Hiking at Turkey Run State Park

 

 

 

We usually try to do a daytrip the Saturday before Memorial Day.  Last year we drove up to Lake Michigan and had a beach day, but it was way too cold for the beach this year.

 

Instead of putting our toes in the sand, be put on some tennis shoes and headed to Turkey Run State Park for a day of hiking.

 

I love Turkey Run!  It’s about an hour and half west of where we live, but it has some of the best hiking trails in our area.  Most of the trails are pretty easy, making it a really nice park for families, but they also have more rugged trails for those who prefer a little more of a challenge.  The park is not as large as some other state parks, but the beautiful scenery and the well-maintained trails that are easy to navigate make the park a real gem. 

 

The weather was cooler than average on Saturday, which made for great hiking weather.  After picnicking at one the many picnic locations in the park, we spent the remainder of our time hiking.  We spent several hours on the trails, hiking about ten total miles.

 

Here are a few Instram pics of our day.

 

Weekend Getaway - Nashville, TN

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        We try to take a weekend getaway every year around our anniversary.  This past weekned we did just that:) Desperate for warmth and sunshine, I planned this year’s trip to Nashville, TN. Nashville is five hours due south of Indy, and temperatures are usually around 70 this time of year! Unfortunately the weather wasn’t on our side. It still felt like winter while we were visiting:( Other than the weather, we really enjoyed our trip. Normally, I would use pictures from my trip to give readers a step by step of our planned weekend. For this post, I decided to go to Google images and look up pictures of where we went, linking pictures back to the source where I found them. The reason for this is because we ran into a phone/computer problem when we got back from our trip, and all of my photos from the weekend got deleted - major bummer:( On the bright side, I did manage to upload a few pics to Instagram as we were experiencing our weekend, and I’ll share those pics at the end of this post. Without further ado, here was what I had planned for our weekend in Nashville, TN.



OUR TRIP ITENERARY

We left the house around 8:00 a.m. on Friday and drove five hours south to our destination.  There is an hour difference between Indy and Nashville, so by gaining an hour we arrived around lunch time.  We started our trip by visiting downtown Franklin, TN.  Franklin is a historic town about 30 minutes south of Nashville.  We enjoyed visiting the shops of this quaint town.

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We ate lunch at the Franklin Mercantile Deli.  I’d describe this place as country chic.  Decorated in a casual yet classy country setting, I definitely noticed the detail that went into the décor and really appreciated the atmosphere. It’s a soup, salad and sandwich place, but it has a bistro feel to it as well.  Many appeared to be enjoying a glass of wine with their meal, and several people seemed to come in for the soup of the day or fruit tea.  I did not try the tea, but the tomato basil soup was delish!  Best of all, it cost us less than $20.

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After visiting downtown Franklin, we checked into our hotel on the outskirts of Franklin, so we could get cleaned up for our evening plans. I prefer to stay in three or four star hotels when we travel, and I ALWAYS read the reviews!!!   A nice hotel in a convenient location with the best price is VERY important to us when we travel. Initially, I wanted to stay in downtown Nashville, but I couldn’t find a nice hotel for less than $250 a night, breakfast not included.  Not willing to pay that price, we decided to stay at the Hyatt Place (Nashville/Franklin/CoolSprings) for $140.  Our suite was nice and the hotel was overall a clean, modern hotel with a pretty good breakfast buffet.

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When I planned our trip I wanted to eat dinner at Ellendale's, but it was a little pricier than what we wanted to spend.  We ended up looking for something at the last minute using Urban Spoon.  The hubs was pretty persistent on eating BBQ.  We found something local, B & C Melrose BBQ, that was pretty good and less than $20 for the two of us.  After dinner, we had tickets to a 7:00 show at the Grand Ole Opry.  I recommend getting there early.  We arrived at 6:00 and had plenty of time to visit the Opry shop and take our pictures.  Tickets for the show were $45 each.  I’m not a huge country fan, but there is nothing like the opry, and I think that the cost was well worth it.  This was definitely the best part of our trip.

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The following day, we visited downtown Nashville.  We walked the river, saw some historic sights downtown, visited Music Row, walked the stars in the Walk of Fame Park, saw way to many cowboy boots, and had some fantastic fudge.  If you're really into country music, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is reccomended.  It wasn’t really something that we were in to, so we didn’t spend the money on it. 

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We try to look and see if we are near places that have been featured on Food Network when we travel. Hog Heaven, in downtown Nashville, is literally a little BBQ shack by Centennial Park that has been featured on "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" and "The Best Thing I Ever Ate". The meat was excellent, and I loved that we could just grab our food and eat in the park!

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Before heading back home, we walked the ground of neighboring Centennial Park.  This park is unique because it is home to the Parthenon. We were originally going to stay in Nashville two nights, but two save money we decided to leave Saturday evening instead.  That proved to be a wise move, due to the late spring snow storm that was awaiting us in Indy on Sunday;)

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OUR TRIP VIA INSTAGRAM

Had a lovely afternoon visiting historic Franklin, TN with my love! Time to get ready for dinner and then a show at the Grand Ole Opry:)



Ate lunch at the cutest little deli today in Franklin, TN. Very country chic. Great place to grab fresh homemade soups, salads and sandwiches! #franklinmerchantiledeli #tennessee #weekendgetaway

Found a pretty good BBQ place for dinner. You know you've found descent BBQ when it's served on a disposable plate;) For real...this stuff is meant to be yummy and messy, not fancy and pretty:) #b&cmelrose #tennessee #weekendgetaway

Getting ready to go in:) #thegrandoleopry #nashville #tennessee #weekendgetaway

The only names I recognize for tonight's show are Ricky Skaggs and Alan Jackson. #thegrandoleopry #nashville #tennessee #weekendgetaway

 

I'm not a big country fan, but this is pretty cool. Such a beautiful, historic building! When I think of Nashville, this is what I think of:) #thegrandoleopry #nashville #tennessee #weekendgetaway

Again, I'm not a huge country fan, but listening to Alan Jackson sing live was pretty surreal. Definitely the best part of the night! Was so happy he did two of my favorites in his song selection tonight, "Remember When" and "Drive".

 

Had so much fun with him tonight! So glad we decided to get tickets to this! #thegrandoleopry #nashville #tennessee #weekendgetaway

 

This is the coldest it has ever been for our anniversary weekend. Usually my boots are put away by now, but yesterday was definitely a boot wearin' kind of day....even though we were 5 hrs south of home. Have I mentioned #imoverwinter yet? I'm pretty sure I have:/

Had a great time visiting downtown Nashville today! I could have done without the cold dreary weather that must have followed us all the way from Indy, but other than that it was a good trip. #nashville #tennessee #weekendgetaway

 #nashville #tennessee #weekendgetaway #hogheaven #bbq

 

#nashville #tennessee #weekendgetaway #centennialpark

Autumn in the Park......

 

         Over night…..that’s how fast it happens.  The warmth of the yesterday’s upper seventy degree temps have been overtaken by today’s lower forty degree temps.  Autumn is my favorite season, and yet it always seems short-lived.  Just two weekends ago, there was still quite a bit of green on the trees, and today as I look out my window, most of the leaves have fallen from the trees leaving behind branches that will be barren for the next six months.   I do love the colors of fall, but oh how I wish the colors would stay longer than they do!  I love nothing more than being outside in perfect weather with the beautiful colors of fall all around me.

         The weather has been perfect this week, and the forecast was letting us know to enjoy it while we could.  Wanting to enjoy what looked to be the last nice day for awhile, I sent my husband a text yesterday letting him know to meet me in the park after work.  As soon as I got off of work, I went home to grab the picnic basket, a blanket and a change of clothes for my love.  I had just enough time to make a quick stop to good ol’ Trader Joes to grab some items for our picnic dinner before the hubs met me for our date.   Surrounded by trees that still had a few autumn leaves left on their branches, we ate our dinner and enjoyed one another’s company in the comfortable temps of the autumn air.  Today those leaves have probably fallen, as a cold front blew in over night.  Today looks and feels more like winter.  With daylight savings time coming up soon, our evenings will be getting shorter too, so I’m really glad that yesterday we made time to have one last autumn night in the park.  There was no better way for us to spend the evening than being outside in God’s beauty and in one another’s company.

 

 

 

The Covered Bridge Festival

 

           This past Saturday, we traveled two hours west to Park County to visit the Covered BridgeFestival.  The Covered Bridge Festival is one of the largest festivals in Indiana where several towns in Park County celebrate the longevity of the thirty-one covered bridges in the area.  I’ve been an Indiana resident my whole life, but this was my first time attending the festival.  About an hour into our drive, we began our stretch of a two lane highway that passed through several small towns, all of which were having yard sales as the festival traffic made its way through.  I’ve never seen so many yard sales off of a small highway.  We didn’t stop at any, but note to self: remember to allow more time for the yard sales next time.  Once we arrived in Park County, we visited three town festivals: Rockville, Bridgeton and Mansfield.  Each town is full of food and different vendors selling all sorts of items.  Most of the food is like fair food, but there’s some good home cookin’ here and there if you look for it.  As we journeyed to and from towns, we stopped at the covered bridges along the way.  The county makes it easy to get from town to town by using signs and arrows to get you everywhere.  Just follow the arrows and you won’t get lost.  On the plus, parking for each town was only $2-4.  On the down side, we weren’t expecting the traffic that came with the large crowds that were out and about seeing what each town had to offer.  Overall, we had a good time and would definitely do it again:)  If you every visit Indiana in mid October, I’d recommend the Covered Bridge Festival.

 

Painting Pumpkins

 

            In the past, Matt and I have traditionally carved our pumpkins.  And in the past, he has traditionally complained about such a tradition EVERY SINGLE year.  He hates all things pumpkin, and the only reason why he ever carves them with me is because I gave him such grief about it during our first year of marriage. 

         Starting family traditions was a big deal to me when we first got married, especially during the holidays.  The first year we were married, I bought two pumpkins, a pumpkin carving kit, and some yummy fall food in hopes of having a date night carving pumpkins with my love.  Being newly weds, Matt must have not gotten the clue that pumpkin carving was my idea of a date, because he ended up taking a nap while I sat out on the porch carving both pumpkins all by myself.  My feelings were a little hurt that year, so the next year he brought home pumpkins for us to carve together.  He still hates pumpkin carving, but he’s done it with me every year since then. 

           This year, I decided that we would paint pumpkins, so he didn’t have to touch any of the pumpkin guts.  I was a little OCD about the placement of the polka dots though, so what ended up happening is that I painted all of the pumpkins, while Matt sat in the rocking chair eating caramel apples.  I think this new plan worked for us though. As a result, pumpkin painting may end up becoming our new tradition.  I got to express my creative side, which I love doing.   Matt got to eat, which he loves doing. At the end of the night, we still enjoyed one another’s company.  Yep, I’m definitely sensing a new tradition for us;)