Visit to the Lovely Casa Marina Hotel and Restaurant in Jacksonville Beach, Florida

Posted on May 9, 2018 by Jan Ross

After piling into our car, stuffing in our suitcases and other precious belongings for our long drive down to the opposite coast of Florida, we finally headed out early in the morning for our first visit to the other Florida coast. We had often spent time in Destin and the surrounding area but had never spent any amount of time on the other coast. Our visit would culminate at the Casa Marina Hotel and Restaurant in Jacksonville Beach across Florida from where we had been visiting for years. We had not been to this area before and didn’t know what to expect. We were used to the milky white sand and beautiful blue water of the other coast and wondered if this side of the Florida would be just as pretty. I had invited my sister-in-law along on this trip instead of Tom, who was more of a mountain lover than a beach lover and this was the best idea I had for this trip because she is as much of a beach lover as I am.

We honestly didn’t realize how close to the beach we were when we arrived the night before and were amazed at the beauty of this lovely hotel.

 

Beautiful night view of the hotel.

Beautiful night view of the hotel.

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Categories: Accommodations, Beach, Cities, Countries, Florida, Girlfriends Getaway, Hotels, Jacksonville Beach, United States | 1 Comment

Frangista Beach Heavenly Getaway at Truman’s Max

Posted on February 19, 2018 by Jan Ross

We have stayed in some pretty wonderful beach properties from quaint, artsy boutiques to huge, spreading beach houses but this one wins the prize for the absolute best beach getaway we have ever experienced.

I was invited on a press trip to the Casa Marina Hotel, Jacksonville Beach, located right on the beach in this quaint, beautiful town, settled years ago as one of the first towns in historic Florida.

My husband, Tom is not really a beach lover and will go along with me if I do a little arm twisting, but I thought I would invite my lovely sister-in-law instead who also loves the beach as much as I do. Since I am lucky enough to have developed a professional relationship with Sterling Resorts over the years, I checked with them to see if they had anything available where we could stay for a couple of days after the press trip before I invited her along on the trip.

Did they have anything they would like me to write about?

Anything with a view of the water?

Anything at all?

Well.

Uh.

Yeah they did.

He replied almost immediately that the woman I had worked with for years was no longer employed at Sterling Resort but he very kindly indicated they would still love to work with me and what did I need exactly? Within a few minutes, he emailed me with information about a house they had in Frangista Beach, in between the beautiful coast towns of Destin and Miramar Beach, Florida along Scenic Gulf Drive. This home is conveniently close to Whale’s Tail Beach Bar and Grill, Sandestin Outlets, and the emerald Gulf Coast with white soft sandy beaches. Get ready to explore this 4 stories, 4,850 sq. ft. living space home that features 7 Bedrooms and 7.5 Bathrooms that sleeps 24 people comfortably!

I almost passed out when I started clicking on the links in the email. I had in mind a small, two bedroom house on the beach but he went way over and above what I had asked for. This beautifully furnished house had SEVEN bedrooms, SEVEN AND A HALF baths, it’s own private pool – in fact you name it and this house had it.

Our gorgeous castle for the week. "Truman's Max"

Our gorgeous castle for the week. “Truman’s Max”

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Categories: Accommodations, Beach, Cities, Countries, Destin, Family Travel, Florida, House, United States | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Press Trip to Helen, Georgia: Day Two at Unicoi Adventure Lodge

Posted on January 17, 2018 by Jan Ross

OK.

Christmas is over and the New Year is here so we can’t wait any longer to finish writing about our trip to Helen, Georgia.

We spent just a few days there in a gorgeous lodge and were sad when we had to leave. We managed to stay busy during out entire stay and we spent a couple of hours getting a great tour of the park, etc. on our second day.

Everywhere you turn in Unicoi State Park, there are views of the incredible mountains surrounding the area. Thick, lush green trees cover the mountains and create a stunning vista of trees and other greenery. We drove to the Visitor’s Center to meet the park’s resident expert.

Mountain View Smallest

The views from everywhere in the park are incredible. The best place to start a park tour is at the Visitor Center.

The Park Visitor's Center

The Park Visitor’s Center

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Categories: Accommodations, Cabins, Family Travel, Georgia, Helen, Helen, Travel with Children, United States | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Press Visit to Helen, Georgia: Day One

Posted on November 18, 2017 by Jan Ross

OK, we were on our way to lovely little Helen, Georgia for a press getaway.

But my lovely husband Tom was not happy with our plans and was convinced that our GPS was taking us in the wrong direction.

We had, as usual, followed the directions of our GPS but it kept forcing us make turns that just didn’t seem right. Finally, we made a left turn that seemed to make us turn directly away from the park and Tom exclaimed that the GPS could not be right, this was taking us away from where we needed to be! I agreed and made an attempt to calm him down. Let’s give it a little longer, I said. Just a little longer and see if we don’t begin to see signs indicating that we were going the right way. I was somewhat in agreement with him since our GPS had taken us to some weird and off the wall locations just recently but I thought we would give it a little longer.

We tooled along the picturesque route with a rough creek tumbling along beside us and, all of a sudden there was a sign for Helen. We both heaved sighs of relief – we were actually heading in the right direction. Pretty soon, we pulled out of the thick forest and turned into the charming town of Helen. Now we just had to find the Visitor’s Center and meet up with our contact person, Jerry Brown, the Executive Director of the Alpine/Helen White County CVB who was going to introduce us to this charming small town. The Visitor’s Center was easy to find and we turned into the spacious parking lot and went inside to find Jerry, who ended up being a nice, friendly person who loved his little town. We had managed to arranged a visit on a weekend that he would be out of town but, knowing he would be gone, he had carefully arranged a visit that would include everything we wanted to see and do.

Jerry was very friendly, told us all about his town and when we confessed that we were not sure how to get to the Unicoi Adventure Lodge because it didn’t seem to want come up on our GPS, he immediately offered to lead us out to where we needed to check in. After showing us around and giving us a little tour of the Visitor’s Center, he proceeded to lead us right to where we were going to spend the next couple of days. He came into the office with us and introduced us to the people who worked there and got us all checked in and situated. He insisted on leading us right to our gorgeous accommodations for the next few days and helped us carry in our luggage.

I was expecting log cabins but these were new, modern and beautifully decorated.

Walk to the Cabins

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Hot Blown Glass from Lisa Pelo

Posted on October 9, 2017 by Jan Ross

We were just about ready to give up. We had driven back and forth on this back country road and never seen anything that looked like a glass blowing studio. Maybe we had the wrong directions? Maybe …well, who knew? Finally, I decided to call to get more specific directions and he directed us right to a driveway and told us to turn in. And there it was! Our contact person, Lisa Pelo, was waiting for us and ready to show us around. She wasn’t impatient with the fact that we were late;  rather, she was thrilled to be able to share her love of creating things from glass with us.  Lisa was generous in sharing her history with us and how she got into working with glass as part of her love of art.

“Glass is its own inspiration. There is no other medium like it. The challenge of controlling it better and making more elaborate and complex forms: this is a lifelong project. Color in glass is fascinating. When the light can come in and out of the form through the color to create its own visual interest regardless of the form, that is a skill that has to be honed and sometimes never understood by other glass workers. What there is about glass-you have to master the medium…glass in motion and be able to tell it what to do. You have to know colors/not just the color wheel but what glass colors are chemically and what they do hot and cold and what colors do to enhance the form and then be able to put them where you want them. Then, make the form, an artistically complete form by knowing those basic rules and then create the final vision. The skill set is always in forward development when creating in glass.”

Opening Oven

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Categories: Countries, Indiana, Tours, United States | Leave a comment

Lucas Oil Raceway

Posted on September 12, 2017 by Jan Ross

When I began planning our getaway to Indiana, I noticed there was a racetrack there. Honestly, I couldn’t have cared less about sitting and watching some car race but I knew my husband Tom would be thrilled to see it, so I added it to our itinerary. It was the best thing I could have done for him. He loves car racing and was so excited about going to the race, more excited than any of the other events I had lined up. Early in the evening, we headed out to the race track and kept thinking we were in the wrong place or going in the back door or something else because it was so quiet and there didn’t seem to be that many people there.

Boy, were we wrong.

Sign for Brownsburg

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Welcome to Hendricks County, Indiana!

Posted on August 27, 2017 by Jan Ross

We learned about lovely Hendricks County, Indiana at a meeting for travel professionals so, when our 40th anniversary rolled around, it was easy to decide to take a few nights in this charming area. We really knew nothing about the area so just put the address of the Visitor’s Center in our map gizmo and let it take us right there. We drove right into downtown quiet Danville to the Mayberry Cafe, named for the famous Andy Griffith show, to meet up with Josh Duke from the local visitor’s center, who we worked with when planning our trip. Anyone who loves this famous show will be familiar with the restaurant name and the many different, mouth-watering items on their menu. Parked in front of the restaurant is a police car, much like you would see when watching the show.

Photo of Restaurant Resized

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Categories: Danville, Indiana, Restaurant Reviews | Tags: , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Charming Gratz Park Inn

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Jan Ross
Front Door to the Hotel

Front Door to the Hotel

So, we decided to experience a staycation for the first time.

A “staycation” is a getaway where you don’t go far; usually just stay in your same city where you live. Although Lexington, Kentucky is our hometown and attracts plenty of tourists from all over the world, we had sort of taken it for granted. I had come to Lexington to attend the University of Kentucky many moons ago and Tom was a long time resident so after meeting, falling in love, and getting married, we never considered moving anywhere else. We had our kids, life moved on, and we finally settled in a roomy and comfortable house after we both retired from our jobs. Although I  had lived in Lexington most of my adult life, I had always loved traveling and had seen most of the world but finally got Tom to fall I love with traveling as well. I wrote about our travels and he took the many photos that went along with my articles so we settled into a  new way of life once our kids moved out, get married and settled down, and began to have kids of their own.

Hotel Sign

Hotel Sign

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Categories: Cities, Countries, Hotels, Kentucky, Lexington, United States | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Gourmet Dining at the Harbor Fish Market and Grille

Posted on June 23, 2017 by Jan Ross

November-Gourmet Dining at the Harbor Fish Market and Grille in Door County Wisconsin-Jan Ross2I tried escargot for the first time on a river cruise in Europe and, although it was with some trepidation that I took my first bite, I loved it. Similar to a mushroom, it had been drenched in butter and garlic so it was quite tasty. The second time I had escargot was just recently at the Harbor Fish Market and Grille on the charming peninsula of Door County, Wisconsin. This time the escargot were tucked neatly away under a delicious and flaky crust but again were delicious. You may think a small restaurant in Wisconsin is an unlikely place to find escargot and you are right, but this charming restaurant in a historic building on the main street of Bailey’s Harbor features amazing gourmet dining, along with a fantastic view of the bay complete with outside dining.

The large building in which the restaurant is located was added to a smaller building in 1908, which was originally used as an ice cream parlor and later a tavern. The larger building was used as a tavern and dance hall where whole families would come to dance; the children were put to bed upstairs while the adults continued dancing. In the ice cream parlor, cones were only five cents, later on in the ’40s and ’50s, movies were shown, and there was roller skating on the hardwood floors on Sundays. The building went through a few owners until 1997 when it was bought by restaurateurs Carl and Karen Berndt; our family was thrilled to pay them a visit on a recent visit to Door County.

Read the rest of this article on Luxe Beat Magazine HERE.

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Categories: Door County, Foodie Tour, Restaurant Reviews, United States, Wisconsin | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Kringle Capitol of the World: Racine, Wisconsin

Posted on June 21, 2017 by Jan Ross

February-The-Kringle-Capitol-of-the-World-Racine-Wisconsin-Jan-Ross2                                                                                                                                                                          A Kringle!

A Kringle is a Scandinavian pastry, a sort of Nordic pretzel, which can be filled with a variety of sweet options. From strawberry cheesecake to apple to pecan, this pastry is available in just about every flavor. Hand rolled from Danish pastry dough which has rested overnight, the sheets of flaky dough are layered, then shaped into an oval, filled with fruit or nuts, and then baked and iced. A typical Kringle is a large, flat oval measuring approximately 14 inches by 10 inches and weighs about 1.5 pounds.

Wisconsin has historically been a center of Danish-American culture, so it makes sense that the Kringle was designated the Official State Pastry in 2013. Racine, a charming small town located on the shore of beautiful Lake Michigan has long been a location to seek out this delicious treat. The pastry was first introduced to Racine in the late 1800s by immigrant Danish bakers, and as the town was home to more Danes than anywhere else in the country, there are more Kringle bakeries in Racine than you will find anywhere else. Unofficially designated the Kringle Capitol of the World, Racine today has five bakeries offering different varieties of Kringle, so you can sample until you find the perfect combination.

My family recently paid a visit to Racine to enjoy the lovely beaches, parks, and trails; Frank Lloyd Wright architecture; an amazing art museum and zoo; and the historic Wind Point Lighthouse. The lake provided area residents and tourists with plenty of opportunities for fishing, canoeing, kayaking, and other watersports, and area restaurants provide any international delicacy you can imagine.

Read the rest of this article HERE.

Categories: Luxe Beat Magazine | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment