Monthly Newsletter: April 2022 (No. 3)

Thank you for joining us here at Our Technicolor Life!
This is the third newsletter and monthly feature highlighting upcoming events, happenings, and general news of all channels of Our Technicolor Life.
We have a lot of new subscribers and we wanted to welcome everyone and thank you for following us! For those new to Our Technicolor Life, we are a husband-and-wife team that lives a vintage lifestyle and has a passion for the arts. We entertain, sing, travel, create, and host tea parties out of our historic home. Follow along each channel - tea, travel, entertainment, art, lifestyle, and more that make up Our Technicolor Life.
TEA
March was a busy month of private party bookings for various celebrations at The Old Capitol Tea Room. We host private parties for groups of 10 or more weekday or weekends based on schedule availability. Our private parties are a great way to have the full tea room experience with your family and friends. We frequently host bridal showers, baby showers, birthdays, book clubs, church meetings, appreciation celebrations, or just an excuse to play tea party with your own group.
If you are interested in more information about our private parties, please visit our private party information page where we've spent a lot of time and effort to make sure we've got all the details for you. It's also has many pictures & videos of previous private parties so you can see the set up.
Private parties are not themed like our public tea parties but a chance for you to host a special occasion or celebration with friends and family. If you would like your tea party themed, we have limited themes available as an add on package. *Sorry, we do not offer Murder Mystery or Grinch private parties.
To schedule a private party, please fill out our private party form and we will check the schedule for availability.
Our next private party availability starts in August. April, May, June, and July available weekends have all been booked. You can see dates that have already been booked on our handy dandy Upcoming Events calendar.
We did host a new theme this past month - Gilded Tea, combing our love for Downton Abbey and new series also by Jullian Fellowes, Gilded Age. All guests were encouraged to dress up for this tea event and could participate in our fashion show. We awarded prizes for most creative and most authentic in which the contestants walked the runway and the guests voted for the winners. There were so many wonderful ensembles and we so loved everyone's enthusiasm for this tea party and theme.
This month we are excited to be bringing back our Murder Mystery tea parties, a Be Our Guest theme, and a few more private party bookings. The Murder Mystery and Be Our Guest teas are sold out but we do have tables available for our Pirates & Mermaids Tea Party Saturday July 9th at 3pm featuring Captain James Hook himself!
We also have tables for new theme, Moulin Rouge Friday July 29th at 7pm featuring live music by the Tin Pan Alley Cats and of course some favorite songs from the movie, Moulin Rouge. A great excuse to dress up and have tea in the green fairy lounge.
You can purchase tables for each of these two events here...
Pirates & Mermaids Tea Party Saturday July 9th at 3pm
Tables are first come, first served. Simply click on the event you'd like to attend, select your table, and add to cart where you will be prompted to check out. The tables are on a time limit so they will not stay in your cart past 20 minutes. You may need to refresh the event page if there are multiple guests checking out. Please check out promptly when purchasing your table.
Just a reminder that all tickets for our public themed teas are now being sold in the form of table sales. Prices are still the same as they always have been but the system has been streamlined so now you can...
1) See and directly purchase tables for public teas events available at all times.
2) Have more advanced notice for when public tea parties are being hosted.
3) Select your table.
ALL TICKET SALES ARE FINAL UPON PURHCASE. NO EXCEPTIONS.
TRAVEL
The Not So Long Trailer came out of winter hibernation for a brief spring break adventure to the Gulf! This was such a special trip for us as we had the chance to visit two places in particular we have always wanted to visit. Plus we added Alabama and Florida to our sticker map! This is our second Not So Long Trailer so while we have camped in both states before, we had not been with our new camper.
Jeff and I are huge space nerds and we have always wanted to visit the U.S. Rocket and Space Center in Huntsville, AL. Having been to Cape Canaveral on a previous trip, we were excited to see more of the incredible space institutions and collections. The U.S. Rocket and Space Center did not disappoint. We spent the whole day exploring the two huge buildings and grounds full of space and flight artifacts. We experience an Apollo 11 virtually reality that used a mix of original archive audio and video together with recreations of the spacecraft and locations, all set to inspirational music. Not only did we get to relive the events of 1969, but we also could take control of the command module, land the lunar, and explore the Moon's surface.
Saturn V Hall was incredible! The authentic Saturn V Apollo moon rocket runs overhead the length of the building and is surrounded by historic artifacts & interactive exhibits from space exploration. There was a lunar roving vehicle, Lunar Module, Apollo 16 capsule, Apollo 16 recovery parachute, Gemini training capsule, swing arm where you could pretend you were walking towards your capsule for loading, various mission space suits, the quarantine Airstream for the Apollo astronauts, and my favorite an actual moon rock brought back from Apollo 12.
We also did a little shopping at Unclaimed Baggage. In all the times we've been through this area, we'd never had time to stop and shop. Unclaimed Baggage buys orphaned bags and gives them a second life being resold in a second hand store - Unclaimed Baggage. You never know what's going to turn up and we were excited to finally visit. While there weren't many vintage clothing items, we still loved the visit and managed to leave with a few goodies!
The next place we have always wanted to visit is a fictional town that exists in real life because it was a set from one of our favorite movies, Tim Burton's Big Fish. If you've never seen this 2003 movie, you really should! It's a gem of a movie with a fantastical tale of one man's unbelievable life. It is a beautiful, sweet, magical, and moving movie. Well, several years ago we learned that the filming location of one of the most endearing scenes was filmed in Alabama, and that the owner of the property of Jackson Lake allowed people to come experience what remains of "Spectre", the little town that plays a big role in Edward Bloom's life. (Edward is the main character of the movie.) Now there isn't much left of Spectre, but there are enough buildings and iconic set pieces to make it feel like you are connected to this little town and movie. The entire town was built as a movie set, so the buildings weren't built to last the years of time, but several are still standing. Still, we absolutely had the best time on Jackson Lake Island. It was everything we had hoped it would be for us. Jackson Lake Island is located in Millbrook, AL. just north of Montgomery. Oh, and there are lots of goats on the island.
Our main destination was Florida for our stay in Sopchoppy, FL. at the unbelievably beautiful Ochlockonee River State Park so that we could explore neighboring towns like Apalachicola, Panacea, St. George Island, Carrabelle, and Wakulla Springs - home of Creature from the Black Lagoon and Tarzan's Secret Treasure. Well, where the underwater scenes from these legendary films were shot anyway.
We love classic movies from the 1930s-1950s We especially love the classic monster movies. Wakulla Springs is where the 1954 film, Creature from the Black Lagoon was filmed in addition to Tarzan's Secret Treasure from 1941. The springs were once crystal-clear to a depth of 120' making it the perfect location for underwater scene film shooting. Wakulla Springs is also home to one of the most gorgeous lodges and full-service hotels.
The Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park is the world's largest and deepest freshwater spring rimmed by an ancient cypress swamp. While we were walking around the boat launch area, we ended up chatting with one of park rangers about our love of these movies. He was so pleased that we were so excited about the film locations, he offered to take us on his next boat tour (which was sold out!) and to go see the area where many of the water scenes for both films were shot. The boat ride was incredible and Scott, the park ranger was a fountain of knowledge as we cruised the river telling us about the property, the river, the animals, and overall history of Wakulla Springs. We learned so much on the guided boat tour in addition to seeing 20 alligators, dozens of bird species, a pair of manatees, and all of the lovely cypress trees and draping Spanish moss scenery. Our visit to Wakulla Springs was a perfect adventure! Oh, and some of the following photos just may have been enhanced a bit to give them a more "creature" feel.
The rain stayed with us on and off the next couple of days but we didn't let that stop us from exploring. We visited neighboring towns of Apalachicola, Panacea, Carrabelle, and even a visit to Tallahassee to check out the Railroad Square Art District. We collected shells, grabbed some great seafood, picked up some tasty oranges at a roadside stand, and visited a few great shops in the area.
Moving back towards home, we journeyed through Columbs, Georgia and enjoyed the fantastic riverwalk along the Chattahoochee River. We also visited the unique Museum of Wonders, a drive-thru art museum, strolled the main historic street of downtown Columbus, and also visited blue legend Ma Rainey's house. Known as "The Mother of Blues", Rainey's home is located in her hometown of Columbus, GA and is now a museum you can tour.
The last leg of our journey home included a stop at Rock City. We had been through Chattanooga several times and had been to Ruby Falls and Lookout Mountain but never to Rock City. If anyone had told me that there were gnomes, a fairyland, and Mother Goose Village, I would've visited years ago! I am so glad we took the time to visit this Georgia travel favorite! We stayed so long we practically shut the place down and walked the trail twice! Rock City is atop Lookout Mountain in Lookout Mountain, GA. It opened in May 1932 and celebrates 90 years next month. The attraction gained prominence after owners Garnet and Frieda Carter hired Clark Byers in 1935 to paint "See Rock City" barn advertisements throughout the Southeast and Midwest, United States. Byers painted over 900 barn roofs and walls in 19 states by 1969. It's pretty much an American legend and an incredible attraction.