonable replacement at my local Penzey’s, but it’s good to know I have the option. Even better news, that particular 2 years plus a few months ago trip to Disneyland went well in it’s entirety, I don’t remember details and I can’t find my notebook, so you don’t have to hear about the rest of it. We had fun. The end.

Travel since then: A couple months after Disneyland 2010… I went to see Kerri because she needed me. A few weeks later I went to see Kerri because I had planned to. A few weeks after that, I went to Disneyland by myself. A few weeks after that, I went back to see Kerri just because. That covers the summer. October of that year Todd and I spent a glorious week in Puerto Rico. I will attempt to blog some of that later, so watch the travel tab. November of that year we all went to see my dad in Tennessee for Thanksgiving, stopping to see my friend Anne in Kansas City, Branson (never again, pleaseandthankyou) and Elvis along the way. That covers 2010. In January of 2011 Todd and I went to Disneyland without the kids. Then he went to Iraq again, I went to Disneyland alone in Juneish, and then… well.. I didn’t go anywhere for the rest of the deployment (more about that below).  When Todd got home, we all went to Walt Disney World for 10 or so days, even my mom got in on that trip. Then I last minute ran off to Disneyland alone again for the Leap Day deal where they were open for 24 hours straight. Those last two I will also blog eventually.  Right now… we are leaving tomorrow to drive to my dad’s again, no Branson this time, and we are going a different way. Todd will deploy again while we are there, so the kids and I will drive back by ourselves, stopping…. somewhere…. along the way for a couple days. At the moment I am trying to decide if somewhere is Anne’s, Kerri’s, or some combo of both. I’m also in the planning stages of the Hollypalooza, which I will blog in more detail later too.

Other stuff since then:  Charlie is doing online school. It worked well for 6th grade, we are switching schools (but still online) for 7th grade, and we are excited about it.  We moved. From in Colorado Springs to about 10 miles east of the city, in Peyton technically by mailing address, but we all refer to it as Falcon, since Falcon sort of wraps around our little corner of Peyton and it confuses people otherwise. The process of buying the house was nightmarish, we did a ton of stuff to it before we moved in, and all that will get blogged and probably get its own tab eventually. We like it here, the house is bigger, the yard is bigger, and we are just across the street from Kayla’s school.  The wind is also bigger, the fence is smaller, and we have nothing but dirt in our huge yards, so that presents its own challenges. I’m now a travel agent. I work for Off To Neverland Travel, we all specialize in Disney Destinations, I get to do it from home, it’s pretty much my dream job, so call me if you are going anywhere.  Not just Disney, anywhere.  Our entire house converted to Mac, and we couldn’t be happier about that.

My travel in the last 2 years paragraph is longer than my other stuff in the last 2 years paragraph, so you can see what I do with most of my time there. It’s occurred to me that I should probably put a link to my travel agent site on here somewhere, so I am off to do that.  And ask Anne if there is some way to automate a post to stupid FB and supercool Twitter when I make a new blog post, so that everyone knows without me having to really do anything.

Just to take care of a few things before I head out to Walt Disney World…

Those nifty Disney Parks images at the top are actually meant to be for the cover of your new Facebook Timeline.  They are free and not watermarked and sized to fit, if you are into that sort of thing.  I found them at the Disney Tourist Blog, if you want to download them… all they ask is that you say where they got them.  Which I have just done.  It’s also a fun site to read if you should be into the Disney stuffs.  I’m just using them for the moment so there’s not a huge blank space up there, as I expect to have some decent ones of my own to replace them in a couple weeks.

You that are particularly observant may notice there is only one name in my blogroll.  Anne is my superinternetsgoddess and she helps me with everything, including the redo on this here blog.  So props to Anne, go visit over at her site.  I have no one else in there because I am a horrible friend, don’t check on anyone’s blog, can’t remember where any of them are, and therefore can’t post them up.  Give me your link in the comments and I will be thrilled to add you in there.  Because despite being a hideous friend, I love you.  Really I do.

If you notice stuffs not working around here or anything, let me know.  I’ve only just now taken the whole thing completely live after the redo, and even though I have Anne back there ready to do whatever I tell her to (she really does, it amazes me every time that she doesn’t just tell me to fuck off, I swear) I sorta did things myself, so who knows how that will work out really.

Anyway.  I’m off to pack…

I’ll admit it, I have a new obsession.  It’s Instagram.  If you are not so lucky as to have an iPhone, you don’t get the Instagram app yet and may have no idea what I am even talking about.  So here’s a quick rundown.  You can take pictures with Instagram.  Or bring in ones you have already taken.  It makes them square in a retro sort of manner, and then you can apply different old school type filter styles to said picture, make it so its only focused in one area, etc.  Then, the best part, you can hit a button and post it to not only your Instagram feed, but your Twitter and Facebook accounts and so on. Whatever you tell it to post to.  The feeds work like Twitter and Pinterest (Pinterest is a whole different post on obsession) where you can follow people and people can follow you, plus there is a button for looking at what is popular right now, you can search by hashtag or keyword, etc.  It is MAGNIFICENT.

Now, if you were just looking at my pictures I have uploaded to Instagram you would never realize I am obsessed.  That’s because there are only about 25 or so pictures.  Because there are people on this thing that AMAZE me with what they do with just the cameras built into their iPhones.  I am flat out intimidated, honestly.  I know a lot of people use other editing apps before they post, and I am slowly getting some of these and figuring them out too.  Here are my recommendations for things to use with Instagram:

If you are still wandering around with a silly Android phone or something…. I like the iPhone 4S. besides getting to have Instagram and several hundred thousand other apps you don’t currently have access to, Siri is pretty amusing. 

If you have iPhone, first go get Instagram.  It’s free on your app store.  Then get Instaplus, which gives you different filters and frames and such.  If you really want to do some detailed editing of your pictures, get Photogene2 or Snapseed.  If you want to make panoramas, get Photosynth.  If you want to make little collages, get Photo Frame.  And if you want to add fun text to your Instagrams, get TypoInsta.  If you have an iPad, Instamap is fun, it shows Instagrams from wherever you tell it to on the map.  Sometimes you can get right down to a neighborhood or intersection in larger cities.

Yep, I have all these. Still trying to find things to take pictures of to use all of them… it’s pretty disgusting weather here in Peyton, and I’m exhausting my angles of the dogs and the snow on the school next door.  If you’d like to see what I have so far though, my Insta-name is hollyannheck.  The picture on this post is one of mine. To see the rest, just follow me.  :-)