**Originally Posted at: http://visitcape.com/blog/where-would-you-take-your-parents-in-cape.html


Where Would You Take Your Parents in Cape?

During my internship at the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau my favorite project has been working on the CVB’s presence at the Southeast Missouri State University Welcome Back Picnic, happening August 22nd. When I started school at Southeast, I was unfamiliar with Cape Girardeau. Thinking back to those early days in my student career, I thought many of the students during “Welcome Back” would want tips on where to go in Cape. I thought it would be a good idea to compile a list of the top ten places to take parents during family weekend, and so, after talking with friends and fellow students from Southeast, I compiled a list.

Games
My friends had very different ideas of what their families would enjoy. During Parents Weekend, it’s important to give the “rents” a chance to see the good old town of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and everybody has a different idea of what to showcase. Spencer Day, a junior at Southeast, and a Sigma Tau Gamma would take them to a Southeast baseball game. In my mind there’s no better opportunity to show the parents that the sporting events at Southeast are filled with spirit and great love for the game!



Kick Back

Southeast Senior, Tony Machiran, a historic preservation major, would take his parents to D'Ladiums, for $5 dollar pitchers. This is a place where you can watch a game at the bar and enjoy a couple pitchers with the family. Not to mention that the bar represents a little piece of Cape history, as it used to be Dormeyers' Pharmacy.



Trail of Tears State Park

However, this isn’t the place for all parents. If you’re looking for a more low-key atmosphere, Courtney Frueauf recent Alumni, Class of 2010, believes that “family bonding during a hike at Trail of Tears State Park is a must.” Packed with beautiful scenery, you can check out the Mississippi River and on the way back to campus, and stop at Hunter Valley Winery, about a mile from Trail of Tears, to enjoy a bottle of wine. If you’re one of those outdoorsy-type families that enjoys getting back to nature, you should try it.



Walking Trails

Kimmie Brandt another Alumni, Class of 2010, would suggest grabbing an ice cream cone from Port Cape, then crossing the street and take a walk along the Riverwalk Trail. Enjoy the river, look at the murals and watch the barges go by. Speaking of walking, Stephanie Blest a senior in Advertising Club would advise an evening walk at the La Croix trail, a visit to Cape Rock for river views, a stroll around the Capaha Park lagoon to feed the ducks, or a tailgate session at a game.

River Campus

Kara Lea Brown, a senior in Sigma Alpha Iota, the music fraternity of Southeast, would take her parents “to the River Campus to see the great Fine Arts facilities and to see the awesome view of the Mississippi River and the bridge.” There’s no better way to give your parents an idea of the new campus facilities plus catch a glimpse of the scenic beauty Cape has to offer.

Dining and Mural Gazing

Other ideas include Nolan Ryan’s suggestion. Nolan’s a senior in a fraternity, Lambda Chi Alpha, and would take his family to Belair for some classic Belair potatoes and to hear some live music on the great outdoor patio. Schylon Lane, recent alumni who was a participant in Student Government, would take her parents to see The Mississippi River Tales murals along the floodwall as a great way to learn about the history of Cape. After checking out the murals, they would go to Outback Steakhouse. According to Schylon, “Outback has a great filet mignon sandwich!”

Dining and Shopping

Hannah McCormick, a junior in the organization of Southeast Students in Action (SSIA), would take her mom to Annie Laurie’s Antiques since they enjoy shopping. “We always go there to find new and exciting things! And, then go to Port Cape. The food there is amazing, and the history of the restaurant just adds to the great food.” While Hannah would be at Annie Laurie’s Anthony Werner, a senior in Sigma Nu, would take his family to Broussard’s. Anthony feels like it “captures a real part of Cape’s downtown dining,” and they really enjoy the great Cajun food.

No matter what type of fun you and your parents enjoy, there’s always something to do around Cape Girardeau. Cape is a city where you can share great memories and enjoy making new ones.

So, where would you take your parents if they were in town?

The Amazing Summer RoadTrip

**Side Note: i am about to insert pictures for the first time into my blog :) YAAA!

This road trip was with a great friend, Robin, this past summer we road tripped to Caretta, West Virginia, a 12 to 14 hour trip for our alternative spring break helping out the community there. This mini road trip, at least we thought it was going to be mini, turned out to be an all day event!

When Robin first got in the car, I had previously picked 3 destinations of brochures I had picked up at the CVB (Cape Giraradeau Convention and Visitors Bureau). Elephant Rock State Park, Bollinger Mills, and Trail of Tears.  And we of course decided on going to a place neither one of us have been to and the farthest away.  The Drive out to ELEPHANT ROCK! was supposed to take us a near 1 hour and 40 min. starting our drive at 12:30 in the afternoon we ended at our destination at 4:30ish that day!

On the way... we stopped off at an antique shop!... HUGE 3 buildings and lots of old fun stuff to look at I would recommend it! :)

After that stop... we made it to the Pilot Knob Visitors Bureau and stopped in to get a map and find out exactly where the state park was located and found other destination's on the way to stop into. (by the way. never follow the directions of where YOU think your going... one should always follow the map.) We got lost about 3 or 4 times trying to find the state park but before that we had to find swimsuits to wear at the near by park we thought we could swim at! Very excited we decided to stop off at a local discount department store. This took us quite a while to decide what to wear because there were little to NO swimsuits there.

After we found some tanks and shorts, we moved onto the next part of the road trip... finding the good old Elephant rocks!

After going down the wrong road, having to stop in at the fire station to get new directions of where we needed to go... we FINALLY made it to our destination!

This was finally where we changed into the clothes that would be better to climb the huge rocks in Pilot Knob, at the Elephant Rock State Park! 

The big rocks in the beginning of the park to take awesome family pictures at!!

The beginning of the search of some awesome scenery!!

Much more to see and do while at Elephant Rock State Park.     

1.walk around with the family and kids to have awesome picture opportunities like this one.

2. let the kids climb on the rocks to get some energy out of the kiddos (remember the first aid kit just in case!)

3. bring WATER! the day that Robin and I went out there it was about 100 degrees outside which caused the rocks to be a little toastier then normal creating a heat to come off of them.

4. Climb Climb Climb... and have fun!

5. There is a path available for those wanting to take it and read plaques ... but I would recommend going off the beaten path! :)

6. Bring a journal and be inspired by the gorgeous scenery!

Robin and I on the Rocks!

Are you thinking you should explore yet??

If there is a place where you visited this summer comment and tell me about it! :)

Oh, to be an intern...

My Article for the CVB newsletter :)

As an intern at the CVB, I am always learning new things. With starting this internship in the beginning of summer, I never knew how much there was to social media. I was ready to go all in with learning how the ins and outs were of the new to me marketing tool, Twitter. With having very little knowledge on how Twitter really worked on marketing a company and how the companies that actually market on social media how they were actually successful at doing so. With learning from Stephanie, the social media guru at the CVB, on how to successfully market yourself and a company, it has opened up my eyes to another world of social media. Twitter is now the new way to job search, get connected, and help expand your company!


With learning the “how to’s of social media” I have started reading “Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods” by Shel Israel. This is an amazing guide to better your knowledge on how to market a company as well as get specific examples of how companies have used Twitter as a marketing tool. While not being an avid reader, I have discovered that the only way to continue my education after graduating is going to be reading and keeping up to date on news. So I have started reading Mashable, a great site to keep you connected with what is changing in the world and an update on social media.

Furthering my experience with social media, I was introduced to hoot suite, a user-friendly multimedia one stop shop of the social media networks such as, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ping.fm, WordPress, and Foursquare. Hoot Suite gives you the most important information for you to respond to that you are mentioned in, that your interests feed from and the columns that you can manage your lists from. With learning all of the ins and outs of the upcoming social media and the uses of what is in motion now, I see as being an intern and learning from Stephanie, this will help me with my future career in Public Relations and Marketing for other businesses.

Crazy Conversations! and Internship!

Do you ever have a time where you just wonder where your thoughts come from?

Yesterday was the day! Talking with my girlfriends last night while watching a couple movies together, we just talk about the most random topics! We started on the topic of a guy having multiple kids with different mothers and wondering what the record was for one dad having a record of kids with different mothers. WHERE DO WE COME UP WITH THIS STUFF! no matter what our conversations may be about, we still have an amazing time together!

Today when I was talking with Stephanie, my internship director, we talked about the peace corp. today and found out that she went through the process of it and just ended up going to BRAZIL instead on another adventure! how awesome is that! I just feel like the conversation I had with her today about the PC really has inspired me to reach for something out of the ordinary and do what I want to achieve. VERY INSPIRING! :)

As for my internship today, I finished my task one completely now its off to the website designer to finish the coding on the columns and what not.

I am going to head up learning how to do lists on Twitter. I will find this out by watching YouTube tutorials.

Also another project that we discussed working on was having a table for the CVB at the Welcome Back Picnic for the students at SEMO. I would be heading this up for the set up and handouts and design of the table. This would look very good on my resume and is going to be pretty fun with designing the board and what not. Definitely going to have to bust out the scrap booking stuff!

Artscape

(video taken in between running from my apt. to Capaha Park)

This video was taken of the Artscape Chalk Drawings on Sunday, May 23, 2010. This was the first time that I used my ipod camera so bare with me, in between drawings you might get a little dizzy. But try to look past that and at the art... ENJOY! :)

Living in Cape over the Summer

So far this summer it has been all work and no play. This weekend I talked to my friend, no name, on the phone saturday night for three hours catching up on life and a recent break up for him. It was very intersting though because I havn't talked on the phone with a guy for that long in a VERY long time!... Of course this was probably the highlight of my weekend due to the lack of money I have coming in.

Oh, and of course my friend Chris came to stay for a night because of a weekend class and I had to work so I couldn't go out with him Friday night.

I had a guy from the past call me this weekend randomly because he felt bad that we lost touch and it was completely out of the blue. AND SO AWKWARD! Got to love being single sometimes.

Last night was a very interesting night as well with guys coming into my life. While closing last night on of my guests I was serving waited till I came out to check on him and make sure everything was alright and he decided to wait till his friends left to get my number and ask me to dinner. This was pretty flattering considering this NEVER happens. But of course we will see if he calls or texts.

So enough about boys!

I am at my internship again and have a new task! ... Figure out how to put a new tab onto facebook with being able to change the title page... I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO DO THIS! it should be interesting on trying to figure this one out! and... it could take me all week! HAHA! ... And now I am learning how to code.. this is pretty interesting! :) as for now I am slow at it but maybe I will get faster!

I have started it! Stephanie was so helpful in showing me how to do the FBML! which is great because I was pretty lost!

day two.

Last night made me realize I am starting to be in the real world. I went to bed around 11pm. Not tired but trying to make myself fall asleep so that I could get up early to be ready for the CVB. Of course trying to get into a routine of falling asleep early, I get woken up by the bar-goers. SCREAMING! and look out my window to the back alley way and see people parked in my back lot. This is never a good sign, so I rushed to get my clothes back on to run outside with phone in hand and the police's number already typed in and ask the drunk people to leave and ask them what they are doing. (Me not thinking that these people could come after me or anything just with my cell phone in my hand). The drunk people ask me what I am doing outside, PISSED that I was woken up to begin with start yelling that I am going to call the cops if they don't leave right now. So the drunk guy asks me my name and I start walking away and they say. Baby, I just wanted to know your name. I yell I'm going to call the cops get off my property! IT WORKED. :) but not being able to fall asleep due to stupid drunk people behind my house did not make my morning easy.

This is when I realized. I am officially in the real world and was annoyed with college kids/me just a month ago.

I have been here for two hours and have finished the task of compiling the lists of the dining and entertainment URLs from facebook in an organized list. I believe now.. I'm going to research twitter on Mashable.com and find books to buy on Barnes & Noble.com...Then Ill be done by 12:30 today and be able to go to the grocery get my BLAH! diet food to be a skinny bitch this summer and for the wedding in September.

Lettuce is not all its cracked up to be, believe me canned chicken with bacon bits shredded LOW FAT cheese with sea salt and cracked pepper croutons with Zia's nonfat low calorie sweet Italian dressing. Day after day... isn't that great. I want to eat Mongolian! Fatty noodles with deep fried pepper chicken with the sweet honey rangoo... SINGS TO MY EARS! just tastes so much better then. Lettuce.

Oh, and having a 16 hour day today is not going to be fun, internship from 8 to 12:30, the the grocery, gym, shower, and then work from 5 to 12:30 at night.. should be interesting.

Keeping you posted.

MegRobPR