Monday rolls around again.

John’s done something with his wrist. Fortunately, I had a wrist brace, so he has that on now. He won’t be rowing for a few days. He says he changed something in his grip on the oar, and that’s probably what caused the problem. I hope a few days’ rest helps.

I had really awful cards today, and managed to mostly misplay the few I did get. Oh, well…..

Sue’s mother-in-law had several stents put in a couple of weeks ago, and we went to the rehab facility for a brief visit after bridge. We were going to go to a local eatery that has Korean food, but when we got there, we found that they don’t have that kind of food any more. So we just came home to eat here.
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This is my first shot of Le Boreal (our ship), and views of the cabin. We even had the chance to enjoy the robes provided.

 

 

 

Northern flowers

We’re finally getting some days next week with predicted highs in the 80s. That’s something we haven’t seen in a while.

I got another helmet liner knitted this weekend, and spent the afternoon watching a couple of Margaret O’Brien movies on TCM. I got to see part of The Canterville Ghost and all of Meet Me In St. Louis. Fun stuff.

Margaret and Tina came by. They were on their way to an estate sale - there was a lot of glass for sale. Margaret said she got a few things, but had fun in any case.
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Summer flowers in northern climes are always lush, and those in Iceland were no exception. We noticed youngsters busy in the parks weeding the flowerbeds. We found out later that school-age children have different “jobs” during their summer vacations. Some work keeping up the municipal parks and flowerbeds, some work in museums (which we saw later), etc. We all thought it was a good to keep the kids busy, helping make their communities better.

 

 

 

Vikings

Very quiet day today - just working on photographs.

This is statue of Leif Ericsson in front of the Cathedral in Reykjavik.

 

 

 

A good Friday

Just got home from a lovely evening with Allan & Tina, Vicki & Rogere. We ate at our favorite Mexican place, and then went to V&R’s house to schmooz and tell lies - it’a always a special time with good friends.
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Old and modern buildings in Reykjavik. The old house is where Reagan and Gorbachev met at the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union.

 

 

 

 

The Pearl

We had a good lunch at El Meson with the swimming group, and then went for haircuts. This afternoon, in about 45 minutes, we got 1” of rain, and the temperature dropped about 15 degrees. Lots of lovely thunder, too. Love those pop-up showers.

The Perseid Meteor shower was tonight, but between some thin clouds, the ambient light, and the trees around our house, we didn’t see any meteors. Oh, well….
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“The Pearl” in Reykjavik is a showplace for the city. It sits up on a hill, and is a vantage point overlooking the area. There is a café under the dome, with exhibition spaces on the lower flowers. It’s heated with geothermal energy, and you can see steam plumes in several places on the grounds. Citizens are justifiably proud of The Pearl, and love to show it to visitors. These photos are in the interior.

 

 

 

The Third Amendment

I just hear on MSNBC that there’s some idiot advocating a complete ban on building a mosque in the United States. This guy has obviously never read the Constitution, or else he just picks and chooses which clauses he wants to honor.

Hey, fellow, you can find the entire Constitution in about 30 seconds online. But just in case you can’t find it, here the wording of the Third Amendment to the Constitution:

Article the third ...... Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (Emphasis mine.)

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Here are the first pictures from Iceland, taken on our city tour of Reykjavik after leaving the airport.

The Pearl - a museum/meeting place, etc., in Reykjavik.
Overlooking Reykjavik (note steam plume from geothermal vent)
Sculpture in front of The Pearl.

 

 

 

Snaefellsness (Snow + mountain + peninsula)

On our first full day in Iceland, we had a bus trip to the Snaefellsness Peninsula with a walk on a black sand beach. We never did get any feel for pronunciation of Icelandic, although we tried to learn the name of the volcano that erupted a few weeks ago. Long words do tend to be made up of smaller words. In the name of this area, it’s like this - Snae (snow) fells (mountain) ness (headland, peninsula).

We got a short nap after lunch and then had our first lecture by our trip expert, Bill Leeman - very good. There was a short welcoming reception by the Captain, with champagne and canapés. After the wonderful 5-course dinner, we went to the evening’s entertainment. Tonight it was a smoky-voiced chanteuse - an enjoyable hour.

We were so far north, and still near the summer solstice, so we never saw it get really dark. It didn’t keep us from sleeping, though.
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I went to the gallery today. Vicki had somebody coming in to look at some of her shop furniture. She did pick out something to purchase, so that was a good. It surely did look empty there - with nothing on the walls. Vicki and I got caught up on all our news, and went for a nice lunch. I didn’t get the photos downloaded - now I’m planning to do that tomorrow.

We’ve talked with Ann & Al about a trip next spring, and we made our reservations. We’re not even over jet lag, and we’re getting ready to go again. Oh, well. We’ll talk about that one later on.

Let's go to Iceland

Our flight from Nashville to Chicago to Boston to Reykjavik was generally uneventful. We were meet at the airport by our guide from Gohagan Travel. These folks were great throughout the trip - taking very good care of their 40 charges.

We were taken on a short tour of Reykjavik before going to a downtown hotel to get some coffee and cookies and wait until time to go to the ship. We could leave our luggage and take the opportunity to walk around the city and get some lunch at a local eatery (we chose Syrian and had falafels).

Eventually we went to our ship, Le Boreal. Wow, is it gorgeous! And brand new. She was launched in the spring and had had only one tour prior to ours. Our cabin was a medium-level room, and was quite roomy.

The first thing we did was take showers (after a day and a half of travel), and then went to dinner. The food was wonderful - most evenings, we had two choices for each of four courses, with unlimited house wines.

After dinner, everybody pretty much crashed.

This is a stock photo of Le Boreal.

 

Home at last

I'm sorry I didn't get something written yesterday. It just didn't happen. But I did get the laundry done and lots of other stuff put away. It does pile up with we're gone for a couple of weeks.

We had a terrific trip. The trip to Iceland went off without a hitch. We loved the alumni group and the company that put the trip together. We're already looking to take another trip that way - maybe next spring.

We were on a brand new French vessel - only about 240 passengers. Our group of alumni from various universities were 40; there were about 110 with a Tauck Tour; and the remainder were independent French travelers. It was a beautiful ship, with great food, unlimited house wine with dinners, lovely cabin. We learned a lot about Iceland - the geography, people, culture, and the geology/glaciers/volcanoes - just lovely. We haven't downloaded the pictures yet, but we'll get that done soon.

Our visit to England was fun, too. We spent a couple of days with an old friend who has a flat in a tiny town near Oxford. They're there twice a year for a couple of months each time. Her daughter (who was in Kate's class in Hendersonville all those years ago) has lived in England for 30 years, so that's the connection. They drove us around the Cotswolds (lovely little towns). We picked up a rental car and headed out on our own. John did all the driving - getting very frustrated at times because of the stick-shift - but finally getting "not too uncomfortable" with driving on the left side of the road.

I'll have to write more specifically on each area, but we did get to Avebury, Stonehenge, Woodhenge, Old Sarum (maybe the best - and we'll have to reread Pillars of the Earth), Salisbury Cathedral, Bath. And with local recommendations, we found wonderful places such as Warfurd Castle, Cernan Abbas, Sherbourne Castle, ate terrific pub meals, and stayed in some neat B&Bs.

The trip home was long, but uneventful, and we may get over the jet lag fairly quickly. At least by tomorrow, it'll be back to swimming and WalMart.

That's enough for now.

from Iceland

Different keyboard, limited time - flight not too bad - gorgeous new boat, great people, incredible scenery so far - wearing out the camera!!!

Love you all. Will check in tomorrow.

Our bags are packed.....

Our bags are packed,
We’re ready to go….

Gee, that sounds familiar. Even without the song lyrics, it is what we’ve been doing a lot of this last few weeks.

But, in any case, the bags ARE packed. I can’t believe we got all our stuff into two bags (one each). We’ll probably still come home with clothes that we didn’t wear. We have definitely gotten better over the years. We’ll definitely not run out of things to read, and I’ll not run out of sock yarn.

I don’t know how much, if any, I’ll get to write. Entries will be sporadic at best. I hope we’ll have a great time that I can tell you about later on, and with some great pictures to share.
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This photo is of houses on Tangier Island, VA, from our trip last year.

 

Getting ready

As always, it felt SO good to get back in the pool and get some exercise. Even the abbreviated WalMart run as good.

We’ve started getting, as we say, pseudo-semi-undisorganized. The camera bag is packed, and I’ve started getting clothes out. John brought the suitcases up. Tomorrow I’ll wash and we’ll start on the packing process.

I had given our next-door neighbor a couple of Bobby’s tomato plants, and the dear man brought me a couple of tomatoes tonight. I’ve already eaten one. Yum!
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This is a church window in Tangier Island, VA.

 

Resting up.

We worked really hard today at doing absolutely nothing today - just getting rested up for the next trip. We did find out that, if we wanted to get haircuts before we left, we had to do it today. So we did have to leave the house to get “coifed”.

The predicted scattered thundershowers showed up, and we got about 0.2” of rain. That’s always appreciated.

We’re going through all the papers we have about this trip so that we don’t take the unnecessary stuff with us, and don’t forget the necessary stuff.

One thing that allows us to travel so much with an easy mind is that we have such great friends who take care of things for us at home. Many thanks to all of you!
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This is the house we had on Douglas Lake. It was on a point of land, and the second photo is the point from the house.

 

 

A brief stop at home

We got home about noon - not a bad drive. We’ve made reservations for “our” beach house for 2011, so we’re optimistic. We did have a great week - always enjoying being with our family and friends. We even got to see Matt and Jesse for a couple of days. Jesse and his current girlfriend rode over from Norfolk on motorcycles, and it was still special to see him. Matt came up from Atlanta, and even Bobby came up with his fishing boat for a couple of days. All in all, it was a terrific week!

I only left the place once but several folk went into Sevierville to go antiquing - as well as the usual grocery run. The food was terrific, but it was unusual to have no seafood during the week.

We had 1.5” of rain while we were gone. We pretty much sat around today, getting caught up on computer stuff and going through the mail.. Now, we’ll have to start planning on what to pack for the Iceland/England trip. There’s not too much time to get that done. I don’t think we’ll do anything this complicated again.

I’ll get our photos from this week into the computer tomorrow, but this photo is another one from last year’s trip which included Tangier Island, VA.

 

Off line

Our house at the lake doesn't have wifi - so the addicts among us are in deep withdrawal. The place is great otherwise.

I came into town with the "grocery-run" this morning, so I could get dropped at Starbucks and get access. I probably won't come in again this week... so no more entries until probably Saturday.

We're almost ready

It did get up to 97 today, before dropping quickly as the showers moved in. We got 0.75” of rain, and it was nice to see things cool down into the 70s.

We’ve pretty much got things ready to load into the car in the morning. And, with any luck, we’ll be able to sleep a bit later, too. I’m just looking forward to getting to the “beach”. We may be headed a bit north, but Jimmy Buffet will be the music of choice.
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Approaching Tangier Island, VA.

 

Nothing but heat!

The official temperature was 100 today - first time in triple digits for two years here. At least, there's a front heading this way, so the temps will drop into the 80s tomorrow.

John managed to get through some of the red tape and get an international driving permit. Now he'll be able to drive when we get a rental car in England. We're glad to get that straightened out.

Ann and Al said that they were ready to back away from independent travel - they just didn't want to deal with the arrangements and glitches. I think we're about to come to the same decision. Note that this doesn't mean we'll be staying at home - just more likely to let somebody else take care of the arrangements.
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This was our first look at Tangier Island, VA.

 

Mini-heat wave ???

Officially, it got to 98 -99 here. And we have 99 predicted for tomorrow. Don’t plan to visit this area in the summertime.

A couple of us helped at the studio today, moving some of Vicki’s stuff to her home. I got one of her paintings that I’ve always liked. We’ve traded paintings over the years, so this was a chance for me to get another one. I don’t know when I’ll get all my pieces brought home from the gallery. They can stay there as long as she needs some things hanging on the walls.

The woodworker in our group made me an “island” for my new kitchen. He used the drop-out from the new countertop (where the sink went) for the top of it, so it matches. There’s a wine rack under the top, a shelf for folded towels, and lower shelf for some small appliances. He just delivered it today, and it really looks good.

It felt great to get back to the pool this morning - that exercise really does help. To say nothing of getting caught up on all the news from the swimmers.
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I love patterns - especially these made by the pier pilings.

 

Nothing is sure except change

I slept until 8:30 this morning - and it felt pretty good. I did two loads of laundry last night, and will wash again on Friday (before leaving on Saturday). At least, we don't have to worry much about clothes at the lake week. I did a short trip to WalMart, and went through the mail.

The big news of the day was our gallery meeting. It was the first time I'd seen Vicki since her grandson's funeral. I hated that we weren't able to be here - I really wanted to be here for her, but..... Anyhow, as you'd expect, it was a tremendously emotional time for everybody. The ceremony was with full military honors, so everyone was drained.

Vicki has definitely decided to close down her whole shop and gallery by the end of July. She said she was mostly ready, but Taylor's death really let her know how much she would rather spend her time with her family than having to be at the shop/gallery. And who can blame her. This business has been the focus of her life for 37 years, and she's finally ready to move on.

My problem is for me. What am I going to do now??? At least we’re going to be traveling for a while, and I don’t have to panic just yet.
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The waterfront at Crisfield, MD.

 

Always good to be home, even briefly

Home at last! We left the motel at 7 a.m., and got home about 6 p.m. It was a long day in the car, but with five drivers, nobody had to drive too much. I got lots of knitting done, and some naps were taken, too. The traffic wasn't as bad as I had feared.

By now, everything has been put away, and I've even started the wash. I'm looking forward to sleeping late in the morning. Nothing to do except a gallery meeting at 2 p.m. I'll probably get to the grocery store sometime during the day, though. And John will probably get some rowing done.

It's always good to be home. And now we start getting ready for our week at the lake.
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Another view of the morning clouds over Crisfield, MD.

 

A Long weekend

Yesterday was full from about 8 a.m. until 11 p.m., and I was just too tired to write anything. The “girls” in our group went our looking for antique shops, and had a good time looking at stuff. That’s not really my thing, but I enjoyed the company. Margaret and Allan’s fiancee Tina have gotten to be really good friends, and our friend Lisa (the one who got married in May) made up the group. They finally brought me back to the hotel, and looked a little more, before we went for lunch.

We only got in a short rest before it was time to get dressed and head out to get Allan (the father of the bride) to the wedding site. It was on a farm about 30 minutes away. It was a lovely place, and by getting there early, we managed to stake our claims on some chairs sort of in the shade. It was still pretty hot during the 5:30 wedding. After a break for photo-taking, the reception and dinner was held under a tent set up nearby. It was a nice evening, and cooled off quickly once the sun went down. We didn’t know anybody except our immediate party, but we all had a good time.

We got back to our hotel about 11. The hotel was terrific. It’s part of the Clarion chain, but the building was originally the City Hall. The spaces were so interesting - conference rooms had been council chambers or courtrooms. One of our groups room had been the mayor’s office. It made for a fun experience.

We went back to the farm this morning for a light brunch - bagels and fruit - and then quickly headed off back south. We’re in Winchester, VA, tonight, so should get home before dark tomorrow - but a long day of driving. We’ll be looking forward to getting rested up.
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Morning sky in Crisfield, MD.

 

Long day today

Arrived about 12:30, and got into one of our rooms. The hotel is in the old City Hall, and it is elegant and interesting. We walked around the area, looking at the neat old buildings and taking photographs. We came back to the room to wait for the others to come.

Allan and Tina went off to the rehearsal and dinner. John's cousin and spouse met us and we went out to dinner - DJ and Lisa got here about 5 p.m. We had a great dinner, and when we got back to the hotel, the First Friday Art Walk was in full swing - band playing and lots of galleries open. Of course, we had to take some of those in. Fun to do, but sort of a busman's holiday for me.

We sat up in the business center of the hotel and talked and laughed and drank. Allan & Tina got back and we heard all about the rehearsal, etc. All had gone pretty much as expected, so now we'll be ready for the wedding on Saturday.
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Car time.

We got away bright and early this morning - at 7. We each took turns driving, so nobody got too tired - except from being in the car for 10 ½ hours. I got a bunch of knitting done. There was lots of traffic, so no cruise-control stretches.

We ate lunch (reubens and pastrami sandwiches) at a little place called the Pink Cadillac Diner near Harrisonburg, VA. And we stopped for the night at Hagerstown, MD. That a long damned drive! We looked on google for a place to eat dinner, and wound up at the Hempton Hill BBQ. Each of us had a great meal - BBQ brisket sandwich with sweet potato fries; crab bisque and shrimp salad; chicken tortilla soup and crab cakes; crab bisque and peel-and-eat shrimp. Each dinner was excellent. And they brought us some sweet potato biscuits - what a terrific new taste sensation. We’ll have to try those at our lake week.

We’ll be off and driving again first thing in the morning - only about a 5-hour drive tomorrow.
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I really hate that we’re going to miss being at Taylor’s funeral. I know it will be very crowded, but…
The service will be on Saturday - with full military honors.
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Overlooking Chesapeake Bay from the Turkey Point Lighthouse.

Getting ready

I got some Friends of the Library business done today. I think we have an author for our November Annual Meeting. I sent this author a formal proposal. I’ll let you know who it is as soon as we receive confirmation and acceptance. I surely will be glad to get that part of it nailed down. Next will be getting the caterer for the lunch.

Gallery time took up a good part of the day. The artists who exhibited during June was taking her work down, and Sandy (another of the artists) and I hung an assortment of the group’s work for our July show. A haircut finished off my “outside” stuff for the day.

I came home and got our bags packed, so we can make an early get-away in the morning. We’re headed north for Allan’s daughter’s wedding on Saturday. Margaret came in, and we got some of the stuff loaded in her car.

The laptop, of course, will be going with me.
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Taylor’s funeral will probably be this weekend.