Monthly Newsletter: June 2023 (No.17)
Welcome to Our Technicolor Life! We are a husband and wife team that lives a vintage lifestyle in full color through our many adventures in our tea room, travel, entertainment, and art. Follow along each channel that makes up Our Technicolor Life.
We are Jeff and Carrie Ketterman. During the day, Jeff is a General Manager with Kasgro Rail Corporation Management Division. With a fleet of over 500 heavy-duty cars, Jeff works daily to provide solutions to various needs of the multi-dimensional rail transportation industry. By day, Carrie is a painter, illustrator, and author creating murals, & paintings.
After closing up shop for the day. Jeff and Carrie host themed tea parties out of their historic home at The Old Capitol Tea Room, travel to festivals and vacation in The Not So Long Trailer, and have two bands, a 1950s style band, Rosie & the Rockabillies, and a 1920s style band, The Tin Pan Alley Cats. Each of these channels makes up our Technicolor Life.
TEA
Jolly Holiday Sing Along Tea Party
It's always a Jolly Holiday when Mary Poppins comes to tea! We hosted a weekend of Mary Poppins and Bert Sing Along Tea Parties. It was a practically perfect afternoon full of teas, treats, and of course a sing along.
Breakfast at Tea-ffany's Tea Party
I love to host our Breakfast at Tea-ffany's Tea Party! It's the perfect excuse to dress up and get out your little black dress, pearls, and tiara. I love that soo many ladies and a few gentlemen were able to join us for these events and looks soo spiffy! We enjoyed Cider champagne from glass coupe glass, creme brulee tea, and of course tasty treats with live music by Holly Golightly and Paul, baby himself.
New Events
Tuesday Tea at 3
We are physically out of weekends when it comes to hosting teas, leaving time for a few band gigs, and a day or two to really have a non-working weekend so we are brainstorming a few more weekday tea events. With the tea garden nearing completion, we are excited to start offering outdoor tea parties, weather permitting. Introducing our newest event, Tuesday Tea at 3! Join us for a traditional afternoon tea party with friends and family. But where did this tradition come from? Afternoon tea was first introduced in the mid-19th century by Anna, the seventh Duchess of Bedford. She found herself feeling hungry between lunch and dinner and began requesting tea and light snacks be brought to her in the afternoon. This quicky caught on with her friends, and soon became a fashionable social event. Stay tuned for updates on when we'll be starting Tuesday Teas. Don't miss out on this delightful experience!
Music Mondays
Music Mondays is a new tea event that will take place in the tea garden, weather permitting, and inside if it's raining. This evening tea party is complete with live music by the Tin Pan Alley Cats, who have been performing musically in Louisville and Southern Indiana for the past 10 years. With a wide range of repertoire, they will surely delight your musical senses. Join us for tea, music, and a chance to turn your Monday into a fun day!
Private Parties
Our private party information has been updated with a private party booking form and booking availability. In 2023, private parties will primarily be hosted on weekdays and weeknights with limited weekend availability. We host baby showers, bridal showers, birthdays, book clubs, church groups, meetings, etc. The cost is $35/person (kids and adults) and include a traditional afternoon style sweet and savory tea tray made up of finger sandwiches, desserts, selection of 3 loose leaf teas, and tax. We require a minimum of 15 people to book a private party and can seat 32 comfortably between our dining room and living room.
There is a $100 booking fee to be paid in advance to secure your desired date. This booking fee secures your date, time, and two hours in the tea room. This booking fee is non-refundable and does not go towards your final bill. October, November, and December are our busiest months of the year and private parties are NOT available on weekends. We are happy to look at weekdays and weeknights during these months. If you are interested in a private party, please fill out our Private Party Booking Form. We do require the $100 booking fee at the time of your booking to secure your date at the tea room. This booking fee is non-refundable and does not go towards your final bill. Final headcount and payment must be submitted one week prior to the event.
The private party booking form now includes party time frames for you to select. Our public tea events do take precedence over private parties. If we have a Friday/Sunday public tea event, we do not host private parties the Saturday in between.
Weekday Private Party Time Frames - 12-2pm OR 1-3pm
Weeknight Private Party Time Frames - 5-7pm OR 6-8pm
Weekend Private Party Time Frames - 12-2 pm OR 1-3pm
TRAVEL
Finally getting to roam again!! Following the Mississippi River down from Cairo, IL to Natchez, MS, then head northwest to Hot Springs, AR and the Oauchita Mountains! First night’s stopover in Columbus-Belmont State Park in KY! Great campground! This KY state park is a bit off the beaten path in the far western end of the state, but it is worth the visit!
Jeff and I always try to make time to visit a city zoo in whatever city we may be traveling thru or close by when camping. The Memphis Zoo and Aquarium is a Top Twenty rated US zoo, so had to make time to visit! It was absolutely lovely and so well laid out. It had a very cool “Epcot” feel to it. We got there late in the day, which was great for avoiding the crowds, but we didn’t have time to see everything. We had to bypass the aquarium, which we will definitely have to make another trip to this zoo sometime in the future to check that out. The spacing of animals was great! You find a a great animal habitat around every little corner! Also, I fed my first giraffe! Maliki was a bit unsure of me at first, I think I may have been sensory overload! She finally warmed up to me and was a sweetheart.
Our Thursday in Memphis was pretty special. It was our 10th anniversary!! We celebrated with dinner at Itta Bena, the second-floor restaurant above B.B. King’s Blues Bar. We strolled Beale Street and then drove by Sun Records before heading home late, where we gave each other our final gifts of the day! We had already given each other various gifts before we left, but each of us saved one for our anniversary. I got Jeff the Ken Burns PBS documentary, Baseball. Jeff got me this amazing tulle robe…that of course I had to get photos of on the banks of the Mississippi River. I’m quite sure that some people who encounter us out camping wonder what in the world is wrong with us!
We spent our Saturday in Natchez, MS. A day of southern mansions and a chance to change dresses a few times? Sign me up every week!! Did you know at one time, Natchez was home to more millionaires than any other city in the US?!! It’s true!
Many of those mansions are still with us and some are now open to the public for tours.
We visited Stanton, Dunleith, Melrose, Monmouth, D’evereux, Weymouth Hall, Elms, and drove by several others that are private residences.
With Natchez position for trade along the Mississippi River and the rich bottomland soil that once produced a major portion of the south’s cotton and sugarcane (as well as tobacco and indigo), Natchez was home to some of the wealthiest men in America at one time. For those visiting Natchez, the mansions certainly need to be at the top of the list for “things to do” in this great river town. Natchez also has a lovely riverwalk area, some great shops, some local restaurant favorites, and history around every corner. The city is also home to many African-American heritage sites.
The city hosts a pilgrimage tour twice a year, in the spring and again in the fall. The tour revolves around the dozens of historic mansions and enables you to visit inside many of them. This fall’s pilgrimage tour runs from September 23 thru October 20.
We can’t not mention one of our favorite campgrounds - River View RV Park & Resort, which is located just across the river in Vidalia, LA. Lloyd and staff were so warm and kind! If you stay, make sure you ask Lloyd about the grand treatment he received once at an Applebees.
Hot Springs, Arkansas is somewhere we have long talked about going as a destination site, but had never made that happen until now. Why the heck did we wait?? Our first visit to the Hot Springs area started with a trip to Garvan Woodland Gardens on Monday. This 210 acre property was developed by Verna Cook Garvan beginning in the mid 1950s. The property was part of her family’s vast lumber company properties. When her father, Arthur Cook, passed unexpectedly in 1934, Verna assumed control of A.B. Cook Properties at the age of only 24. She would become one of the south’s first female CEO’s of a major manufacturing business.
From a needed knowledge of foresting, Verna also developed a keen interest in horticulture and gardening. A self-taught gardener, she began to developed the site in 1956 as a garden and possible home site. Over the next 40 years she personally planted and planned each new path as the woodlands garden grew.
When Verna passed in 1997, she left the property to the University of Arkansas’ Department of Landscape Architecture, which is who cares and further developes what is now known as Garvan Woodland Gardens!
We absolutely love a good botanical garden or arboretum, so when we started looking for things to do around Hot Springs, this became a must-see on our list. It is SO lovely and vast! You could easily spend an entire day or even two days discovering the grounds, but we had only about a 4-hour window. We did the main/paved walking trail tour and saw all of the noted points of interest (see map photo).
In addition to the gardens, there is a beautiful woodland chapel on the property that is gorgeous! Don’t miss it! The setting is very pastoral and serene, and the architecture of the church is magnificent! The huge woodland treehouse is also an architectural delight!
The gardens are located just six miles from Hot Springs National Park, and is one you should add to your list if you plan on visiting the Hot Springs area.
This was our first visit to Hot Springs, AR. We have been in other parts of the state, mainly the southeast section, but had never ventured in to Hot Springs. We didn’t realize the great history, especially centered around the prohibition era, that this city boasted! The “hot springs” that brought the area to prominence many year ago are still running. The 143 degree waters were once heralded as being therapeutic and having healing properties. In the late 1800s Major League Baseball teams began coming to Hot Springs to mentally and physically prepare for their upcoming seasons. More teams began making Hot Springs their preseason destination and term “spring training” was used for the first time. By the turn of the century, bathhouses were becoming numerous, and these early spa/resorts were full-service health facilities, boasting the healing properties of the hot springs. Bathhouse Row, as it became known, still exists today with eight bathhouses remaining, all built between 1892 and 1923. We spent a little time exploring Bathhouse Row on the second half of our Monday in the Hot Springs area.
A friend of mine had told me about the crystals that you could find in the Ouachita Mountains. So, with my sights set on a new career as a world famous rockhound, Jeff found a couple of crystal mines where you could “dig your own”! It was even more fun than I had hoped!! AND, although I didn’t find the huge crystals, I had hope to find, I did find one that was crystal-clear and a decent size! We are definitely planning on a return trip and will be a little better prepared and knowledgeable for crystal hunting on our next trip!
After a full day of crystal hunting, we headed back into Hot Springs to explore the city a bit more and bottle up some hot, spring water. We saw people filling multiple gallon jugs and numerous bottles at a public water fountain, so we thought that must be the thing to do. We were told that the water was much better for you than bottled water or water from the tap. Not sure how much of that is true, but we decided to fill a couple of containers after grabbing a bite to eat at The Ohio Club and heading back to our campground. The sunset over Lake Ouachita was beautiful that evening, so we snapped a few more photos before building a fire and enjoying our last evening before heading back east.
ENTERTAINMENT
Mark your calendars! The summer of Rosie is upon us! We’ve got some summer festivals, concert series, and more in store in the next few months! Check out Rosie and The Rockabillies for more updates!
ART
They are here and we could not be more excited! Jeff and I wrote a book! Well, Jeff wrote the story and I illustrated. Camping Critters is a children’s book series based on our love for Lucy, Desi, and camping adventures with The Not So Long Trailer that Jeff and I have been planning for quite some time now. This project was honestly about 3 years in the making, and I cannot believe I’m now holding the first in this series!
I also spent about 3 months illustrating a Lucy coloring book with plans for a Grey Gardens to follow. This coloring book is for Lucy fans of all ages with over 20 illustrations and quotes from “I Love Lucy” throughout.
Our first round of pre-orders has arrived, and you can now place your order for “Camping Critters: Lucy & Ricky Raccoon Buy a Camper” and “The Lucy Coloring Book." Just message or send an email to ourtechnicolorlife@gmail.com to place your order!
Camping Critters: Lucy and Ricky Raccoon But A Camper $12,95
The Lucy Coloring Book $9.95
Shipping Available or Local Pick Up
LIFESTYLE
Wow! Derby 149 in the books! I’m not gonna lie, I look forward to the first weekend in May like a kid waiting for Christmas. Growing up in Louisville, my dad had me at the track (Churchill Downs) at a very early age (which my mom didn’t really appreciate - but, hey, that’s what dads are for!) This May I attended my 25th Kentucky Derby! On Friday we attended Oaks Day at the Downs (the day for the fillies). The weather was SO good, with absolutely perfect weather on Friday and just bit overcast on Saturday.
Every year I plan what a particular theme for my (our) Derby look. This year was the 25th anniversary of the movie, Titanic. I figured with it being my 25th and the movie’s 25th, I had to finally go for the “Rose Dawson” look I have always dreamed of doing. I started working on it in January - collecting pieces I needed for my hat and the necessary accoutrements.
I think I pulled it off pretty well! At least I was very pleased. Jeff lived up to his end of the coupling look with a great pinstripe suit he found on line and purple bowler!! He was kind of Cal, with the heart of Jack. (If you know the movie, you know.)
For my Oaks Day look on Friday, I wanted bright colors, with hot pink as a focus color. Jeff’s mom had made me the dress a few years ago before she passed away. I wanted to add what I have come to find out is called a “waist cape”. I had a couple yards of the fabric left over that was unused from the dress. Well, Jeff got some sewing genes from his mom, and he made me the cape this past week!
I know some people are not into the whole Derby celebration. I get that. But for me, it represents the coming of summer. A celebration that we have made it through another winter. It is also something that means a great deal to me in terms of family, especially my dad. And sometimes, those things that resonate with you as a child, mean the most. They stay with you through adulthood. They pull you back in time. They simply make you feel like a kid again.
So, yes, Derby week means a great deal to me. It always will.
Oh, and I make my hats, in case you were wondering.
And now…to start planning my Oaks and Derby looks for 2024 - the 150th running of the historic horse race!
This concludes our May we move into June in Our Technicolor Life! Please explore the website and share with friends & family! This website our one stop shop for all of our events and information. Don't forget to subscribe so you stay in the loop and check out our upcoming events section right on the home page!
Yours truly,
Carrie & Jeff
AT A GLANCE - JUNE EVENTS
Friday June 9th 7pm Tea and Story Time with Captain Hook - SOLD OUT
Corydon, IN
Sunday June 11th 3pm Under the Sea Story Time Tea - SOLD OUT
Corydon, IN
Rail Industry Clearing Association Conference
June 12-16th
Friday June 23rd 7pm Under the Sea Story Time Tea - SOLD OUT
Corydon, IN
Sunday June 25th 3pm Fairy Princess Tea & Story Time - SOLD OUT
Corydon, IN
Friday June 30th 7pm Cinderella Story Time
Corydon, IN