Welcome to my blog. I document my adventures in travel, style, and food. Hope you have a nice stay!
Melody's cousin called the other morning and gave us the sad news that their Grandma Irene had passed away, just four months shy of her 100th birthday. When I met her in the late 1990's she was strong of will and wisdom, and I still saw that part of her when we last visited in November, 2013. During all those years, she always made sure that you saw her smiling and that you felt included.
Not only were we leaving Austin this day, we also left Texas. On the way to San Antonio, however, we went to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center to spend a couple hours.
Our only full day in Austin was spent around downtown Austin. We saw the Texas State Capitol and the LBJ Library in the morning, the University of Texas at Austin in the afternoon, and met a friend of Celeste's for dinner
Another travel day for us. We started by going to the top of Enchanted Rock and ended with a short walk in downtown Austin.
It was time to explore beyond San Antonio, so we went to Johnson City and Stonewall to visit the LBJ National Historical Park, as well as the LBJ ranch. Afterwards, we spent the night in Fredericksburg, a town which has a definite German influence.
Friday was Mission day. Having already visited The Alamo, we headed south to see more, then the San Antonio Museum of Art in the afternoon
Having had such as busy Wednesday, we only had a couple main destinations for Thursday: the San Antonio Botanical Garden and the McNay Art Museum.
Neither Melody nor I have been to Texas, so this year we took the opportunity to visit her sister Celeste in San Antonio. Later in the week we plan on driving to Fredericksburg and Austin. Melody's mom Jean came along, too.
My experience with computers exists in two parallel tracks, personal and professional. I saw some of both when I went to the Living Computer Museum in Seattle. Not only does the museum have a lot of computers and artifacts on display, but many of the computers are running which you can try. There's also a computer room (complete with raised floor) running the larger systems.
Our last full day in Portland, and the rain finally caught up with us. Fortunately it was more of a sprinkle than anything else.
Another day in Portland. After breakfast, we double-checked the latest weather forecasts and made rough plans for the day.
Melody and I decided to take part of the Presidents' Day long weekend and ride the train down to Portland for a few days. Because of lodging availability, we settled on leaving Sunday, returning Wednesday. We knew we'd have to work around things being closed either on Sunday or on the holiday, but figured there would be more than enough to do. We also had alternate plans if it ended up raining a lot.
I've been thinking about my lens lineup, trying to decide where to go next with my travel kit. To give me a feel for one possibility, I rented a couple lenses each with a constant f/2.8 aperture.
Melody and I had a gift certificate to the Seattle Symphony. Given the opportunity, we looked through the schedule and decided to go to the performance of Tchaikovsky's first two piano concertos, part of “TchaikFest!”
We enjoyed last year's Seattle Times Pictures of the Year presentation so much, we made sure to go again this year. Not only are we glad we did, but we remembered to get there early enough to grab good seats. In fact, we sat very close to where we did last year. The highlighted photographers this year were Steve Ringman and Erika Schultz.
Every year we travel to the Los Angeles area to celebrate New Year's. As usual, we left a couple days after Christmas and returned on January 2nd. We stocked up on warmth and sunshine, and have since returned to cold and overcast on some days, colder and clear on others.
What's not to like about the sound of ginkgo leaves with wind blowing through them? I also enjoy their shape and how that adds to the look of the trees.
Having spent our last night in Kelso, we decided to swing through Cape Disappointment State Park again to see some of the things we missed the first time through, after which we went home.
After having spent several days going to state parks, we decided to try hiking in the Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument since we've heard enough people say that the trails are still accessible. The weather was supposed to be nice, so we were hoping that we would get some good views of the mountain. This was also a longer hike, so we were thankful the forecast had no rain.
Another morning which started with a trip to the breakfast room followed by checking both the weather and if anyone knew what would be open or closed due to the government shutdown. We settled on a hike which was in a state park, bypassing federal parks and making use of our state park pass.
