Posted in 2024, friends, leisure time, life, Memories, photography, relaxing

11/21/2024 Hump Day

In August of 2019, we took our sixth and final week long motorcycle trip. We traveled to upstate New York. Among the places we visited, our final stop was Storm King Art Center in New Windsor New York.

Wavefield

It’s a 500 acre park with over 100 outdoor sculptures and this is one of “the sculptures”!

It’s called Wavefield and it was created by Maya Lin, the sculptor of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. The medium is earth and grass – but you probably figured that out!

There are many impressive sculptures in the park and it was fun to wander around the grounds looking at the sculptures. Some move around and one is a giant swing that you can sit on.

I’d love to go back there and walk through the fields!

Posted in 2024, friends, leisure time, life, Memories, photography, Travel

11/13/2024 Hump Day Photo

We took a Danube River cruise in October 2018 and we had a great time except…. There was sort of a pre-excursion part of the cruise where we stayed at a resort for 2 nights and were bused back to Munich for an excursion and only had an hour at an Oktoberfest. Once we boarded our boat in Passau we cruised forward for the night but then had to be bused to Regensberg and another excursion because the water levels were low and Viking took our spot in Regensberg. It created very long bus rides, shortened excursions, and cranky passengers (not us!).

We decided to cancel all our non-included excursions and woke Sunday morning to the notification that breakfast was ending in five minutes!

We got up, took our showers and headed out to find someplace for breakfast – in a country where we could barely speak the language (ok, we couldn’t at all).

Passau Germany 2018

We found this lovely passage and wandered around a bit until we found a cute little restaurant so we sat down and helped ourselves to the buffet being served. then realized the restaurant was part of a hotel!

They were very gracious and let us have our meal – thank God because we were starved!

The trip improved from there and we enjoyed ourselves traveling down the Danube.

Posted in 2024, family, leisure time, life, Memories, photography, Travel

11/6/2024 Hump Day Photo

Let’s pretend today is Wednesday! Unless you had such a horrible Wednesday, you’d rather forget it….

This was taken in October 2013. It was another fun travel trip with my sister, Janice, and her daughter Julie. We shared driving duties from Connecticut to Las Vegas, and then Jan and I would hop on planes and fly home.

We planned the trip to allow us to see a little of the area along the way. We timed our day right to stop at this site mid-morning and enjoy the grounds and the view from the TOP.

Do you know where we were? Have you been there?

Posted in 2023, 2024, family, leisure time, life, Memories, photography, Travel

10/30/2024 Hump Day Photo

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!

Posted in 2024, hobbies, leisure time, life, Memories, photography, Travel, Writing

10/23/2024 Hump Day Photo

I shared a picture from a trip to Paris I took in 2008 here and today, I’m sharing another!

Saint Denis, Paris France

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.

Posted in 2024, family, hobbies, leisure time, life, photography, relaxing, Travel

10/16/24 Hump Day Photo

The Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC

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?

Posted in friends, hobbies, leisure time, life, Memories, photography, This Old House, Travel

10/9/2024 Hump Day Photo

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!

Posted in 2024, friends, leisure time, life, Memories, photography

10/2/2024 Hump Day Photo

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.

Corridor at Melk Abbey, Melk Austria

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.

Town of Melk

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?

Posted in 2024, family, friends, life, Memories, photography, Travel

9/18/2024 Hump Day Photo

Going back to my first trip to Paris in 2007. I was with my sister, her daughter, and their neighbor.

This was from our trip to Notre Dame. We were staying just over the river in the Marais District so we spent a good amount of time in this area.

I remember we took a tour of the church on Tuesday and while we were waiting in line to go into the bell tower we met some college girls who told us the best time to go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower was in the evening. They were right! It was beautiful.

We had already visited Montmartre the day before and I love that I had it in the background. The gargoyles were so much fun and I have so many pictures of them! I wonder if they are ok?

Notre Dame Gargoyle