Tuesday, February 21, 2017

🎂🎂🎂 2017 February 20, Celebrating Washington's Birthday Montevallo, Alabama

Hubby and I celebrated Washington's Birthday in Montevallo at the American Village.
George Washington came out of Washington Hall at 12:00PM gave a speech and everyone sang happy birthday to him.
People lined up to receive a free cupcake but there were not enough cupcakes to go around.
Celebrating Washington's Birthday
The exterior of the hall is inspired by George Washington's beloved Mount Vernon. It has beveled-edge block walls. When mixed with paint and sand it gives the appearance of stone masonry, a process called "rustication".
The unique open-air colonnade walkways to the dependency buildings were personally designed by Washington. The four-columned portico is reminiscent of the piazza on the back of Mount Vernon, which overlooks the Potomac. The large Palladian window in The Mount Vernon Room is defined by the arched window, 
Greatest Miniature Museum 
Hall of Presidents and First Ladies
Founders Hall
We visited Colonial Chapel where we listen to a story about a slave who wrote poetry 
We strolled through the Liberty Bell Garden
The Liberty Bell 
The Liberty Bell was commissioned on November 1, 1751, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of William Penn’s Charter of Privileges for his Pennsylvania colony. The radical charter granted religious liberty to persecuted faiths, including Quakers, Jews, Catholics, and others, thus establishing America’s tradition of religious freedom.

The Bell cracked when first tested. 
Two local foundry men recast The Bell and it began service in 1753 tooling special events. In the Revolutionary War, The bell tolled to announce the Battle of Lexington and Concord and the first public reading goes The Declaration of Independence on July 8, 1776.
It cracked again on July 8, 1835, during the funeral procession of Chief Justice John Marshall. It was repaired but cracked again in 1846 when it rang for George Washington’s birthday. It has not been rung since. It was not called “The Liberty Bell” until 1839 when William Lloyd Garrison’s anti-slavery publication, “The Liberator” published a poem about the Bell. This use by advocates of the anti-slavery movement made The Bell a new symbol of freedom.
We strolled through the fields of Tulips selecting a few to take home.
Oval Office We visited the Oval Office located in the West Wing of the White House where the last 45 presidents have spent many hours working. We saw a bust of Abraham Lincoln, & Ronald Reagan.  Pictures of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, a group of Ford, Carter, Bush, Nikon, and Reagan. Books are written by various presidents. 
The Resolute desk is a large, nineteenth-century partners' desk mostly chosen by presidents of the United States for use in the White House Oval Office as the Oval Office desk. It was a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880 and was built from the English oak timbers of the British Arctic exploration ship Resolute
We saw two little girls sharing a seat at Independence Hall
 Montevallo University ranked 13th best public university in the south in its division U.S. News & World Report
College of Distinction
2012*2013*2014*2015*2016
Helping Hands 
The Becoming Sculpture was created by Ted Metz, a University of Montevallo art professor. The sculpture, 16 feet tall and made of bronze, was unveiled on February 15, 2003. The pedestal underneath the sculpture is made of limestone and red bricks. The sculpture depicts two hands: a young hand representing university students reaching out toward the future, and an older hand representing the university itself guiding the student to that future. The separation between the hands represents the student’s graduation. The older hand was modeled after Metz’s own hand, while the younger hand was modeled after one of his student’s hands. The sculpture was created on campus by about 40 university students under the direction of Metz and took 22 months to complete. Approximately 90 individual molds were cast using 5000 pounds of bronze. The sculpture stands near Main Hall and Wills Hall.

We visited the Alabama National Cemetery in Montevallo 
Initial construction began in November 2008 and created space for 1,000 casket burials and 1,000 in-ground cremations. Except for minor irrigation work, construction was completed in early June 2009. The grounds were consecrated on June 18, 2009, one week before burials.
Ate a Nacho Supreme for dinner
It was a great day for traveling.
We were home by 6:30PM

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Valentines's Day Adventure!❤️❤️

Hubby and I celebrated Valentine's at Famous Dave's at Cool Springs.
We ordered the Valentine's Special
Celebrate your Sweetheart Famously!
Our BBQ Feast for TWO
Only $24.99 -Save $10
4 corn on the cob, 7 slices brisket, Several ribs, two pieces of BBQ Chicken, a basket full of fries, baked beans, Coleslaw, cornbread muffins, and a bowl of Collard Greens!!!!
YUM! YUM!
I love this place and we do not have one anywhere near where we live.
A Feast for two (corn on the cob, brisket, chicken, ribs, slaw, fries, baked beans, cornbread muffins, collard greens.
We had two boxes of takeaway.
We rode to Hundred Oaks to see the Bedford Falls Train display.
Hundred Oaks is now Vanderbilt Health Center.

A radio station was parked at Hundred Oaks. A man dressed as a Valentine was passing out free ROSES. I took one and thanked him.
Cupid Rhymes with Stupid 96.3 JACK FM playing what we want!


"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet


❤️❤️
The train display was inside a glass case at one of the doctor's offices.
You could see the display from the outside but to get a better view you needed to go into the waiting room.
I meet this little boy about 7 or 8 years old playing with the buttons.
So, together we would go from one to the other buttons to see what each one would do.
One moved the train, one the trolley, one the sky lift, one the ladder truck, one the fire truck, and one the ambulance. I took several pictures of the display.
The little boy wanted to look at the pictures each picture I took so, I would show them to him.
When I got ready to leave the little boy's father said, thank the nice lady for sharing the pictures with you. I told the little boy and I never thought to ask why he was at the doctor's office. He looked healthy so maybe everything was okay with him.
You are now in Bedford Falls
Bedford Falls (or Pottersville) is the fictional town in which the American Christmas drama It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and Philip Van Doren Stern's 1943 short story "The Greatest Gift" (on which the film is based) is set. The Bedford Falls railway station is the main form of transport to get in or out of the town. The location is used only once in the film when Harry (Todd Karns) comes back from university with his wife Ruth Dakin (Virginia Patton) as George and Uncle Billy are waiting there. While waiting there George says to Uncle Billy that a train whistle is one of the three most exciting sounds in the world. The other two were anchor chains and plane motors
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet


❤️❤️
We walked to the electronics store but they did not have what we wanted. We stopped at the Walmart a few streets down and purchased a few items.
We took the highway US 31 there was a lot of road construction in Thompson Station and we rode by Clarks Distillery but was closed
In Spring Hill we stopped at Murphy for gas and Walmart. We also stopped at Dairy Queen for an Ice Cream (they have the best ice cream).


On our way to Nashville, we stopped at the newly rebuilt I-65 Welcome Center at Ardmore Giles County which features eco-friendly solar panels, recycling, and a Geo-Thermal Operating System.
Inside they have five rocking chairs, a fireplace, and a display about the Civil War.
I-65 Welcome Center at Ardmore Giles County 
It was overcast and rained a little, not much of a day for being outside.
We were home by 6:30PM.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Valentine Poem You are an Angle from Heaven ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Fotoons at Disney 
Daughters are the angels from heaven 
They have this fairy light 

They end the darkness in your life 

Making everything oh so bright 
You bought that light in my life 
You are the reason why I strive
My only blessings for you on this day
Is that you stay happy all the way 
That grace on your face is true
Lucky to have a loving daughter like you 
I love you with all my might 
You make my world so bright
Smoky Mts
Taking the Ferry to Boston 
Happy Valentines
to a great mother and a great father.
You are so sweet of love fleet but the best you could do is do let me kiss you.
Lora❤️❤️
I love you, my mom, ️❤️
Sunny days
bring happy thoughts to everyone when their glommie.
Anyway, mommies make my day.
Roses are red violets are blue, sugar is sweet and so are you.
Mommies are sweet,
mommies don't stink,
mommies always think.
When your glommie and fill Lonnie just take a break and shake.
Exercise, always try never ever cry.
 I wish you a very happy day.
If you wish when you are sick, you may just get the wish.
Purple, blue, green, pink, black, brown, gray, no color is prettier than Mother
From
Lora ❤️❤️
Lora❤️❤️
Lora❤️❤️

Touring Hartford's Capitol Building

Rotunda
Hartford Capitol
The building is one of the largest Eastlake-style buildings. The exterior is of marble from East Canaan, Connecticut, and granite from Westerly, Rhode Island. The building is roughly rectangular, the interior spaces organized around two open interior courts that run vertically to large skylights. In the center is a third circular open rotunda beneath the dome. The larger hall of the House of Representatives forms an extension on the south side.
Stained Glass windows  QUI TRANSTULT SUSTINET
Connecticut the Constitution State 
The figurehead of the US Constitution 
From the Battle Field of Chickamauga 18863
Genius of Connecticut
The Genius of Connecticut by sculptor Randolph Rogers (1877–78), a plaster version of the bronze statue (destroyed) originally mounted on top of the dome, is exhibited on the main floor

Hotchkiss Revolving Cannon
"Hotchkiss gun" also refers to the Hotchkiss Revolving Cannon, a Gatling-type revolving barrel machine gun invented in 1872 by Benjamin B. Hotchkiss (1826–1885)
Houses of Representatives  Republicans and Democrats
Bushnell Park backside of Capitol 
William Buckingham Governor and US Senator
The ship USS Governor Buckingham (1863) is named after him. Buckingham was a benefactor of Yale College and served as president of the Board of Trustees of Norwich Free Academy and as president of the Connecticut State Temperance Union. His house in Norwich is owned by the city and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. A street and school are named in his honor in Norwich, and a statue of him is inside the State Capitol Building in Hartford
Charter Oak
 The name "Charter Oak" stems from the local legend in which a cavity within the tree was used in late 1687 as a hiding place for the Charter of 1662.

Columns in North Hall
Nathen Hale
Nathan Hale (June 6, 1755 – September 22, 1776) was an American soldier and spy for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He volunteered for an intelligence-gathering mission in New York City but was captured by the British and executed. His last words before being hanged were reported to be, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country
Charter Oak Chair of the Lieutenant Governor in Senate Chambers
The oak was blown down in a violent storm on August 21, 1856, and timber from it was made into several chairs now displayed in the Hartford Capitol Building. The desk of the Governor of Connecticut and the chairs for the Speaker of the House of Representatives and President of the Senate in the state capitol were made from wood salvaged from the Charter Oak.
A wooden baseball made from the Charter Oak was presented by the Charter Oak Engine Co. No. 1 on September 20, 1860, to the Charter Oak Base Ball Club of Brooklyn.[2]
The New London Historical Society has a pair of cufflinks made from the wood of the Charter Oak with the initial "G" donated by Samuel Goldsmith.
Scions of the tree still grow in Hartford and many other towns around Connecticut.
Senate Chambers * our tour guide
Hartford Capitol Dome Victorian Period architecture. 






Visiting Lighthouse Point Park New Haven, Connecticut

New Haven Harbor Lighthouse
The New Haven Harbor lighthouse is also known as the Five Mile Point Light because it sits on a point of land five miles from the New Haven Green.
The history of the lighthouse began in 1804 when Amos Morris sold one acre to the U.S. Government for $100. On this site, the first lighthouse and keeper’s house were built of wood. In 140 work began to construct the 70-foot lighthouse, with sandstone quarried from East Haven and a solid brick interior. Its spiral granite staircase leads up to the lantern loft where the lighthouse lens was mounted. It was the keeper's duty to make sure the light was burning all night. By day he was to clean the lens, polish all brass, and fill the lamp with fuel. This lighthouse guided many ships into the harbor until 1877 when the Southwest Ledge light was built nearby on a Long Island Sound breakwater.
In 1990, the lighthouse was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Beach at Point Lighthouse Park 
The Carousel & Ballroom at Lighthouse Point Park 
New Haven Harbor Lighthouse 
New Haven Harbor Lighthouse 
Beach and Lighthouse
Boat 




Butterfly Garden 
Butterfly Garden
Annual Migration Festival -
In September, the Ranger staff hosts the Annual Migration Festival at Lighthouse Point Park in conjunction with Audubon Connecticut and several New Haven area birding, butterfly, and environmental organizations.
The park is located on the Atlantic Flyway, a major route for butterflies, hawks, and many other bird species in their annual migration south for the winter months. Events include bird-watching walks, hawk displays, butterfly observations, and the annual hawk count, among others.
Beach at New Haven's Lighthouse Park
In 1924 the City of New Haven purchased Lighthouse Point Park from the East Shore Amusement Company. City residents came to the park to enjoy swimming, ferry boat rides to Savin Rock, track meets, football games, field days, and baseball leagues in the old grandstand/ballpark. The park, in the roaring ’20s, attracted legends Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb to Sunday afternoon games.
The hurricane of 1938 ripped through the park, destroying many buildings and trees. In 1950 the City was able to make major improvements at the park including a new bathhouse, a first aid station, and concession stands. A small amusement park was added and the beach was greatly improved


2024 Apr 27, Car & Tractor Show, Tee-Ball Game, Art Museum and Sisters

Hubby and I  rode to Killen Park for the Killen Log 877 Classic Car Show which featured bikes, jeeps, classic cars, and new cars. Cahaba Shr...