Paducah - Wednesday 27th April, 2011

Well another jam packed day today. Visited Circuit City and Staples (Don't ask about the names!) to check out more vendors and some of the winning quilts from Lancaster Show back in March. (Jenny Bacon (Vic Quilter's President had a quilt on display). Some awesome quilts to see and tooooooooo many things to buy!!!! That reverse mortgage is looking good!!

All of our Melbourne group went to the Quilt museum yesterday and said it was fabulous (I'm going today). The other lady from Melbourne that we have met (Di) picked up a feedsack antique quilt yesterday for $20!!!! Bargain of the day!

Ros and I walked along the flood wall taking in all of the murals and we went up on the observation deck to see what the river was doing as we could hear it lapping at the wall! This is one of the murals.

This is the river, let me tell you it is no Yarra River. At the bottom of the picture is the top of the flood wall!!! The wall is around 4 metres tall and the river is lapping the bottom! It is expected to near the top of the wall by next Wednesday - we will be gone by then. Apparently it is normally around 46 feet down to the river on a 10% gradient, so this is a lot of water and not seen since the floods of 1937!!

Having our photo taken with one of Paducah's fire fighters. Our Ros even got to sit in the truck!!!

Anyway, need to head off for breakfast now, but if you couldn't read the number plate in yesterday's photo of Chris it said "Warning Quilter on the move".

Love to all

Paducah - Day 2

A quick post as we are headed back downtown to re-survey the shops and the quilt displays.

Here's a few photos of the trip so far.... Day 1 - The Limo and 5 excited travellers!

Capitol Building in Nashville, Tennessee

After a drink in a Nashville Saloon!

Chris modelling a number plate every quilter's car should have.

Paducah, KY, USA

Well, after a sleepless night waiting for the alarm to go off at 6am, we headed off on the bus for Paducah, KY. After a rest stop at Whitehaven and a beautiful old white house, we arrived in Paducah about 2.5 hours. First stop was a drive around Paducah - a quaint little town - just like Stars Hollow (Gilmour Girls), then we were let loose for 2 hours. The whole town turns out for the quilt show, every shop regardless of what they are selling has quilts on display in the window. Antique quilts and blocks have been purchased (not by our group yet). Let's just say we are all overwhelmed with the country let alone the quilting stuff!!!

After this stop, we headed on to Hancocks of Paducah - Let's see, how to describe it!! Bunnings for quilters. For those who know Gail B's this is 20 times the size!!!!!!!Huge place with fabric everywhere. US$5.98 per yard for some of the fabric that we can pay $20 for back home. The prices and choice is so overwhelming. OMG - we all purchased something!!!!

On to the hotel to settle in, we are now having happy hour and will meet in Ros' room (the common room for this leg of the journey) and have a quick bite to eat before we head off to the preview of the quilt show.

I have seen plenty of Mustangs and Chargers on the journey so far and the girls told me I couldn't bring one home. But I reckon if I put it in a shipping container I could surround it with fabric to cushion it! I've seen an ad on tv for a reverse mortgage and wonder if I could get one while I am here!! (only joking honey).

The weather started out shitty today but once we got to Paducah it was fine. Severe storms are looming but we are all okay and safe.

Day in Nashville

After brekky this morning we caught a cab into Downtown Nashville and hopped on a tour bus that circulates the sights. We got off at one site that was meant to be antiques but there was none to be found. A well earned coffee was had and we went to wait for the bus again to go on to the next stop. After waiting almost an hour for the bus, it finally arrived and we hopped back on for the rest of the sights. After walking around and exploring, we decided to have a drink in one of the saloons with live bands playing. I even had my first Corona - went down a treat. Mind you, we did have to tell the bar tender how to make a lemon, lime and bitters!!!! We met our Paducah tour hostess at the hotel this morning and she recommended Wild Horse Saloon, so this is where we went for a hurried dinner as we had to be back at the hotel for the Tour meeting. A quick dinner was had, but Jenny and Jennifer managed to fit in some line dancing lessons.

We have just had our tour meeting and met up with Diane from Melton and 2 ladies from NSW. There are 53 on the tour altogether with a party of 14 from Brazil and others from all over the US.

It is now off to one of the rooms for coffee and a chat as we have to be up early in the morning to head to Paducah. We have to have our bags outside the door of our rooms at 7am and the bus leaves at 8.30am!!!!

The tour guide also informed us that Paducah is flooded so the exhibition centre is flooded also. They have a flood wall and the exhibition centre is within the confines of the wall so floods. The hotel and all the shops etc are outside the wall so all is okay from the tour perspective. In fact, it has apparently put us in a better position to visit everything.

Well better go, hope to get some photos up soon.

Nasvhville at last

Good morning all,

It is 9.30 am Nashville time and we have just eaten brekky. We finally arrived at around midnight last night (3.30 pm Monday Melb time) after almost 36 hours travelling. Very weary travellers.

We had a little Embraier 147 plane from Denver to Nashville with only 3 seats wide and around 58 passengers in total. We flew through some storms but arrived in Nashville without too much hassle. We flew over Aspen and saw the snow covered mountains.

Today it is 85 F and stormy with severe storms over the next few days. We are now just working out what to do in Nashville today despite the rain.

We have already spied some other "quilters" and have spoken to 2 ladies who are part of a 14 group tour from Brazil. Tonight will be interesting when we meet up with the rest of the tour group.

Anway, enough for now, more later.......

Nearly there!!

We were up around 4.30am Sunday (Melbourne time) it is now 9.30 am Monday morning (Melbourne time) and we are at Denver airport waiting for the connection to Nashville. We are 5 very weary travellers looking forward to a decent nights sleep.

Limo ride to the airport was an awesome way to go!!

No problems so far apart from some shocking turbulence on the Sydney to LA leg of the journey.

Only 1 hiccup at USA customes when the Customs officer told Jenny W after fingerprinting her and taking her photo that he just needed a little blood sample. The look on Jenny's face when he produced the stapler and said it wouldn't hurt much was priceless!!!!!

We all did the right thing too and declared our half eaten Lindt Easter bunnies, much to the amusement of airport staff.

Quilting adventure

It's 5.30 am and I have been up for over an hour! I woke up earlier than planned and with all the excitement there was no hope of getting back to sleep. I am dressed, packed and ready to go. I have just sent the last of the countdown messages to my fellow travellers, so today we let the fun begin!!! What better way to start the journey than with a limo ride to the airport.

Airport stops for today: Sydney, LAX, Denver and Nashville: it will be long day of travelling but with all the timezone changes we will arrive in Nashville, 12 hours after we left Melbourne! Gotta love the "getting there".