On our trip to California last year, we planned a day at Hearst Castle in San Simeon. We went on the Grand Rooms tour in the morning and the Upstairs Suites tour in the afternoon. Both tours included a stop at this outdoor pool – I didn’t care because the weather was gorgeous and so was the pool!
I can picture William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies hosting parties with Cary Grant and Jean Harlow and Clark Gable lounging along side the pool or playing tennis.
It was a really enjoyable day!
I can’t resist taking a picture of my view when I am outside in the early morning. Wednesday there was fog because of the low night time temperatures reacting to the heat we’ve experienced during the day (at least that’s my theory, I don’t know if it’s fact!)
When my workout was done and I was heading back to the house, it was brighter, but the lights were still on and I could see the sky brightening.
A short time later, my husband called me outside to come look at the sunrise –
During the mid-summer, the sun is rising farther to the left behind the trees, so this time of year is always a treat to see it rising.
The day progressed to another sunny and warm one. I don’t know how long it will last so I’m taking advantage of it and taking an afternoon walk when I leave work for the day.
I shared a picture from a trip to Paris I took in 2008 here and today, I’m sharing another!
Poor Saint Denis! He was the first bishop of Paris back in the 3rd century when Paris was still ruled by the Romans. At that time, Romans were not the Christians we know of today and they weren’t very happy with the number of conversions to Christianity that Denis was accomplishing.
So they took him to the Montmartre area of Paris and beheaded him. It was said that immediately after he was killed, he picked up his head and walked six kilometers north before he finally died.
This statue is in the Place Suzanne Buisson, a lovely park in Montmartre. We came upon the statue as we were heading down the winding streets of Montmatre after visiting Sacre Couer.
We would see Saint Denis again above a door of Notre Dame and again inside the cathedral.
Greetings from our nation’s capital! My husband and I are here for 3 full days to explore Washington and Alexandria. Two days are in the books and both have been great.
Day one we took the metro into the city and visited a bunch of monuments around the mall and went to the Holocaust Museum. Today we went to Mount Vernon and the spent a few hours in Old Town Alexandria. Tomorrow we’ll be back to DC for the White House, Capitol building, the museum of the American Indian, and on the way back we’ll stop at Arlington Cemetery.
If you’ve been here, what’s your favorite place to go?
In July 2016, five people and three bikes took off from Wallingford, Connecticut, for a cruise around Pennsylvania. The trip was inspired by our 2012 trip on the Blue Ridge Parkway through Gettysburg. My head was on a swivel as we went through the middle of town coming home from that trip and I knew I wanted to go back some day!
We prepared for the trip in February by checking out the state on a map looking for sites and hotels and planning our route.
We headed out on July 12th and had a wonderful time. We saw sites including the Colton Point State Park gorge, known as the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania, Kinzua Bridge State Park, the Flight 93 National Memorial, and the piece de resistance of the trip, three nights and 2 full days in Gettysburg.
I took so many pictures during our trip and one of the sites I couldn’t get enough of was Fallingwater.
This home was designed in the mid-1930s by Frank Lloyd Wright for Edgar and Liliane Kaufmann who met him through their son Edgar jr. The home is cantilevered over the falls of Bear Run!
The family, through Edgar jr., continued to own the house through the early 1960s, when he turned over the home and 1,500 acres to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. It’s a beautiful home in a gorgeous location and the ride on the motorcycles to it was filled with rolling hills, forest, and farmland.
Have you ever been to any of these locations? Tell me in the comments!
What was the hardest personal goal you’ve set for yourself?
To work on myself….to understand myself….to learn self-love and practice it….to break my co-dependent nature.
I haven’t succeeded because it’s too difficult to start. To start means to move away from the person I know into the unknown.
Six years ago today, my husband and I set off on our first significant vacation – a Danube River Cruise. We left on October 2nd at 6pm, had a stop in Dublin, and a short flight to Munich. It was a great trip and we met some really great people on the first evening.
We stayed 2 nights at a resort before we boarded our boat (could have done without those), and the low water levels messed with our time in Regensburg (that really annoyed me!), but once we started really sailing it was great!
One of our tours was of Melk Abbey and it was so beautiful but photography was not allowed in the rooms.
Bonus Hump Day photo because I loved the colors of the town. These are real colors – no filter but it sure looks like one! I have quite a few photos of the town!
Have you ever taken a Danube River cruise? If you have, what was your favorite destination?
Thoughts From The Passenger Seat 