BenSpark Family Adventures

Photo-A-Day #298 01/31/06 I’m in Tennessee, Paris Tennessee, about 2 1/2 hours from where I touched down in Nashville around 5:00pm tonight. Along the way I stopped at Loretta Lynn’s Country Kitchen, why not it was a touristy thing to do. It was a buffet, not a very good one and it was filled with alot of country kitsch. So now I’ve made it to my hotel. Watching the State of the Union Address. This little plane is made out of many little tiles and is at the exit of the Nashville Airport. Happy little plane. Here are some other photos from the drive to Paris. The wall of Fame in the Loretta Lynn Country Kitchen Big buffalo outside of the Country Kitchen The Billboard for the Loretta Lynn Country Kitchen

Here at the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre airport they have Hooters airlines but no bathrooms beyond the security checkpoint. How about a wireless hotspot that works and a bathroom or two, that would be nice. I don’t see a U.S. Air jet around, maybe that big orange one is being used as a regional affiliate. That would be funny seeing the group here in the waiting area.

Photo-A-Day #297 01/30/06 Today I thought I was going to Philadelphia then on to Scranton (maybe look for Dunder-Miflin) and be at my hotel by 11:30am. Well, it is now 11:00am and I am at New York’s La Guardia Airport, sitting in the near empty plane waiting for the plane to be refueled and head back to Philly. We made two attempts to land, well we circled and were diverted to a shorter runway with more visibility. The actual attempt was probably 100 feet or so from the ground. We pulled up HARD at the last minute. I was dozing expecting to open my eyes at the moment before landing (as I usually do, I can never sleep through a landing). But instead of the bump and wiggle that usually happens I was blasted back into my seat as we rose back into the air. So now I am in New York. The flight crew has been very nice. The busted out the complimentary peanuts and biscuit cookies and water and coffee. I suspect that there are now about 10 people left on the plane. We may be leaving for Philly ...

Today I introduced Allison to the defining movie of my teenage life. Say Anything. This movie came out in my freshman year of high school and made a profound impact on me. Lloyd Dobler became for me the epitome of how to be a good boyfriend. I wanted to be just like Lloyd. I must have seen that movie about 25 times. Now Allison has never seen this movie. Until today. And she liked it very much. We got the special edition DVD. Today I learned many things about the movie. One, it holds up, it is a fantastic movie and is still one for many great lines. “I gave her my heart, she gave me a pen.” The movie was the directorial debut of Cameron Crowe, the man who has given us such great movies as Singles, Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous, and Elizabethtown. There was a great featurette on the film and I got to relive 1989 and watch all the TV spots that made me excited to see this movie. If you haven’t seen this movie ever, you must see it and if you’ve seen it before share it with your friends. I...

Photo-A-Day #296 01/29/06 Tonight we went to the Fortune House for dinner. We went to celebrate Mom’s birthday, which is tomorrow. We had some great food as always. They even surprised us with a chocolate mousse cake for everyone. Pictured from left to right is Allison, Mom, Tara, Shelby, Erik and Dad.

Photo-A-Day #295 01/28/06 This is my King Arthur Library. Books by Stephen R. Lawhead, Jack Whyte, Bernard Cornwell and A. A. Atanasio. The inspiration for this image today was that I watched King Arthur. The short run movie produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. It was really good overall. A more human face on the myth of King Arthur. The story comes at the legend from an era of Roman occupation. This is very much like the King Arthur series by Jack Whyte. Rent it, it was very enjoyable.

Photo-A-Day #294 01/27/06 Andy created some paper pre-spitball art. Rondi is attempting to rearrange that art. Tonight Allison and I went back to the Moose Cabin for dinner. Tonight we went with Neil and Andrea and Andy and Rondi. We had a very nice dinner and conversation. We also stayed for a comedy and mentalist show. We say Rory Raven the mind Reader and Stephanie Peters the R rated comedian. There were very few people at the show. That is unfortunate because when we talked with Al, the owner of the Moose Cabin, he said that a lot more people bought tickets to see the show. That probably would have been great with a lot of people. As it was there was not a lot of people and we were in the front table so we got to participate in the acts. Well, participate with the mind reader and ‘get abused’ by the comedian. We thought Andy was gonna tussle with Stephanie, but we were wrong. She picked on me pretty good but I was laughing so hard that my whole neck and head hurt. We had a really g...