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Memos, Mail, Me: The Road Home

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It’s rare that I’m writing a Mondaly Memo post after dinner, but the truth is I find it hard to get back into my usual routines after we’ve been away for over two weeks. In January, it took several weeks until I felt I had things under control again. This time it seems a bit better, but I’m still not quite “on it.” I hope you’ll forgive a longer than usual post, as I thought I’d do a recap of our trip home, even though most of it happened before the weekend.

When we left Florida, we headed to Macon, Georgia. Tracy had long wanted to visit the Indian mounds there at the Ocmulgee National Monument.

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It was a beautiful day for a visit, and I was much more interested in it than I expected. The park is a prehistoric Indian site, having been occupied for over 17,000 years. The Earth Lodge is a reconstructed ceremonial building, but the floor has been carbon dated to nearly 1,000 years old.

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The Temple Mound is the highest, and largest Mississippian mound. If you look closely, you can see people climbing the stairs as well as some people on top of the mound which gives you some perspective. The original mounds were, needless to say, constructed basket by basket of dirt carried by individuals. It must have taken a very long time.

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From Macon, we drove to Atlanta to have brunch at our favorite restaurant, Canoe. We discovered it when Sarah was in seminary, and it never disappoints. It’s a beautiful place, with impeccable service, and outstanding food. It sits on the bank of the Chattahoochee River.

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I needed a self-portrait for my CY365 project that day, but I cheated and let Tracy take on. It’s not often I’m willing to share photos of myself, but the setting was pretty wonderful.

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Our next stop was Chattanooga, Tennessee. It was a good distance between Atlanta and Nashville, so we planned an afternoon and evening there. Good choice. There was a wonderful art museum,

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and an even more wonderful aquarium.

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It housed a butterfly/bird garden on the roof,

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a touchstation, “Stingray Bay,” where you can touch stingrays as they swim by,

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and two buildings of exhibits, one the Ocean Journey, and the other The River Journey. Both are excellent. The exhibit of seahorses was absolutely fascinating although I have no photos from it.

There’s a wonderful pedestrian bridge that crosses the Tennessee River that links the downtown art district with a delightful area of restaurants and shops on the other side. After dinner at The Brewhaus, we walked across half the bridge, and then down to the park below. Chattanooga has done a wonderful job of revitalizing the river district. I wish Rochester would come up with a good plan.

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Our primary destination for the trip home was Nashville. My main reason for wanting to visit was a bookstore, Parnassus Books, co-owned by Ann Patchett, one of my favorite authors. I was so engrossed in looking at books and reading the review cards, I never took one photo. I always try to buy one book whenever I visit an independent book store in order to support them. This time, both Tracy and I left with our own bag of books. I’m all set for reading material for the next several months! I did stick to my self-inflicted rule: you may only buy books you’ve never heard of (based, of course, on those marvelous little review cards taped to the shelves.)

But, I must admit that the highlight of our visit was not books, after all, but music. Thanks to the B&B owners we had tickets to see the Time Jumpers the first night. We ended up sitting with a couple who drive 1 ½ hours every week to hear the Time Jumpers. (Donny has seen them over 90 times!) It’s a 10 man “country swing” band, but I only have photos of a few of them since we were sitting right in front. Watching the band members interact with one another was such a treat, and the music was great!

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The next night, we went to the Grand Ole Opry, and it was much better than I expected. It’s in a lovely auditorium, built specifically for the Opry, and it was a lot of fun.

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That’s Charlie Daniels, if you’re a country music fan.

So that’s a long recap for a Monday. What about the mail? As you might imagine, we had a big stack of it. There were a couple great packages. One from California which I can’t share until later this month, and a package from Papertrey Ink. I spent most of yesterday, working on cards for April. Most of those I can’t share either, since the recipients do read the blog. This one, however, is for a friend who doesn’t read my blog.

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Everything on this card came in my box of goodies. The diecuts, preprinted flowers and pot, and patterned paper are all from a mini kit, “Bloom and Grow.” The open frame die is one of three pieces in a new die set called “Mix and Mat: Flourishes.”

The flowers pull out to include a message, but there’s another sentiment inside as well.

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I’m entering this in the NBUS Challenge #11, for “never before used stuff.” 

Waving to Sian and the Monday Memo crew! It’s good to be back, and hopefully next week, I’ll be on track again.

SNAP: Zoo Lights

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We spent the week of Thanksgiving in Chicago with Sarah, Adam, and Caleb. Sarah is expecting a little girl in January so a lot of our time was spent moving their office from the second floor to the basement, and then painting one wall with pink and gray stripes to turn it into a nursery. The crib and dresser got set up, but there’s still some decorating to do. The last night we were there, we rearranged the living room to make space for the Christmas tree, which will then be used for baby paraphernalia. The weather was unusually warm, so Saturday night we took off to the Lincoln Park Zoo to see the Zoo Lights.

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The zoo was packed but it was still possible to walk through the zoo to see the amazing variety of lights. What you can’t see in the still photos are all the interactive lights. The only disappointment (to Caleb) was that the polar bears and penguins were “sleeping.” He told the Sunday School director that it was all his mother’s fault since she made us eat early! Actually, we were incredibly lucky to get a table at a restaurant just across the street from the zoo. We ate there a year ago, and it’s a very family-friendly place with good food.

So here’s Week 48:  The Zoo Lights

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If you look closely at the bottom left photo, you can see a cute almost five year old peeking out! Off to link up with Helena and my fellow SNAPpers (a bit late since the photos didn’t get edited until late this afternoon.)

SNAP: Fall in Niagara-on-the-Lake

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Monday I wrote about our weekend in Niagara-on-the-Lake, but I like this collection of photos from the weekend. Since I’m thinking about putting all the SNAP collections from this year into a photo book, I want to document our travels as well as show four related photos for Helena’s meme. One of the photos here is similar to one I posted on Monday, but the rest are new.

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Every fall there is a wonderful display of pumpkins and fall flowers arranged around this carriage near the golf course (upper left). The upper right photos is of the sailboats moored along the Niagara River. On Saturday, many of them were on the water both in the river and on Lake Ontario. I loved the colors of the tree against the bright blue sky (lower left), and the lower right photo shows the patio of the Lake House where we ate lunch on Saturday afternoon. 

Memorandum Monday

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Sneaking in at the very end of Monday for a wave to Sian and other memo keepers with a look at their weekends—and perhaps a bit of learning something new. We had a particularly lovely weekend in Niagara-on-the-Lake with our friends. The weather was truly amazing—almost summer-like, and we enjoyed every minute of it. 

On our way into town, we stopped at one of the local parks along the Niagara River, and I hopped out to take a few photos.

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I loved the door and the brick work on this house at the edge of the park.

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We arrived on Friday afternoon, and had tickets for an evening performance at the St. George Theater downtown.

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Typically we get tickets to the musical production. This year’s was Sweeny Todd, and all of us had already seen it. It’s a bit dark for a second take, so we decided on one of Shaw’s plays, Mrs. Warren’s Profession. Frankly, it had been quite a while since we’d seen one of his plays, and we’d forgotten that they can often be a polemic–which this one certainly was. We were hoping for a bit of humor, but none was to be had. The acting and sets were, as always, first rate, but we think we’re done with Shaw as a playwright. 

Fortunately, Saturday held much better experiences. We visited a new winery, recommended by our bed and breakfast hosts, called Big Head. The wines are a little pricier that some, because they are made with the appassimento process of drying the grapes before pressing them. This is the second winery in the area to use this process. We discovered Foreign Affairs quite a few years ago. Both wineries produce wonderful wines, well worth the increase in price, especially since we save them for a special occasion. I love the logo for Big Head.

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We made a stop at Foreign Affairs as well to pick up two bottles of Sarah and Adam’s favorite wine, and discovered something new in the front of the winery.

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The owners found this huge moose in a yard in northern Ontario, along with a whole collection of like-sized animals. The moose is one of the Canadian animals featured on their wine labels, so he found a new home.

Nearly every fall, I get a wonderful photo of grapes hanging on the vines. We didn’t see any grapes on any vines at any of the wineries. Finally I asked, and discovered that because the summer had been so hot and dry, the harvest had just been completed. And yes, it was earlier than usual.

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Here you can see Lake Ontario beyond the vineyards. I liked the reflection of these same vineyards in the winery window.

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It was so warm, we were able to enjoy lunch on the patio at Lake House.

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And although we chose to eat inside, it was still warm enough at night to eat outside if you preferred.

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Regardless of the weather, and our satisfaction with the theater, we always have a wonderful time in Niagara-on-the-Lake. We’ve been going with our friends for over 15 years now, and we’ve yet to tire of it. 

 

 

 

SNAP: The Architecture River Cruise

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Tracy and I spent a long weekend in Chicago about seven years ago. Number 1 on our sightseeing list was to take the Chicago Architecture Foundation River Cruise. We purchased our tickets ahead of time, but it rained as hard as I can ever remember the day of our cruise. They sail rain or shine. The tour guide was wonderful, but the tour was a bit of a disappointment in terms of getting any photographs. This year we bought our tickets the night before, and it was a perfect day, sunny and warm enough to sit on the upper deck of the boat. Our tour guide from the Architecture Foundation, Harry, was exceptional. How anyone could remember all the dates, architectural firms, and history without ever referring to a note is beyond me! 

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I’m sure I have enough photos to make a small mini-book, but I’ll probably just add a page of photos to the Project Life pages for last month. In the last seven years, new buildings have gone up, and if we take the tour again in another seven years, the skyline will have changed again. It’s absolutely fascinating, and if you’re ever in Chicago, don’t pass up the opportunity to take the tour.

SNAP: The Terracotta Warriors

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When we were in Chicago in May, we happened to see advertisements for a special exhibit at The Field Museum, China’s First Emperor and His Terracotta Warriors. I’ve long been fascinated by this amazing creation, and we decided to make seeing it a priority on our next trip. We were not disappointed. China’s first emperor commissioned the creation of an entire underground empire made from terracotta to guard his mausoleum. It is estimated that there are over 8,000 life size terracotta figures in the area surrounding his mausoleum. The Field Museum has a small collection of those warriors, archers, chariots, and horses on display with other artifacts from that time period (475-221 BC.)  I would love to see them in person, but that’s highly unlikely, so I was delighted to have time to explore this exhibit. Emperor Qin Shihuan (247-221 BC) was also responsible for the building of the Great Wall of China. Should I ever visit China, those two sites would be high on my bucket list. Here’s a peek at the exhibit.

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In the photo on the bottom left, behind the terracotta soldiers, you can see a photo of a part of the underground empire. I had no idea that the area that is open to visitors in China is just a fraction of the emperor’s tomb. The actual tomb has yet to be excavated.

Afterwards, we spent over an hour in the Evolving Planet exhibit, but we just touched the surface of all there is to see in this fabulous museum.

This was one of many highlights of our week in Chicago. Sarah’s Installation was one, of course, and so was my meeting with Alexandra from Art, Scrap, and More. I discovered Alexandra’s blog through Sian at From High in the Sky. I love how bloggers connect with one another, and meeting Alexandra in person was such a delight! Next week I’ll be sharing another highlight of our day in the Windy City for SNAP.

 

SNAP: Stairs at the RISD Museum

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On our way home from Nantucket, we spent a day in Providence, Rhode Island. It had been nearly 40 years since we’d last been there, and we knew a lot had changed. We had a wonderful day, shopping on Hope Street, browsing on Thayer Street (the Brown University College Town), and spent two hours at the lovely Rhode Island School of Design Museum. It has a large permanent collection spanning from antiquity to contemporary art, and we enjoyed it all. As we walked from gallery to gallery, I was taken with the variety of staircases, and took photos of many of them with a SNAP collection in mind.

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Here are a couple more shots from Providence.

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They’ve done a beautiful job of restoring the waterfront.  I’d love to return some day to see the Waterfire display. Sadly, it wasn’t scheduled for the Saturday evening we were there.

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Here you can see the braziers along each side of the river which are lit during Waterfire.

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This is the view of downtown Providence from Prospect Terrace Park.

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Providence is the capital of Rhode Island, and although I had another closer photo of the capital building, I preferred this view. 

Linking up with Helena and other SNAP enthusiasts.

SNAP: Views from the Cape and Nantucket

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Only two of the three lighthouses on Nantucket are easily accessible. To reach the third, you need a special pass, which evidently is not that hard to get, but there wasn’t enough time to follow through. I have multiple views of the other two; one near ‘Sconset (upper left), and the other near the harbor in the town (bottom right.) The view through the door was taken at the Woods Hole Historical Society on the Cape which has a lovely collection of artifacts in a small museum, and this shed next door which houses a variety of boats and boating paraphernalia. The bottom left photo is of the oldest continuous working mill in the United States. We drove by it on Nantucket multiple times, but it wasn’t until the last day that I finally got a photo of it. 

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I’m linking up with Helena and other SNAP collectors today. I’m buried under a huge project which has turned my office/studio into a disaster area. Hopefully, I’ll be done by the weekend and back in business again

5 in 5: August

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Each month I like to participate in Sandie’s 5 in 5 photography meme. I was quite sure I’d be able to come up with five photos in five minutes somewhere on Nantucket, and it proved easy to do. I finally chose these five from the village, Siasconset, commonly referred to as S’conset. On earlier trips to Nantucket, Matt had sent me photos taken with his phone, with the comment, “You’d love it here, Mom.” And indeed, I did. The village is very small—a lovely market, a delicious sandwich shop, and a small cafe and wine shop. The rest of the village consists of quaint cottages, all shingled, all with beautiful flowers. Some of the cottages were built in the early 1700’s and are still in excellent condition. Later in the day, after these photos were taken, several of us walked the Bluff Path, and I’ll share some photos from there later. Along the bluff, overlooking the ocean, are much larger and more elaborate homes, equally beautiful. 

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In the last photo, I love that you can look through the window and see the ocean beyond. It seems like a pretty idyllic place to spend a summer!

SNAP: Boats in the Harbor

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We’ve just returned from ten days visiting Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Providence, Rhode Island. It’s been years since we were on Cape Cod or in Providence, and we’d never visited Nantucket. Betsy grew up with summer vacations on Nantucket, and their family goes each summer. They’ve invited us every year for the last three years, but this was the first time we were able to join them. There’ll be more SNAP collections, and probably a couple vacation posts once I finish editing the many photos we took. I cut the number in half yesterday, but still have a ways to go. 

Nantucket is simply beautiful, and the weather was hot and humid most of the days we were there. We spent a lot of time on the beach with the grandchildren, and had a wonderful time. There were lots of possible collections for SNAP, but this week I decided on four of the photographs of boats in the harbor. 

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The upper left photo was taken in Woods Hole, MA, the rest on Nantucket in various places. Nantucket is sometimes known as the “Gray Lady” because it is frequently socked in by fog. There were only a couple of mornings when it was particularly thick, but the afternoon we drove out to Madaket it was also foggy as you can see in the upper right photo. 

SNAP: China Lights

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The New Orleans Botanical Gardens has a special exhibit on called “China Lights.” It was recommended by a friend of my SIL’s who lives in New Orleans. It would have been much more beautiful at night, but the only chance we had to see it was Sunday morning. Although I like the photos in the SNAP collage, overall the exhibit seemed a bit overdone. Tracy commented that without the China Lights display, the gardens themselves would be a bit disappointing, at least at this time of year. I supposed we’re spoiled since the Chicago Botanic Gardens and the Atlanta Botanical Gardens with which we’re familiar are so spectacular. (Rochester has a few small gardens and many lovely parks, but no botanical garden.) Nonetheless, we had a very pleasant hour or so walking around, taking photos, and ended up at a great Po’boy restaurant for lunch we would have missed had we not been in that part of town.

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Linking this set up with Helena, and off to see what other sets folks have found this week. Before I go, I thought I’d share another photo of the dragon to help put his size in perspective.

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5 in 5: Street Music

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I always seem to be cutting it close to the deadline to join in with Sandie at “itchifingers” for her 5 in 5. I actually had several subjects I could have chosen this month, all from our trip to New Orleans, but decided on the street music on Royal Street in the French Quarter. Tracy and I stayed an extra day after everyone else went home, and I’m so glad we did. We spent the morning in the Garden District and had a fabulous lunch there, and then took the streetcar down St. Charles St. to the French Quarter. Royal Street was our favorite place to stroll, and this particular Monday afternoon, the street music was wonderful. Everyone talks about Bourbon Street being the place for music, but we heard much more, and better, music on Royal Street every day we were in the French Quarter. Love these dancers, too.

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And a second group just a short distance away.

 

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I have one more group I want to share. They weren’t in the five minute period because they were on the next block, but I loved their music, and the singer was just so cute! (And good!)

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I have several other photos of individual musicians as well, and think I’ll put the photos in a collage for April’s Project Life pages. They’re such an iconic part of the French Quarter in New Orleans.

 

Memorandum Monday

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I’m a day late with this post, but we just got home tonight from a six day trip to New Orleans for a family wedding. Thirteen of us shared a house on the water out near Lake Ponchartrain, and I knew I wouldn’t have any computer time, so I didn’t take my laptop. I did, however, have one very new experience and learned quite a few new things, one of which I’ll share tonight.

Friday night, the groom’s family hosted an amazing party at their home with a crawfish boil. I had to get a lesson in eating crawfish from one of Randy’s friends but it was easy after that and delicious! They boiled 110 pounds of crawfish, and then quite a few pounds of blue crabs which were much harder to peel and eat.  Included in the crawfish boil were spicy sausages, corn on the cob, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and even some brussel sprouts. It was quite the feast.

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My grand-niece, Bella, is an old pro at this. Living in Lousiana has its perks!

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Saturday morning five of us took a walking tour of the Garden District.

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We had a fabulous tour guide, and I learned all kinds of things. One of the most interesting was the difference between Creole and Cajun. Both terms are used frequently in New Orleans. Creole is anyone who was native born to New Orleans but nationality is not important. Their ancestry might be French or Spanish, or someone who descended from African/Caribbean heritage. Cajun describes people who immigrated from Acadia after the British took over the area in Canada and demanded that the Acadians adopt the king’s Protestant religion. The British forced them to leave and many were shipped south to the Louisiana territories.

When it comes to food, Creole cuisine is considered “city” food, and Cajun “country food.” While many of the ingredients are similar, if the dish has tomatoes in it, it’s Creole. I had both Cajun and Creole gumbo and both were excellent. One had alligator sausage as well, and it was my favorite.

It was a fabulous trip and a beautiful wedding. I’ll have lots more to share once I get the photos organized and edited.

My Month in Numbers (And more ‘gators for Lady Ella)

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For the last several years, I’ve wanted to join in with Julie Kirk and her month in numbers project. Earlier this year, she and I had a lovely email exchange about the project, but I never seem to be able to keep track of things. Since we were traveling a lot in March, I thought there’d be some interesting numbers, and started a list on my Notes app on the iPhone. Today I finally had time to count up some of the other numbers so here they are:

We drove 4,068 miles in March. That doesn’t count the trip from Chicago back to Rochester since that happened in April. We drove through 12 states (PA, NY, MD, WV, Vir, SC, NC, GA, FL, Ohio, IN, AND IL).

We spent 14 days on the beach at Longboat Key, and I walked 92,450 steps over 12 of those days—averaging slightly less than my goal of 10,000 steps each day. We went on 3 excursions while we were in Florida, and 1 in Chicago (The Art Institute) which makes for 4 total. I collected 103 coquina shells which you’ll hear more about later.

In Florida we went to the Arcadia Rodeo, Myakka River State Park and the Ringling Museum.

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The beautiful courtyard at The Ringling Art Museum

I’ve linked to some previous posts about those trips, but Lady Ella said she’d be interested in some more alligator photos (as long as she was warned–hence the title of the post) Counting the earlier photo, that makes 4 alligators photographed. I think we saw quite a few more.  

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I thought you might also be interested in the air boat we were on for the tour around the lake.

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We ate out 26 times in March. The top three meals were at The Waterfront on Anna Maria Island, Cotton & Rye in Savannah, GA, and The Gage in Chicago, but none were bad! We celebrated 1 birthday.

I took 589 photos but that doesn’t include the many duplicates and out-of-focus photos I deleted as soon as I uploaded them. There are still too many to print or scrap, so there’s much more sorting to do. I wrote 16 blog posts, which is way more than I usually manage while we’re traveling. 

My goal this year is to read 36 books, which averages out to 3/month. When we travel, I usually do better than that since I can read in the car. I read 5 books in March, all of which I enjoyed.

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My favorite of the five was When Breath Becomes Air, a beautifully written, tragic memoir written by a neurosurgeon who was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer at the end of his residency, and died within two years of the diagnosis. Although tragic, it is ultimately an uplifting book with much in common, philosophically, with Being Mortal which I’ve recommended to almost everyone.

 

SNAP: A Day in Chicago

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Tracy and I took the train into Chicago last week to see the current exhibition, “Van Gogh’s Bedrooms,” at The Art Institute. Van Gogh painted three variations of his bedroom in his yellow house in Arles, and this may be the first time they’ve been hung together. It’s certainly the first time a museum has created a exhibition focusing on them, and it was fascinating. I learned a lot about his life from the exhibition as well as enjoying the paintings. I was surprised that taking photographs was allowed. The first photo in the collage is the first known self-portrait Van Gogh painted. The second one is actually a digital projection of the three bedroom paintings which zoom in and out showing the differences between the three paintings. 

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After a delicious lunch at The Gage, we strolled up Michigan Avenue. I loved the yellow sight-seeing boat that was taking off down the river as we walked across the bridge. A friend told us about Eataly, so we stopped to check it out. It’s a wonderland of Italian eateries and food shops. I took quite a few photos, but my favorite was this display of cookbooks. I wished we weren’t so full from lunch, because the gelato looked delicious. Michigan Avenue is lined with exclusive shops and department stores, but we didn’t do any shopping. We walked almost to the end of the avenue, and although we were just short of getting our 10,000 steps for the day, decided to take the bus back to the train station. In less than half an hour, we were back in Evanston. Now that we know how easy it is to get in and out of the city, we’ll be planning more excursions when we come to visit Sarah and Adam.