Have you been to the Arboretum yet? If not, I’ve got you covered. We went a few days ago and walked around like professional photographers with our big bad cameras. We’re also taking notes on what kinds of plants we might want to add to our garden at home. Anyway, it’s time for you to feast on what the Lord has got on His gardening table this time of year. In just a fraction of the time that we spent there, you’ll be able to see what we saw while avoiding bugs, sun exposure, stress on your weary legs and the entry fee. You’re welcome!
A penny in the fountain. To be honest, I thought this would look cooler.
There you have it. We plan to go at least once a month to see different plants at their peak.
The station itself was beautiful. Kris said that when he’d been on his tour in Milan (during which he got to see “The Last Supper,” by the way), they were told that the architecture and design of the station were fascist, having been done during Mussolini’s time in power.
Food in our bellies and having taken care of necessities, we just wandered around and then sat for a while, waiting for the train. We boarded it 20 minutes early and it was about a 2 hour trip. The owners of the B&B (Giovanni and Allesandra) had sent us very explicit directions for finding their place from the station and after one rabbit trail, we found the correct exit and began looking for the street: Via Borga Incrociati. Giovanni was standing right at the end of the street looking for us and seeing a couple with luggage pointing at street signs, came up to us saying, “Kris and Lynn?” He spoke English fairly well and greeted us warmly. We followed him up the narrow street and he saw another couple appearing to be looking around. He stopped and talked to them, finding out that they were a French couple also staying at the B&B. “Enchante,” he said, switching seamlessly to French while speaking to them. Mighty impressive. He told the four of us how to use the key to the B&B and then led us up a narrow and steep flight of stairs. Our room was on the first floor (the ground floor in Italy is called “zero” not “1”). I was immediately delighted with our quaint little room. There are no screens on the windows, from which we deduced that there are no irritating mosquitos here.
It seemed so charming to me to look out across way and see laundry hanging on the line and a couple women chatting through their windows.
By the time we were ready to go find a place to eat, it was 7:30. We took a little walk around to get our bearings and came back to a place on the corner of our street called “Antica Hostaria Pacetti” established in 1885. We pondered the menu outside for a while, googling for words we didn’t know (most of them). When we went in we were greeted by a tall, official looking man who greeted us in Italian and then, discerning that we weren’t from around these parts, switched to English. This never fails to impress me. He seated us and since we were the only ones there at that time, lavished us with attention in the form of trying to explain the menu to us. His English was fairly good, but he still had a hard time describing certain things and there was much that was vague and incomprehensible. He was quite cheerful and gregarious and I was prepared to order anything he recommended, but he kept moving from one item to another and explaining more. Finally we settled on a pasta pesto dish and a salad for our first course – at least we thought it was a first course.
At this point, a waiter took over, a smaller man who spoke very little English, but was nonetheless polite and accommodating of our poor Italian skills. We split the pasta and it was heavenly. I mean it!! The salad came after that (kind of a surprise, since we expected the salad first). When we finished that, the waiter removed our plates and we assumed that menus would be returned so we could choose our main course; this is what we thought the first guy had told us and Kris confirmed it when we ordered the pasta. After about 10 minutes our waiter came back and asked about desserts. Kris explained that we needed the menus back to order a main meal, so he brought them to us. By this time it was 9:15 and we realized it would be better if we ordered a little dessert instead of a big meal. Our poor longsuffering waiter. There were about 10 dessert choices so we told him what we wanted. Even this was fraught with difficulty as he tried to explain something and we got the idea that not everything was available. He pointed to a couple items so we got those: sorbetti (a fruit ice, papaya flavored) and a pistachio ice cream with coffee-flavored sauce. We waited another 20 minutes or so for the check and finally left the place a little after 10:00. Everything is an adventure here!
Today we’ll explore Genova and you can look forward to (or dread) the same tedious amount of detail tomorrow!
First stop on our tour of the sights in the Southwest was Arches National Park. We had signed up for 7:00 a.m. entry time to beat the crowds and get better sunlight for photos. It’s a truly awesome place – everything you see tells the story of water receding from a worldwide flood, but the standard explanation at their visitor center for all these gnarly rock formations was of course wind, rain and erosion over “billions of years.”
We stopped at the first turnout and took a bunch of photos and I declared enthusiastically that we should stop at EVERY turnout. We were young then. After a few of them, we realized that we didn’t need to take photos of every scene – a lot of it looks the same.
We made a pit stop fairly early along the way and while I was waiting for Kris, I found the cutest little wooden mushroom that someone had put in a tree. I also took an “artsy” shot through the side of a grill because…oh, I don’t know why. I just do these things and hope for the best.
We stuck to just a few main items of interest, taking a few small hikes along the way (accumulated 4 miles of walking by the end of the day though – and the equivalent of 22 flights of stairs). We stopped at Balanced Rock, Double Arch, the North and South Windows and the Delicate Arch (the iconic arch that you see on photos of Arches NP).
When we were looking at the North and South Windows, Kris hiked a little farther down than I wanted to go. As I was standing there getting photos of him next to a large rock formation, I mentioned to the couple next to me that it was nice having him there for perspective. Otherwise, you don’t really get a feel for how big these rock formations really are when you look at the photos. The couple, from Indiana, agreed and proceeded to take photos of Kris as the representative human showing perspective (and Kris somehow heard our discussion and hammed it up). I joked that he should start charging a fee for posing. The lady said, “If he’d show a little leg, I’d pay him.” We laughed about that so much. I had to tell Kris later since he hadn’t heard that part.
Looking through one of the “windows” See the tiny little man who’s posing there for scale? Show a little leg!Trick photo – he’s actually way in front of that window.
There’s a 3-mile hike you can take to Delicate Arch from the North and South Windows, but it was a long steep uphill climb, so we decided to drive over and take the shorter hike that only gets you within viewing distance.
Not the best photo, but that’s the Delicate Arch
On our way up the short hiking trail to the viewpoint for Delicate Arch, it was rough going – very steep uphill. I had to stop along the way a couple times to get my breath, leaning against the boulders. One couple was coming down and I remarked that I was just enjoying the scenery and NOT having to take a break. The wife enjoyed that and went along with it, “Yes, those rocks also need a little holding up – you’re doing a good job!” So after that I had Kris get a photo of me “holding up” a rock on the wayside.
Wildlife!No parking space at the end of the road – had to take the shot from the car.
Anyway, everything was really stunning and we enjoyed scrambling all over to see the sights and take photos. After we finished driving all the way through the park, we went back to the entrance and stopped in at the Visitor Center around noon to get our NP Passport stamped and I bought a sticker. Big spender!
Remember the rooster phase of my watercolor world? They are a dim memory now and I’ve been captured by mushrooms. I painted one from a photograph years ago, but forgot about it. Whilst traveling, I saw a painting of some mushrooms and went “Ahhhh…..” And then “Ooohhh…” followed by “Oh, yes…I must paint me some of those.”
The mushroom of yoreThe mushrooms of today
Just realized when looking at the photo that I’d forgotten to remove the masking fluid! Rookie mistake. So just for your education and edification, here’s the same painting with masking fluid removed.
Which do you like better?
There will be more mushrooms emerging from my workshop.
For extra credit, tell me the book from which the title of this blog came. Kris and Karl are excluded from this quiz since you know already. Sorry!
I’ll probably blow away the spores of this post in the morning.
Hello, dear readers! We have indeed returned after some lengthy and far-flung wanderings in our car. I had thought that I would keep up with this blog along the way, but eventually reality caught up with me and I yielded to it.
We went to several national parks and other attractions in the Southwest and took loads of photos, so I’m looking forward to sharing some of our adventures in future posts.
I also tried something new on this trip. I brought a small blank booklet and filled it up with drawings and notes from our time on the road. It doesn’t include anything from our stops – just some of the things we saw, talked about or listened to while driving. Since I didn’t do any of the driving, this worked out well and it was so much fun! I might share some of those pages, too, if I feel moved to do so (or if it’s a slow news day on the blog). Here’s just the first page:
It was a 64-page book and I filled it up, if you can imagine that.
Well, supper doesn’t make itself and I’ve got some pork chops to cook up and some asparagus to pick and cook as well. God is good!
As always, I’ll probably delete this in the morning…
Malpensa Airport to Milano Centrale Station – August, 2016
I think it’s safe to say that if Kris weren’t with me, I’d still be at the airport trying to figure out how to get a train ticket to Genova (which we call Genoa – I wonder why?). He has some sort of innate ability to understand the ins and outs of travel that I don’t possess. We purchased our tickets via a machine, one stop in Milan to transfer to another train to Genova. We made it to the train just 10 minutes before departure and settled in.
The trip took about an hour with 5 stops along the way. At one point, a woman came through and stopped to chat with a lady across the aisle from us, who steadfastly ignored her, which I thought was kind of odd. Then she turned around and began talking to us in a sad sort of pleading voice. The light dawned. “Non parlo Italiano,” I said. She kept asking, so I said it more loudly and firmly. She gave us one last pathetic look and moved on to another part of the train.
Milano Centrale station was huge, hot, crowded and confusing! We tried to find a display which would show where we were supposed to go, since our next train was to depart in 10 minutes or so. Electronic displays were all over the place, but we couldn’t see a trip with the destination Genova Brignole. We hadn’t eaten lunch, which was becoming a distracting issue as well, since there was no food available on the train. We knew that if we missed our train, we could take another one – the tickets are good all day, but once you validate your ticket you have to use it within 4 hours. We hadn’t validated ours yet, but had committed to being at the B&B in Genova by a certain time, so we wanted to make sure that there was another train that would get us there in a timely manner. We looked into exchanging our ticket to upgrade to a faster train with fewer stops but were told that wasn’t possible. By this time, our train was gone and hunger was taking a decided priority. How can one think properly on an empty stomach? However, we couldn’t in good conscience enjoy any food with the uncertainty of our train trip hanging over our heads. Kris finally figured out which train we could take and it would arrive in Genova only 25 minutes later than our original plan. Time to eat!
There were shops and little places to eat all over the station, so we chose a place called “Bistrot Centrale,” which appeared to be a cafeteria style place with many little stations. We looked over the menu posted at the entrance and while Kris wanted a sandwich of some sort, the Caesar salad with chicken looked really good to me. Simple, right? I approached the counter and said, “Vorrai un Caesar Salad e un croissant simplice, per favore.” I thought I was doing pretty well with the language, but the woman looked vaguely exasperated and did not appear to speak English. She pointed away from her counter when I asked again about the Caesar salad, so I got the idea that I couldn’t get a salad from her. I desperately wanted to go to a place where we could sit down and be handed a menu, so we discussed our options, but there weren’t any other places to get a full meal. In the end, Kris decided to get a sandwich and my croissant from the sandwich lady and I went down to the other end to enquire about the salad, although none of the stations had a sign saying “Insalata.” I approached another counter somewhat nervously and discovered that the young man there spoke some English – hallelujah! I enquired again about the Caesar salad and he assured me I had come to the right place. He beckoned me down to the end of the counter and indicated that one bowl had the basics (lettuce, tomatoes) and I could choose from the other bowls to build my own salad. Visions of a Caesar salad began to dissipate as I looked over the choices. He indicated that I could choose one meat (of 3) and either olives or walnuts. None of the meats were recognizable, so I asked him what they were. “Octopus, swordfish and __________.” I didn’t recognize the last word, but it looked like sardines. PASS. “Could I have olives AND nuts if I skip the meat?” I also chose edamame and corn. We found a place to sit down and enjoyed the meal, but I never did understand why I couldn’t order a food item that was on the menu. Just one of the hazards of doing business in a foreign country, I guess.
We still had about an hour to kill before our train departed and there were 3 levels to explore. First we needed to find a bathroom – how hard can that be in a huge public place like this? We looked for obvious signs (the universal bathroom sign), but didn’t see any, so we went to a display that showed a schematic for each floor. Finally we spotted one on our floor and went off to find it. Dead end – it wasn’t where we thought it would be. In desperation we went back to the Bistrot Centrale and while Kris wandered through the place looking for a sign, I stopped and asked the woman at the front cash register. She was very friendly and proceeded to give me instructions in a mixture of Italian and English. She pointed down toward the end of the restaurant and said something about stairs. Then she said “48A” and made sure I understood it by holding up 4 fingers, then 8 fingers and then made an “A” with her fingers. Oh boy, this was sounding rather complicated. Then she said something about “3.” When she finished, she asked me if I’d understood everything. I had no idea what she was talking about, but figured if I told her “no” she’d just start up again with the same inscrutable instructions. I assured her confidently that I understood and went in the direction she had indicated. Kris hadn’t been successful yet, so I told him I’d gotten the scoop, hoping it would make sense as we went along. Sure enough, we found an elevator and stairs. We got on the elevator and went to the 3rd floor, figuring that must have been the “3.” We went down a hallway and found a door leading to the bathrooms, both of which were locked and had a keypad. “Oh, it’s a code!! – press 48A!” Sure enough, that got us in. This felt like a major victory, I’ll tell you.
Note: This entry was so long, I split it in two, so next time, we’ll get us from the station to Genova.
Ever since hearing about electric-assist bikes (hereafter referred to as “e-bikes”), I’ve wanted to try one. I still enjoy biking but pedaling uphill is a challenge, and not a fun one. My husband found a place where we could rent a couple e-bikes for an hour to see how we’d like them. We dropped in at the place, met the proprietor, a nice young man named Luke, and set up an appointment for later in the afternoon.
We showed up for our 2:00 appointment in a timely way. Luke was all ready for us, explained the machines, gave us water bottles and bike helmets and off we went. He had recommended that if we really wanted to test the bikes out, we should take the Mars Hill Trail. In retrospect, I’m honored and flattered that he looked at me and thought “Yes, she can definitely make it up that hill.” He was wrong, but bless the man.
There are 5 levels of assist that you get while you are peddling and then there’s also a throttle that will just move you along without peddling. In my mind, I figured that’s what you use when going uphill and the old legs just can’t do the work. There are also all the different gears that you’d expect on a bike and you can always choose a “0” level of assist for the easy parts. We started out with confidence – this is fun! But reality (for me) soon set in.
First of all the trail was a dirt trail, so that added a layer of difficulty all by itself. Secondly, even the more “level” parts of the trail were all going inexorably uphill and then we got the serious uphill part. Kris was ahead of me and I realized pretty soon that level 5 wasn’t going to cut it. I pressed the throttle and prepared to let the machine take me to the top. “Oh no you don’t,” the bike said to me. I got some exciting few moments of momentum and then the throttle feature petered out. I got off the bike and couldn’t figure out how to get started again – it’s a heavy bike and hard to keep balance while trying to start from a standstill on a steep incline. So I walked it up a bit until coming to a relatively level area. I realized belatedly that I had kept the bike in high gear instead of putting it in low gear on the uphill, so that was a problem too. I lowered the gear while we were standing there (Kris came back for me) and tried it again. Keep in mind that the exertion was already such that I was panting and gasping. Kris had to hold the bike steady for me so I could get a good start, but it was to no avail. There was just no way I was going to make it up that hill, level 5 assist/low gear notwithstanding.
We went back down and coming to the intersection where the steep uphill started, we decided to go the other way, which seemed fairly level. But it was really rocky and tough going. And then we came to another hill. I couldn’t face it and of course Kris couldn’t go on without me, so we headed back. It was all downhill, so I mostly just kept my hands on the brakes and tried to keep my balance.
We made our way back to the bike shop, having by now taken up our whole hour anyway. We both decided that we’d prefer riding on pavement to dirt trails. And I had learned that the throttle feature was a short burst feature, better employed on level ground than on a hill. Luke told us that there are bikes with bigger motors that can handle more uphill work. All in all, it was an excellent learning experience.
If you’ve used e-bikes, what did you think of them?
The Willow Woman had a wreath of bright yellow leaves around her head and a necklace of autumn-red leaves around her neck. She never went anywhere without them and indeed could be spotted from far away when her leaves twinkled and fluttered as she walked.
One day, the mischievous West Wind decided to play a trick on the Willow Woman. He’d seen those beautiful leafy garlands and thought they’d look much better sailing through the skies. As she was out walking, he approached with gentle breezes and at the last moment grabbed out with strong gusty fingers and lifted them right off. “Got ‘em!” he exulted and carried them away high into the warm sapphire skies where they twirled and twisted in his hands.
“Oh, my crown! My necklace!” cried the Willow Woman as she ran to get them back. “The West Wind has stolen my jewels!” Having raised the alarm, she continued running, but it was futile. The Wind was too fast and the leaves were too high above her. There was none that could help her. She wept in frustration and sorrow over this great loss. The Sun took pity on her. Just as he was disappearing below the horizon, he whispered in her ear, “Meet me on the field just after dawn. Do not be late.” The words faded away and purple night came.
The Willow Woman was up before dawn, pacing back and forth in the field. At last, the Sun began his ascent. When the first true rays cast their lengthy lines over the world, he called out, “I’ve given you long legs – do not wait another moment. Run, Willow Woman! Your legs will carry you farther and higher than you’ve ever gone before, but only for a short time. Run and catch that thief!”
So she ran, and to her amazement, she was able to cover miles and miles in just a few steps. Her head was halfway to the top of the sky. She looked as she ran and before long, she saw a fiery red-gold whirlwind ahead. The West Wind looked behind him and saw her gaining on him. He’d been up all night making his new toys dance in the sky, but now he was slowing down. The Willow Woman leaped and reached and with long fingers she seized what was hers. And just in time, for as the Sun steadily rose, her legs began to shorten and her pace faltered.
She put her crown and necklace back on and shook her fist at the naughty West Wind. “Don’t you know what happens to tricksters and thieves?” The West Wind laughed at her. She was now back to her normal size and he did not fear her. But the Lord of the sun, wind and the whole wide world grabbed hold of the laughing West Wind and spanked him all the way across the globe till he cried.
The photo that inspired this story.
As the sun rises in the morning, I’ll catch this post and delete it.
Trigger warning for those of you who are food purists; you may be sickened by what you read here.
I realized a couple days ago that I hadn’t had a Twinkie in years and years. Why have I neglected these beautiful little bundles of goodness? Hostess stopped making them a few years ago, but someone else heroically took up the mantle to make sure that we wouldn’t have to live in a Twinkie-less world (they’re still sold by Hostess Brand, however). Capitalism at its best, people.
Today was the day that Twinkies re-entered my orbit. What can I say? How can I describe the happiness that ensued?
Twinkie, Twinkie, little star, What a wondrous thing you are. Spongy goodness filled with cream, Tasty foodiness like a dream. Twinkie, Twinkie, little star What a wondrous thing you are.
The only way I can go forward from here, as I see it, is to learn how to make them myself. Who’d like to volunteer to be my guinea pig?
Happy sigh…
I’ll probably fill this spongy blog with cream and eat it in the morning.
I don’t have anything new going on in the workshop at the moment, so I’ll share something old.
This was part of a set of seven that I made for someone. The watercolor was copied from something I saw on Pinterest (no surprises there). I added the prayer excerpt to it knowing it had special significance to the recipient.
Happy Wednesday!
I’ll probably do you know what in the you know when.
Today is the day that our journey really begins. Kris has meetings until around noon and then we will take a taxi to the airport, catch a train to Milano, and then catch another train to Genoa.
So, it turns out that each floor of the hotel has 2 elevators and 3 stairwells, only one of which is the non-locking kind and they all look identical in their signage. Naturally, I managed to find the other locked staircase the next time I went downstairs and had to be rescued again. I’m done with the stairs here.
The lights in the hallways are motion activated, so that as you walk down the hall, lights turn on as you enter each new section. It’s like getting some sort of amazing red carpet treatment. Isn’t that smart? Think of all the electricity they’re conserving!
I walked over to a shopping area yesterday afternoon while Kris was in a meeting. It was like a strip mall with a super Wal-mart (stuff and groceries). I went into the Wal-mart-type store and wandered around looking at stuff. It turns out Italian stuff isn’t much different from American stuff, except with Italian labels and prices in Euros.
The sign says: School soon…go! (or something like that)
Leaving the store was more difficult than I had anticipated. There were lots of little exit areas, each one by a cash register, but they had forbidding looking symbols on them and I noticed that people who were leaving were sticking something in a device which allowed them to leave (found out later that these were their receipts). What? I found an exit (uscite) that appeared to be safe and tried to proceed through it but was waved away by a stern-looking woman with a couple words that needed no interpretation. Perplexed by this turn of events, I began mentally reviewing what little Italian I knew to try and formulate the question of how I could leave this place (shades of Hotel California!!). I walked down to the other end of the store and just as I was about to ask someone, saw one last uscite that seemed safe and walked through it without incident. Just one more reminder that “we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
I saw another example of Italian brilliance in the parking lot. Each parking space is lined with paving stones that are cut in such a way to create little diamond-shaped spaces in a pattern. Each diamond was filled with crab grass and other weedy plants, but because they were in a pattern, the overall effect was one of beauty, rather than the usual ugly appearance of weeds.
Probably should have taken the photo from farther away, but you get the idea.
Kris and I went back to the mall later and had a chance to use our Italian when we bought some gelato and then pizza by the slice for each of us, birra (beer) for Kris, and aqua naturale (non carbonated water) for me. The vendors knew about as much English as we knew Italian, but it wasn’t too much of a hindrance. The gelato lady started dishing up my cone and seemed to be asking me if I wanted another scoop, to which I replied “no.” She nodded and it seemed that we had worked it all out and then she proceeded to give me another scoop. All in all, not a bad outcome.
Piu dopo! (More later) Ciao! Love, Lynn/Mom
I’ll probably delete this in the morning – all in all, not a bad outcome.
Lynniebeemuseoday 