Travel With Me Tuesday: Yes, Me Too

Yes, I'll miss you too but sometimes a vacation is what is needed. I'm having a solo trip out west in the land of green chiles, Rocky Mountains, and desert landscapes inhabited by unmet friends.

Be ready for lots of photos in early September!

The Way it Started

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Plan and then change Plans

Today is continuing the trend of the weekend. I plan x and y happens. Mostly it's ok, but it still gets me a bit flustered. The many trips we've taken have taught me to go with the flow and not let too many things go to the last minute. I had planned to do a LOT over the weekend. Didn't happen.

I went to watch my grandson play waterpolo, which WAS planned, but he hurt his arm and we thought it was broken. Since he was over an hour from home, and no one was home anyhow - if you're a parent with 3 children, you understand weekends like this - I went to the emergency room with him here in Annapolis where he was playing. By dinner time it was ascertained that the arm was not broken and he had a ride with his coach back to Virginia. I don't begrudge the time at all but when I got home I was zonked and it was an hour of "As Time Goes By" and then zzzzzzzz. 

Sunday was a day with a granddaughter at the Science Fair in Washington DC.  Can you imagine displays for miles??? There were over 1,000 booths and no we didn't see them all. I didn't even go all day as my dear dh went in the morning to VA to get her and I met them midday in DC. That allowed for a bit of quiet time to recenter myself at home before I went. I needed that as it was a day that lasted until mid evening. We both were zonked when we got home Sunday, and another early night for us both!

Now the cat's meds are ordered, the Ambien is ordered, the list of to-do items is shrinking and so it was ok that the dh realized today....yes, today...that he needed new slacks for the trip.  To Target we went. I even got a new laptop bag and ...heheh ... a bag of Halloween M&Ms.  Home and more water to drink. Can you believe we will be turning the a/c on tonight to sleep???

AAM Monday

This is a short post, but it is all about me. Me on one of my first trips to the South West.

There was so much I wanted to see and so much I STILL want to see, but darn, those states are so big! Looking at a map in Maryland, which takes up one page on the atlas, one can get fooled easily when one looks at a page of Arizona or New Mexico, which each have a page. A page is not a page and it's hard to resist planning more than a person can easily do. Especially a not-so-young person. But I was still in my 50s then!



We took a week to drive around those two BIG states and one of the highlights for me was the Gila Cliff Dwellings. As it was late November, the weather was brisk and we were virtually alone there. It was wonderful! I wonder if my knees could still do it...cause I'd sure like to go back again.

He said what?

Yesterday, my dear dh came in to say he had planned a trip for my birthday (less than 90 days hence)- flying into Zurich and driving to Lithuania. The very thought made me feel so exhausted I then went for a 4 hour nap, even without the total blackness of our ship cabin. Sometimes I could use a hideyhole like the cat's.

All talk of future vacations and trips have been put on an indefinite hold!

I'm Home! I'm Home!

And that means I can:

• Do laundry
• Sweep up cat hair
• Wonder how in the bloody hell can I manage the jungle growth around the house - before it gets unbearably hot?
• Continue to ponder the relationship between the fit of my clothes and the food intake on the cruise.
• Put off going to the store for groceries but at the same time wish I had an endless buffet of food choices to select from - In My Own House.

But mostly be glad to come home - to a home, to a cat that seems to have accepted us back, and hey hey! play on the internet as much as I like with no worry of the clock ticking off the expensive minutes.


Being home is good and I hope to spend a good bit of this upcoming week, which promises rain, sitting happily at my own Mac and surfing away, seeing what net-friends have been up to, and just enjoying home - even if no one is serving me all my meals.

ZZZZZZZZZ

This blog has gone to sleep for a month. You can find me over at
Get in the Car to read about our latest adventure on the high seas.

My friend Wilda's lovely guest room.

Ah sweet home

Travel is great whether it's to a new place or going back someplace I have loved so long like London. A (wo)man who is tired of London is tired of life, said Samuel Johnson. So far in my life that hasn't yet happened and by the middle of the trip I was remembering and/or discovering so many things I loved to see and do.

I was reminded me of how very long ago my first London trip was - 1965! so different, and yet so much the same. Prices were in shillings and pence and if I recall correctly, the pound was at $5. However, with prices so so low, it was a paradise of bargains. The country was only 10 or so years past rationing, and there were still many areas in the City where you could see WWII bomb damage. I saw firsthand the lovely little London Pride flowers that bloomed up in the rubble. Who could have envisioned places like Canary Wharf!?! That was dockland when I first visited and not too enticing.

On my last day in London, I was determined to hit one or two places with or without dh. We both made it to the Oxfam shop where we unloaded a few books and a few clothes. Then a walk up Earls' Court Rd to Kensington High Street and Waterstones . DH had heard of a book he wanted to buy for my granddaughter's birthday, and phew! they had one copy left. Hopped on a bus, nearly exhausting my Oyster Card, and headed down to Oxford Street and on up to the Wallace Collection for the Treasures of the Black Death exhibit. I'd never been to the Wallace and since we'd had lunch in a pub before hand, we only had a tea and coffee in the beautiful restaurant. One caveat...the Wallace is very much like the Barnes in Philadelphia. Eye indigestion after a point for me.

I was a bit sneaky and took this pic of the armor you can try on. Lord, it's heavy!

It was after tea that dh decided he was 'stick a fork in him done' and he headed back to our hotel. I forged on and just managed a quick visit to the British Museum 44 years after my prior visit. Yes - 44 years ago. My xh and I went when we met in London the year before we married and one exhibit I wanted to see again was/were the Elgin Marbles. Ah..I couldn't find them on the list of exhibits and the museum was closing soon!!! Then I got it. They had been given a more politically correct name - The Parthenon Marbles. It doesn't sound so much like plunder that way, does it?






And then finally - the Rosetta Stone. It's about 4' high and impressive as ever. I bought myself a t-shirt with the stone on it. Probably not too many of those in Annapolis - ;)




I could finally say this trip to London was complete and I could get down to packing.


Now the laundry is done, the house is getting clean, my swaps are being mailed, and we're off to hear Dvorak at the BSO tonight. Life is getting back to normal, and that feels really nice. Life at home - ah...

btw, all photos were taken with my Iphone.

One More Goodbye

It's that time again, and despite bursts of absolute (but controlled) panic about the current - and potential weather - in dear old England, and how the two of us may or may not cope with driving, I am packing my bags.



With a deep sigh, I'm getting ready to take the many many travel segments that should get me from my own home to a new bed in Canterbury more than 24 hrs later. Train, plane, tube, train, car. That's how it should be so I'm saying my prayers and knowing things always do work out - eventually and the right way.


Oh and then we drive up to Edinburgh - bwahaha! and back south.Update: We decided to cancel the Edinburgh part and go to London for that week instead. The North of England and Scotland will be better when the sun sets at 10pm we concluded. I'm wondering just who planned this trip!?!?!?

(was it really my idea???)

One Day I Shall

1929 Tamara de Lempicka 'St. Moritz' print from here but found here

Ok, make that a trip not the whole winter. I had my chance once and lost it and that's another long story. Let's just think a week or two in Berne or Zurich or Geneva. No skiing, just a Swiss city with snow. The kind of place where there's a lot of snow and they handle it well. Do they still have the long white lights on the buildings in Zurich at Christmas??? This might be the time to start my lobbying for 2009 or 2010

Warm Balmy Breezes

Greetings from Hilton Head South Carolina.

original by The Lorax Lady

I knew dh was about due for some bicycling and so we made plans for a post Christmas trip to the beach and a beach far enough south to have some warm weather. At least we had hopes!

It was a long tiresome drive on the stretches of I-95 we drove on the 26th

but after a night in Wilson NC and some darn good barbeque, we took the side roads and the temperatures rose. By the time we had lunch in SC it was in the 70s. I joked that we needed the a/c on but I just took my sweater vest off and put the faux Uggs in the back seat.

I have a bunch of barbeque pictures to upload but will post this now - gotta get those daily posts in for NABLOPOMO!

Back from vacation means...

Well if you've read me earlier, you know I don't mind the laundry at all. One batch is on the line and the other is on its way. So only whites are left and there's no urgency for that since we are in that part of the curve where we each have lots of smalls...or in plain English...underwear.

My emails have been answered (mostly done on vacation which is a snap with Mac's MobileMe) and I'm caught up with my Swap=Bot swapping and rating. I've thought of some of the postcards and atcs I'm doing so now it's just get them from head to paper and then mailed out in September.

The bugaboo hanging over my head this week is The Camera. Since we didn't manage to take a cable between our two wise and experienced heads, there are WhoKnowsHowMany pictures on each camera. I fear to plug the cable in. But I have verified, much to my shame, that it is the leaving the camera plugged into the computer after I have uploaded pictures which drains the battery. I get so excited seeing them appear on the screen, I forget to pull the plug. This is one time that pulling the plug is a Good Thing - a la Martha.

Well...the answer is 280 pictures from my camera. There are more I took on dh's but I'll just deal with these today.

We are happily dealing with these - 2 suitcases full of peppers, all waiting to be roasted, bagged and frozen. We try to do this every two years.


In addition to 40lb of Big Jim peppers from Hatch, we bought a pound of Chimayos just north of Santa Fe at one of the pueblo markets. They are the thin ones on the right.



This is the first batch of roasted Big Jims. It is now my job to pack them for the freezer. FYI 4 of these babies is equivalent to one of those little cans of Ortega or whatever. However, these have flavor AND heat as we usually leave all the seeds in. Talk about good....!!!

A Brief Hello

Well we are happily in New Mexico now after some nice family time in the Phoenix area. Hot? oh my yes, but not unbearable, hovering in the 100 range even at 10pm. The mornings were balmy 85ish but by 8:30-9:00a.m. it was getting hot.

Today was a lot of driving, as it often is in these huge states, but we went thru areas we have visited before such as the Tonto National Forest and the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest. Most of the other visitors we met were Europeans thanks to the weak dollar. Glad to see them spending money and enjoying themselves.

Once a winter I usually have a big, rare steak or prime rib and that is sufficient. That is almost how I feel about the Southwest. I wouldn't really want to live out here but I love getting a dose of the vast, wide open space and the high desert scenery. It's really soul food I think.

Sadly all the pictures we have taken still reside inside our cameras as the upload cords are back in Maryland. Perhaps we'll find a cable tomorrow.

Otherwise, imagine us at the Canyon de Chelly (pronounces Shay) and then up to the 4 Corners area where 4 states meet. Wednesday we head on down to Santa Fe and a bit more urban atmosphere. Well a lot more urban but still high desert. We are expecting a low of 47 tonight.

Home again, home again

Home means

1. My own bed
2. A real cup of tea in one of my favorite mugs
3. Sebastian both greeting me and ignoring me
4. My MAC with its great great big screen
   
5. A whole house to wander in, sit in, be alone in
   
6. More than 4 outfits to wear
7. Laundry
8. Meals to plan and cook
9. A litterbox to clean
10. But really little to complain about

1 day and counting

No, it's not California Dreaming but Estepona dreaming. So despite the fact that today is Ash Wednesday, we are in a upbeat mood. Most of my check off list is done, tho it keeps getting bits added to it. Distractions abound as in an email from King Arthur inviting me to get started on Easter goodies! And the Washington Post tempts me with recipes for nougatine hearts. Sigh.


But I forge on, and the clothes get laid out, thought thru ONE more time, and the passports are checked, the books get selected, and the clock ticks on.

A bit of food has been made chez nous, and while dh had a salmon curry which was done with a bit of clean out the fridge work, it did have his salmon, caught with his big ol' hands in Alaska. Since it went from sea to flashfreeze the same day, I am willing to have mine this way...