Grand Rivers Celebrates National Marina Day in Style

The following great information is courtesy of the Grand Rivers Tourism Commission. I totally appreciate them taking the time to share the information with our readers, especially considering how amazingly busy they must be right about now!

GRAND RIVERS CELEBRATES NATIONAL MARINA DAY

SATURDAY, AUGUST 9

Schedule of Events

Lighthouse Landing Marina and Resort Activities

Free Sailboat Rides 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. - Free sailboat rides leave on the hour and last approximately 50 minutes. You may sign up for time slots on the day of the event. This event is very popular and space is limited. Children must be accompanied by an adult and the adult must also bring with them a child’s size lifejacket.

Drawing for Free Sailing Lesson and Sailboat Rental ($270 Value) Enter to win a 2 hour sailing lesson and one day sailboat rental at Lighthouse Landing. Rental boat holds up to four people maximum and damage deposit is required. You must be 21 to enter.

Green Turtle Bay Marina and Resort Activities

Dockers Bayside Grill open extended hours 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Green Turtle Bay’s Ship’s Chandlery Store Big Sale 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Fun for Kids 1:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. - Including free kayak and paddle boat rides, rock climbing wall,
face painting, arts and crafts, and more. Visit with Quarter Midget Driver Dillon Vaupel and see the Green Turtle Bay race car.

Free Rides on the River Rat 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. - Take a ride around the marina on the boat from the River Rat movie.

Food Vendors 1:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
Free Trolley Rides 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Grand Rivers Street Dance featuring Tabatha and Southern Fry’d - 5:00 to 9:00 p.m. beside Dockers Grill at Green Turtle Bay Marina and Resort.

Huge Fireworks Show at Dusk
Best place to view is at the courtesy dock area beside Street Dance and the beach area both at Green Turtle Bay Resort

In this little village of only 230 households and over 600 boat slips, National Marina Day is a big Celebration. The National Marina Day celebration in Grand Rivers is scheduled for Saturday, August 9, and activities will take place at Green Turtle Bay Marina and Resort and Lighthouse Landing Marina and Resort.

Join us in Grand Rivers to celebrate National Marina Day with Green Turtle Bay and Lighthouse Landing. These marinas give our community and visitors access to clean healthy waterways. We salute the role they play in the American recreational boating industry!

I hope you’ll mark your calendar and plan to join in the party. While there, please do yourself an enormous flavor and stop in the Fudge Factory. I know I sound like a broken record, but this is the best fudge in the world. The peanut butter, pecan divinity, chocolate, and chewy praline are my personal favorites, but I’ve never met one yet that I didn’t like. They had a flavor recently that had peanut butter and chocolate both - it’s basically what a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup wants to be when it grows up. Dream, little guy, dream.

Lose yourself in all the wonders of Grand Rivers, you’ll love each and every one. Trust me, the minute you leave this village, you find yourself wanting to turn around and go back, a.s.a.p.

Fortuantely that’s a big Can Do!

2008 Land Between The Lakes Photo Competition

A photographer buff can be certain of one thing when they take their camera to Land Between the Lakes - there’s something amazing to photograph just about everywhere you look.

That’s going to serve one talented shutterbug well.  Entries are now being accepted for The 2008 Land Between The Lakes Photo Competition.

The competition is open to all photographers - all that is required is the completion of a registration form and an entrance fee.  The entrance fee is $20 - $15 if you’re a member of the Friends of LBL.

Contest Categories:

• Mammals - Portraits and Behavior
• Birds - Portraits and Behavior
• Small World – Tight Close Up and Macro
• Connecting People and Nature -People enjoying the LBL
• Habitat - Landscapes and plant life from wild areas
• Digitally Enhanced

Submitted photos must, of course, originate within the Land Between the Lakes. The entry deadline is September 15, 2008. Prizes totaling $3,500 will be awarded on October 25, 2008. The grand prize is $300.  Can you san Santa money?!?!

Click HERE for the contest rules and registration form.  Good luck!

The Farmer’s Feed Mill Restaurant in Leitchfield, Kentucky is Genuine-ly Delicious!

If there’s one thing you can be certain of, I know good food.  If there’s a second thing you can be certain of - my husband knows a good deal.  While driving through Leitchfield, Kentucky last night, we both fell in love with a very charming restaurant. 

You know how there are just some restaurants, shops, businesses…. or even people…. that have Kentucky written all over them?  They’re what we call “Genuine Kentucky” and I, for one, am drawn to them like a dirty kid is to white.

The Farmer’s Feed Mill Restaurant  (located at 110 Sequoia Dr - you’re going to need that address) was just such a place.  As soon as we got out of the car, I took one look at the restaurant and one whiff of the air and knew I was in for a treat.  I’m from Owensboro (the BBQ capital of the world), so I detected the scent of BBQ over all the others.  And it smelled heavenly.

Read more

Redneck Art That’ll Blow Your Mind

I’ll never look at BBQ sauce quite the same again after watching this video.  It’s from the CMT Country Home Videos and, well, it’s pretty country at that.

Obviously no one ever told this boy, “Don’t play with your food.”  Either that or he just tuned them out. It happens.

Check out the self-described Redneck Art at http://youtube.com/watch?v=j3pz2VgIM7E&feature=bz302 -

Be sure to watch all the way to the end.  As magnificent as it looks, I’d still love to roll a chicken leg across it…

The Variety! Music, Memories, & More Show in Grand Rivers, Kentucky Will Move Every Emotion You Own

As I’ve already written, when we moved to a larger server, we lost a lot of posts and reviews. As luck would have it, the longest review I ever wrote (for the Grand River’s Variety! Music, Memories, and More show) was amongst the casualties.

Eh, that’s life. Frankly, if that’s the worst thing that happens to me this month, I’m thrilled - and blessed. Besides, there’s more words where those words came from, so I’ll just rare back and do it all again!

Read more

Dawahare’s Announces They’re Closing Shop

We’re losing a very classy  store in Kentucky.  Dawahare’s clothing stores are closing as the business, after a 101 year run, comes to an end.  I won’t go into the financial details, after all, they’ve always been a class act and deserve to be treated with the same respect.  Suffice to say the economy bit the Lexington-based chain in the same spot its biting the rest of us!

Read more

Always Patsy Cline Will Never Be Forgotten !

About 10 years ago my family and I visited The Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. It was gorgeous. The thing I remember most was Mt Baldy, an enormous dune that we decided we just had to climb. By the grace of God we lived. Mt Baldy was so humongus, we had to stop and question our sanity about 6 times along the way.

About 4 years ago, we lived on Pensacola Beach in the Gulf of Mexico. We were reminded how small we were daily as we stared at the vast, beautiful ocean. It was so huge it left you completely breathless. We watched from the shore as dolphins and whales went about their daily lives in their gigantic home of emerald green.

About 24 hours ago, we found ourselves in Grand Rivers, Kentucky at the Always, Patsy Cline show. The talent and personalities of the two young ladies in the show made Mt Baldy and the Atlantic Ocean feel small.

Amy Davis Bruce (Patsy) and Sara Lynn Minihan (Louise) were absolutely amazing.

My generation isn’t really that familiar with Patsy Cline. Certainly we’ve heard her music, but it’s usually being perfomed by other performers. We’re familiar with how she tragically died, but we aren’t quite as familiar with how she lived. Another tragedy.

After watching Amy Davis Bruce, beautifully, play this American legend last night, I feel like I met Patsy Cline, herself. She brought her to life to the delight of everyone in the audience and left everyone wishing they’d gotten to meet this amazing lady.

Mrs. Bruce’s voice is so powerfully beautiful that I found myself wanting her to sing a lot more songs. I’d love nothing more than to hear her sing again, and the sooner the better. Since the performance, I’ve imagined this lovely singer/actress taking on songs by Faith Hill, Celine Dion, Martina McBride, and Patty Loveless. She’s blessed with the kind of talent that’d allow her to make any song her own.

The band was really something special, too. Since the days of Def Lepard and KISS, I’ve had a special fascination with drummers and the drummer last night (who happens to be married to Amy), Cole Bruce, was phenomenal. A great musician, in my opinion, is one that could put on a incredible show all by themself - and this young man more than fits that description.

The same could be said of the other musicians as well. Eddie Holland (bass), Thomas Michael (guitar), and Scot Durham (piano) were amazing.  Each played his instrument with energy and passion - you know, they played it like they meant it.

Let’s see… it seems like I’m forgetting someone….  Oh!  The wallflower - Sara Lynn Minihan.   Yeah, one of these days this girl might come out of her shell and…

Okay, we’ll throw the sarcasm out the back door and just tell it like it is.  This actress honestly fascinates me.  Like her husband, Bill Minihan, she sings, dances, acts, and is a comedic genius.  Her personality comes shining through her performances and, trust me, that’s a very, very good thing.  When she’s on the stage, you simply couldn’t look away, not that you’d want to.

As Patsy’s friend, Louise, Sara gave a performance last night that was as fun to watch as anything I’ve ever seen.  Her energy and vivaciousness filled the entire theater.  And boy could she tool around. (You’ll have to see the show to see what that means!) I’ve tried to get all of my adjectives to line up in a row for me but there are just too many of them.  Let me put it this way:  I’ve always thought that the world needed more ladies like my personal all-time favorite performer and idol, Lucille Ball.

Apparently God thought so, too.

I’ll never forget the Always…Patsy Cline show.  Everything about it was completely flawless.  It just had everything!  There was beautiful singing courtesy of Amy, side-splitting laughs courtesy of Sara, music you had to tap your toes and bob your head to, tears, cheers, and even dancing in the aisles.

You have to see this show.  You won’t just thank me for sending you, you’ll love me.

To read more about the cast and even hear audio from the show, visit the Always Patsy Cline section of the website.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The Hilarious Greater Tuna Show in Grand Rivers, Kentucky

My husband and I recently had the supreme pleasure of seeing the Greater Tuna show at the Badgett Playhouse in Grand Rivers, Kentucky.  Unfortunately, Greater Tuna will not be shown at the Badgett Playhouse again this year.  If it were, I’d be there right on the front row laughing my head, and who knows what, off.  However, there will be a Greater Tuna Christmas show on the following dates: November 20, November 27, December 4, December 11, and December 18.  We’ll certainly be there, coffee or hot chocolate in hand. You’ve been warned - once these guys start rolling, a couple of hot beverages will probably flow with the laughter.

Although the show we saw will not run again this year, I was very anxious to write about, not only the show, itself, but the ridiculously talented actors who brought these larger than life characters to life.  Bill Minihan and Steve Sherling have to be characters, themselves, to be able to pull this off.  They played the roles of crazy, lovable characters living in Tuna, Texas (the third smallest town in the state) and played them to absolute hilarious perfection.

After the show, as we drove home to Owensboro, I wondered how in the world these guys remembered all of their lines.  During the show, I didn’t think of them as lines or of the actors as…. well…. actors.  They WERE simply the deliciously zany citizens of Tuna and we were being treated to a look into their lives.  That is, of course, the mark of greatness in acting as well as in comedy - you don’t want the audience to sit there thinking, “Wow, he’s a great actor!” or “He’s such a funny comedian!”  You want the audience to buy into what you’re selling them - that you aren’t an actor, you are the character.

What makes Bill Minihan and Steve Sherling extra impressive is the fact that they didn’t just pull this off with one character - they pulled it off with a town full of characters! 

I’m hoping that these same two actors star in the Greater Tuna Christmas show.  They’re sensational and I can’t say enough about them.

I read a biography about Rex Harrison not long ago (for my Hollywood Blog).  The author was discussing the theater and its greatest performers, such as Rex Harrison.   He pointed out that one of the things that set Mr. Harrison apart was that he put his all into, not just each performance, but every second of every performance ; he left nothing lying on the stage’s floor.  The same could be said of these two actors.

We sat on the front row, so we were practically up on them - we could see each gesture and each facial expression.  Bill Minihan and Steve Sherling completely lost themselves in their delightfully fun characters.

As soon as you get a chance to see one of the shows at the Badgett Playhouse in Grand Rivers, Kentucky - run, don’t walk… speed, don’t poke.  You won’t be disappointed. 

You can find more information about the shows as well as the schedule by visiting their website.  Click the banner at the top of the page, or the link below.

 Variety! Music, Memories, and More at the Badgett Playhouse in Grand Rivers, Kentucky

 

Always Patsy Cline Showing in Grand Rivers During the Month of July!

First of all, we recently had to move our websites and blogs to a larger server.  While it tickles me UK blue to have enough visitors and traffic to necessitate such a move, a few posts and updates were lost in the transition.  For example, a long, glowing review I recently posted about the amazing and delightfully fun shows at the Badgett Playhouse in Grand Rivers, Kentucky are as long gone as cheap gas prices. 

I’ll rewrite the review and post it as soon as possible, but I wanted to go ahead and post about the Always Patsy Cline show.  I’ll actually be seeing it this evening, so I’ll add the review tomorrow.  I’m really excited because if it’s anything like the Variety! Music, Memories & More show or their hilarious Greater Tuna show, we’re in for quite a treat!  Ever single person involved with these shows is remarkable.  So much talent!

I’m also looking forward to  Bus Stop.  I believe the first show for Bus Stop, this season, will be September 4th, which means I’ll be reviewing it on September 5th.  Why wait, right?  I’ve been blown away by everything associated with Grand Rivers, Kentucky - from the best fudge in the world to the amazing shows at Badgett Playhouse.  Speaking of fudge, I’d better start getting ready so we can leave early.  I REFUSE to visit the Land Between the Lakes region without loading up on fudge.  It’s just not happening.  

Click HERE for a schedule.  Be sure to take the quick survey - as a thank you, they’ll e-mail you a coupon for a free bag of popcorn.  It’s delicious, too, by the way !

If you need me, I’ll be the brunette eating popcorn and enjoying the Patsy Cline show.  I’ll be the one with Fudge on her breath.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.