Summer story ideas

By By Thomas Tingle
Record Managing Editor
During the next few months, the Madison County Record will publish a variety of stories on places for couples to stay, visit and see within a 100-mile radius of the Madison area.
The idea came from a series of stories I did at the newspaper I used to work at before coming here. We will do several day trip stories as well as overnight trip stories and include a variety of photos of those places we go.
It's a neat idea and we are looking forward to doing this. So far, the places we've scheduled to do a story have been more than willing to cooperate with us and have been gracious enough to accommodate us if an overnight stay is warranted.
I'm not going to tell you where we are going. It's a surprise. Hopefully, it will give you and that special someone in your life an idea about a place to go that won't cost you an arm and a leg and is within a 2-hours drive from home.
At first, we thought about doing the stories on places to stay, visit and see for an entire family. We thought about it and realized there are a lot of couples out there who aren't familiar with the area and, due to limited funds for whatever reason, can spend only so much or perhaps can go somewhere for a day or night. So, we switched our thoughts and decided on couples. Even parents need a break every once in a while so this will be good for moms and dads.
We got our the map, drew a circle spanning 100 miles from Madison and started writing down every place we saw within that radius. If you were not originally from this area, you wouldn't believe the number of places that exist in this region. From as far north as Nashville, too as far south as Birmingham and all the way over to Chattanooga and back west to the Alabama/Mississippi state line, there are a lot of neat things to do and interesting places to stay.
If you like historical places, romantic getaways, stately bed and breakfast inns or the cultural aspects of a big city, we're going to try and visit them and let you know what our experience was like.
Like I said, it's a neat idea and we look forward to doing this and telling you what we've found.
With every story we do, we will provide you with as much information as possible. We're not becoming travel agents, but hey, even reporter's need a break now and then, so this is idea will be fun for us, fun for you and it will give these places a chance to be recognized here in Madison.