TND West

One thing I found out when I visited Charlotte, North Carolina with my parents last year is that they really enjoy scaring people at Halloween. And from what I understood some of their attractions are open at other times of the year too. I’ve never really enjoyed ghosts or haunted houses but since it was late October when we were there my parents really insisted that we check out some of these places. I tried to tell them that I was too old but they knew better.

I had always had a bit of hesitation when it came to haunted houses, supernatural themed movies and other scary things. In fact, when I was little I used to try and pretend I was sick on Halloween, but unfortunately I’m an only child and my parents love Halloween. They always turn our garage into a haunted house and this alone scared me every night. Meanwhile, this was also part of the reason they insisted on going to some of the haunted places in Charlotte. We had to be there, well my dad did for a business trip, and they couldn’t do our own haunted house so they insisted that we go to some in Charlotte. I tried to act interested, but some of the places really are scary.

So, we went to this place called The Campground Massacre. I thought that it might be kind of campy, no pun intended, because of the name and had hopes that it would just be silly. But no way, no chance, that place was frightening as heck. It was like you were actually existing in some creepy gruesome horror movie and I felt like I was in one of those bad dreams that I couldn’t get out of. Really, it was horrible. My parents had to call and tell there friends about this place as they really loved it. And if you like places like this you can probably get information on it from any of the hotel lobbies and other places like the Internet.

There are many things that bring people to Duluth. It is a port city on the edge of Lake Superior that handles large cargo ships filled with products for our country. When people travel here they may bring their kids along and there are things for them to do as well. In Duluth, there is available the first and only all freshwater aquarium called the Great Lakes Aquarium. There are also many nice places to walk including a trip to the impressive Aerial Lift Bridge. As you spend time in the area you may want to read up on who either spent time here or lived here as the city was growing into what we know Duluth today. There are many great hotels in Duluth to stay in, which you can find here and they will have information on all the sights to see. They may not have information on some of the interesting people that came from this area. Unless you plan to spend a day at the library searching for  the history of the city.

We live in a world of fast and loud entertainment in every category like music, movies and sports. It is always interesting to stop and think of the history of the country and one of those pieces includes silent movies. Carol Dempster was born in Duluth and she was an actress in silent movies. Her legacy lives on in the many projects she worked on and it is fun to slow down and see the thespian drama that made silent movies work. There was no dialogue it was all presented in every slight action of the face and body. It was really quite and art to being able to convey a point without being able to speak. Carol Dempster was a beautiful woman who worked with D.W. Griffith, a legendary film director, on many projects. She was able to work side by side with actors like W.C. Fields, John Barrymore and William Powell. She got her first role in 1916 and played her last role in 1926. She lived a long life and left a great historical legacy.

There have been some great musicians and bands that have come from Buffalo New York. You can find a great room at one of the luxurious hotels located in Buffalo at this site and see what city may have inspired in music artists like Ani DiFranco  and the Goo Goo Dolls. These are only two of many notable musicians and bands that come from this area. If you get out for some night life you may find the music scene has as much life, energy and enthusiasm as the people who live in the city. It is vibrant. It is truly intense to see the many famous people from all sorts of businesses who came from or grew up in Buffalo.

Ani DiFranco is an interesting person to me. She started playing guitar at the age of nine. She would play covers in the local bars the Beatles were an early influence for her. She immersed herself into the music industry and started her own record company Righteous Babe Records in 1994 and started making albums. Eventually she moved to New York City, took some poetry classes and then started to tour regularly. She toured pretty hard for about fifteen years and then sadly got tendinitis and decided to take a break in 2005. She made it back playing in some festivals in 2006. She has a daughter with her co-producer Mike Napalitano but she still tours today. Her still is really unique and has been an influence to many singer and songwriters that are out in the world today. She has always been a strong female role model as she has touched the lives of so many.

The Goo Goo Dolls are also a complex band. They have worked really hard to get there music out into the world. The have fine tuned themselves into a mega pop band from there punk beginning. They have many hits on current radio rotation all over the world and they put on a great show.

Carlos spent all of last summer in Jefferson City, Missouri. He had never been there before and had little expectation of what his summer would be like. His parents were separating and his grandmother invited him to stay with her while his parents made some adjustments and his father moved out. They didn’t wish to keep this from him and were very upfront with their son about most things, but they agreed with his grandmother that it would be nice for Carlos to get away from all of the chaos and it would be great for them to get to spend the summer together. He and his grandmother were extremely close when Carlos was small and then she moved back to Missouri, which is where she had been from.

The only thing he knew about the city before visiting it was that it was named after Thomas Jefferson and that it was his grandmother’s hometown. He was excited to spend the time with her, though he was a little shy at first, not having seen her in almost a year. However, the distance and time quickly melted away and the two of them started talking about baseball, which was a love they had always shared. And although Carlos grew up in Tennessee, his grandmother taught him from an early age to be a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals.

That summer she had a special treat planned for the two of them and she didn’t tell Carlos what exactly it was until it was time for them to head out. His grandmother had gotten tickets for the two of them to attend a Cardinals game at Busch Stadium and Carlos was absolutely enthralled. It was just over a two-hour drive to St. Louis so they left the day before the game and spent the night in one of the Missouri hotels they found in the city. They spent time exploring the shops in Laclede’s Landing and had dinner in one of the restaurants that offered a great view of the Gateway Arch. The next day they explored more sights of St. Louise and then had a great time at the ball game.

The Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House is one of the premiere cultural establishments in Dallas, Texas. It is located in the downtown arts district and is part of the AT&T Performing Arts Center. This is also one of the newest arts and entertainment complexes in the city of Dallas and is one of the four venues that form the center. It was officially opened in October of 2009, just a few months ago and this coincided with the official beginning of the Dallas Opera’s new season. It has already become one of the major attractions for both residents and tourists who visit the city and enjoy the accommodations provided by the Dallas hotel and hospitality industry.

The name of the opera house is typically shortened to Winspear and is sometimes referred to as the Dallas Opera House. It as named after Margot and Bill Winspear who generously donated over forty million dollars for its construction. The opera house was designed Fosters and Partners and the principle architect was Spencer de Grey. De Grey is responsible for the attractive horseshoe configuration, which is also representative of traditional houses. It is structured to seat an audience of two thousand two hundred people. Sound Space, a London based firm, designed the acoustic aspects of the house, which is intended to host both opera and musical theatre productions.

The Dallas Opera is the primary resident of this beautiful new home and they moved here after having performed at the Music Hall at Fair Park. They opened their season at the new location with a production of Verdi’s Otello. The premiere performance took place on October 23 of last year. Graeme Jenkins was the conductor for this production, which starred Lado Ataneli, Alexandra Deshorties, and Clifton Forbis. There is also an education and smaller performance venue in the opera house which is called the Nancy Hamon Education and Recital Hall. It has a seating capacity of 200 and will be used for rehearsals, lectures, meetings and other events.

It’s hard to be a cowboy in New York City.  The problem as I see, in a singularly important way, is that you got to be careful not to get the heel of your boot stuck somewhere but I mean good, when there’s a train or what have you coming along.  It’s a dangerous thing, but it’s a dangerous city, and lots of people wear shoes with heels here.  But I don’t necessarily want to imply that we’re all in this mess together, because I for one am not in this together with anyone.  Not in this city.  I come here to make a go at putting a new product out on the market, and once it’s out, I’m done, and going back home.

I did get to book one of those boutique hotels, and New York has a good sense of class, and if you want to talk about hospitality, I never seen the likes of it ever before.  I wake up feeling like a million bucks, and usually I wake up feeling like I’ve been stomped on all night by a fat bull on trucker speed.  This is an irregular experience for sure, and one I would likely repeat, if this was all I had to do while I was here.  But there’s more work to be done.  I love Patsy Cline, see, and she had perfect pitch.

Now my partner and I have some ideas on what people want in the world, and for kids, a good ear is essential in developing a musical sense.  We have to instate these things when they’re young and impressionable, so they can thrive in the world as they grow.  Patsy Cline had a secret, of course.  Her perfect pitch came about from eating beef, and her support of the cattle industry caused a wave of what can only be called grace, on the part of the cows who wanted to be eaten, to send her the gift of song.  And as long as I’m here, I’m convincing people left and right that the cattle industry is not just a good idea, it’s come from divine providence.

Colorado has a beautiful and diverse geography and most of its regions are known for their particular aspects. Most of the areas in the state are extremely attractive and inviting to tourists who visit Colorado every year. It has some of the most popular ski resorts in the country and Steamboat Springs ranks high on the list. The city itself is known as Steamboat, and is commonly referred to as Ski Town USA and or the Boat. The ski resort at Steamboat is located in the Park Range, which is just east of the town on Mount Werner. In the broader perspective the resort is situated in the upper valley of the Yampa River. Locals know it is just west of the Continental Divide on Rabbit Ears Pass.

The name for the area is based on the numerous geothermal hot springs that are located in the surrounding Yampa Valley region. And although there no springs in Steamboat, though at one time there was a steamboat spring located where the present day library now exists. Early settlers in the early remarked that the spring sounded just like a steamboat, and hence it received its name. However, by 1908 continuous blasting and construction efforts in creating the railroad caused the spring to close down and become silent.

Skiing in the area had an initial importance to the settlers. For a long time it was the only means of accessing the area during the harsh conditions that occurred in the Rocky Mountain winters. The skiing slopes are some of the best in the country and also offer opportunities for world class ski competitions. Some of these include competitions in the Alpine Skiing World Cup. The sporting opportunities in Steamboat are not restricted to the winter months. Throughout the summer the river is popular and well known for its kayaking potential. There are many races and events that take place in the area each summer including the Yampa River Festival, which occurs every year on the first week of June. For interested tourists you can click here to discover the numerous resorts and Colorado hotels that service the area.

One of the places you can get out and see while you have a room at one of the modern hotels located in Irvine California is Knotts Berry Farm. Some people are more familiar of Knott’s jams and preserves sold all over the country. Other people think of theme park fun when they think of Knott’s. Well they are related. One part is the major theme park in Placentia and it is not far from your Irvine hotel. It all started in the 1920 when Walter Knott began to sell fresh berries and pies on a fruit stand along State Route 39. The whole family was apart of the business. He and his family were one of the first to sell boysenberries, a new growth that was created by putting raspberry plants with those of blackberry and loganberry, by cultivator Rudolph Boysen in the 1930s.

The area began to grown as the rate of travel moved faster. There stand turned into meals in small diner for travelers along the major connection between Los Angeles and Orange County beaches. Walter started to add ways to entertain a the crowds as they stayed for a meal and started to build an old ghost town in 1940. They added a narrow-gauge train for rides, had areas to pan-for-gold and had the Calico Mine Ride. It became the summer long county fair with pie contests. Even Walt Disney visited the attraction and his own Disneyland was not seen in anyway as a direct competitor. Disney even invited the Knotts to Disneyland the day it opened.

Today, Knott’s Berry Farm is a huge theme park filled with sorts of different areas. There is Independence hall which was so well done that they used it as a set for the film National Treasure of 2004. The Ghost Town is apart of the oldest area of the park and has most of the buildings that Walter originally brought to the property. Then there is Fiesta Village with the Montezooma’s Revenge Roller Coaster. The Boardwalk is a gypsy themed camp that was renamed a few times and currently is called Knott’s Airfield. This area has the most thrill rides in the park along with the Sky Cabin Tower. But that’s not all, visitors can also have a blast in Camp Snoopy, Wild Water Wilderness and the Indian Trails.

New York offers many adventures, and sometimes tourists forget about the simple, free adventures that will make them appreciate this city full of millions of pulsating individuals. I’ve been to Manhattan and to several boroughs many times before, but I’ve never bothered to take the opportunity to walk along the historically famous Brooklyn Bridge, a bridge that connects a deeply rich Italian culture with all the grid bindings lit up Las Vegas like and covers some of the City’s most infamous streets. Usually, my hotel choice, which I booked on this site: http://www.smallhotelsnewyork.com, is not near the bridge, but this time I did not let that stop me.

The bridge is approximately 2 miles long and lends any photographer, either amateur or professional, the ability to capture a moment in which separates them from the land and water; by merely setting a foot down on the stone facade and wonderfully detailed mason work that is the Brooklyn Bridge.

As I finally walked along this fantastic structure, I had an occasional sight of the seedier sub-culture of discord, disgust and disdain, which the gutters of New York hide well. The landscape kept me moving onward and I successfully reached my desired location, a pizzeria that has homemade ice cream; what would Brooklyn be without New York-style pizza and a side of ice cream? There wasn’t a table available for just one person, and there were many patrons who pushed tables together to fix their party of 6 or more. Fortunately, there was a little spot up by the counter that a waiter fixed up for me, a party of one, but that was after a wait of 45 minutes. The joint was packed with a good representation of all the ethnic cultures that is New York. That’s when I knew I was in the right place. The wait was worth it, but stay away from the public washroom, it seemed like all of New York just had to use this one restroom today.

Back to the bridge for one more comment: It took me an hour to walk across the art bridge and I was in total awe and amazed at it survival of over 100 years and what stories it must have about the millions of beings who have stepped foot on her or drove across her without even noticing her grandeur. Brooklyn Bridge is the most exquisitely erected bridges that I’ve had the privilege of walking across.