friends – Page 14 – ToadMama.com

September 18, 2013September 18, 2013

Pacific Northwest – Installment 3

Our second full day of vacation started out wet. We were in Portland, after all, so the rain and overcast skies didn’t surprise me. It made for some dramatic wet-flower pics (did you miss yesterday’s post?). It also gave us an excuse to take our time waking up and preparing for our day.

The plan was to spend the entire day exploring the city. We thought it best to wait until after rush hour before heading downtown, anyway.

We made it into the city and found parking without a hitch, thanks to Annelies and her guidebooks. Then we went for a stroll.

I did enjoy the sites in the city. That bookworm shot, seen in the window of a bookstore, is one of my favorite captures from that day. It makes me smile.

One of the first oddities we encountered was a parking lot rimmed with food trucks aka food carts. I guess if I’d read-up on Portland before venturing into the city I would have known these were one of Portland’s calling cards, so to speak. According to a web site focused on the food carts, there are “500 food carts available at any given time.”

None of us were feeling particularly adventurous. When I think of food trucks/carts, I think of Baltimore hot dog vendors serving what Shannon always referred to as “dirty water dogs.”

Mobile trailers in a city can’t be very clean, can they? I have to say, there was an astonishing variety of foods available.

The second oddity we noticed was the sheer number of homeless folks. Wow. From young to old, sane to insane, dirty to clean. It was amazing. And depressing.

Since none of us really enjoyed the city, rather than give you a step-by-step description of what we did/saw, I figured I’d just share images of stuff that caught my eye. Some of it is a bit odd, I know, but that’s the stuff that catches my eye.

My favorite building in Portland was this nine-story structure at or near the Oregon Historical Society. The western face featured a trompe l’oeil mural depicting the Lewis and Clark expedition. To learn more about the mural, and see before and after images of the building, CLICK HERE.

I’m embarrassed to admit that we missed an entire mural on another side of the building!

While at the Oregon Historical Society, Yves, Mike, and I were sitting on a bench, resting. I noticed our reflection in a window. Behind the window was what appeared to be the museum’s gift shop.

Y’all know how much reflections intrigue me, right? Since I had nothing better to do, I started taking pictures. Just about the time Annelies sat down with us, I noticed an elderly woman inside the gift shop. She was looking at me, probably wondering why on Earth I was taking pictures of her shopping!

Of all the images I captured, that one is my favorite. I know it’s weird and maybe even creepy-looking, but I think it’s cool.

23_IMG_5689 — Not-So-Colorful, But Interesting, PBR Mural

21_IMG_5683 — Different Angle on the Colorful Mural

This next picture shows me in front of the Great Harvest Bread Co. store in Portland. Y’all also know I LOVE the Great Harvest Bread Co. store in Old Town Warrenton (my hometown), right? I distinctly remember walking down the street and SMELLING home. For real. When I looked up and saw the store window, I had to laugh. How weird to recognize a place by its smell. It wasn’t the first bakery we’d passed either. Apparently, Great Harvest has a distinct smell. Who knew?

24a_Photo 8 — Great Harvest Bread Co. in Portland

After a truly delectable lunch at Mother’s Bistro & Bar (thank you, Yelp!), we decided to exit the city in favor of some more-natural sort of stuff.

I’ll save that for the next trip installment. For now, here’s a sunset shot captured from the back deck of that Portland Victorian.

Maybe once Shannon moves to Portland, we will re-visit the city…

TRIP Re-cap

Installment 1: In the Beginning (Friday, August 30 – Monday, Sept 2)

Installment 2: Portland Morning (Tuesday, Sept 3)

September 17, 2013

Pacific Northwest – Installment 2

After being away for two weeks, there were some administrative things (i.e., paying bills) that needing tending to this morning. So I don’t have time for a full update.

But, instead of doing no post at all, I decided to do a quickie.

Installment 1 ended with our Monday arrival in Portland after dark. Annelies and I were both disappointed that we didn’t get to see the house in daylight as we’d both been very excited to see the place.

She and I put a TON of time into planning our trips, and we both thought this place, which she found on TripAdvisor, would be a real gem.

It was. I never did take any interior pics (follow the TripAdvisor link above if you are curious) of the house we came to know as the “Portland Victorian.”

I did take a walk through the neighborhood on Tuesday morning. I even captured some shots of the pretty flowers in our Victorian’s garden. Those images just happen to be the subject of this quickie post.

Sorry if the flower shots bore you.

My next installment will cover our trip into the City of Portland.

TRIP Re-cap

Installment 1: In the Beginning (Friday, August 30 – Monday, Sept 2)

September 16, 2013September 16, 2013

Pacific Northwest – Installment 1

I was really bad and didn’t so a single blog post while on vacation. Not because I didn’t want to. It’s just that long days and limited Internet accessibility made it challenging. I chose to use the down time we had in the evenings relaxing and enjoying the company of my traveling companions. Now that we’re home, I’ll be playing catch-up.

So, from the beginning…

Hubby and I have two very special friends, Annelies Van Damme and Yves Carlier, who we only get to see once a year. Why only once? Because they live in Belgium. Several years ago, 2009, to be exact, we started the tradition of alternating continents for annual visits. That year, they visited us at our old house in Maryland.

In 2010, Hubby and I traveled to Europe. Hubby and I did a motorcycle tour of Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, then spent some time with Annelies and Yves touring in Belgium and Luxembourg.

In 2011, they traveled to the US and we spent two weeks touring Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and Montana.

Last year (2012), Hubby and I did a motorcycle tour of the Alps in Italy and Switzerland, then spent just over a week with Annelies and Yves touring Northern Italy, with a brief stop in Switzerland to visit our mutual friends Tammi and Martin near Lausanne, Switzerland.

This year, our friends traveled to the US for a tour of the Pacific Northwest. They stopped in Virginia, first, to see our new hometown, and then together we flew west to see Washington, Oregon, and a small piece of British Columbia (Vancouver Island).

We would have liked to see more, but, it terms of scale, the states in the Pacific Northwest are HUGE when compared to similar land area in the Northeast US and Europe. Shile it may sound like we didn’t see much, trust me when I say we covered a LOT of ground.

There’s no way I can cover the entire vacation in one post, so I’ll be doing a series of posts as a re-cap. Beginning here…

Annelies and Yves arrived in Virginia during the late afternoon on Friday, August 30. I was beyond excited to see them. Mike was, too.

Shortly after they arrived, we were off to El Toro, our favorite local Mexican restaurant.

El Toro's infamous Sangria Margaritas — El Toro’s infamous Sangria Margaritas

Serving sizes in the US are far larger than in Europe. Both were stunned at the size of the “small” Sangria Margaritas, which Annelies was not able to finish.

The meal was delicious, as usual.

It was an early night since they had spent the whole day traveling. Not to mention the fact that 9:00 PM in Virginia is equivalent to 3:00 AM in Belgium.

On Saturday morning, I took the girls up to Baltimore (my mother-in-law dog sat for us) while Hubby took our friends to visit the Udvar-Hazy Center, a companion facility to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. While in Baltimore, my Dad hooked me up with a couple dozen Maryland steamed crabs. So we got to introduce the Belgians to a Maryland summer tradition… crabs, beer, and corn-on-the-cob.

We had been planning to serve crabs for a while. But plans had changed several times. In the end, we were glad to be able to introduce these two seafood lovers to this new-to-them treat.

Yves sampled the seasoning while Hubby explained how to open the crabs.

They both learned very quickly and, before long at all, we got down to the business of eating and thoroughly enjoying our crabs.

We had planned to walk around town on Sunday, but it was in the 90s and extremely humid. So we just hung out inside until it was time to head for the airport.

We arrived in Seattle just before sunset, picked up our rental car, and headed south to Buckley, Washington. After checking in, we walked to the nearby Mariachi Alegre restaurant for some more delicious Mexican food.

Mariachi Alegre Restaurant in Buckley, Washington

The next morning (Monday, September 2) we headed off to Oregon by way of Mount Rainier National Park. The weather looked very promising.

Our first stop in the national park was the Grove of the Patriarchs, where we walked through a forest of old growth trees, across a suspension bridge onto an island in the middle of the Ohanapecosh River that houses a grove of giant trees. Many of the trees are more than 25 ft (7.6 m) in circumference with at least one that’s close to 50 ft (15 m) around. Some of the trees are around 1,000 years old.

While there, we captured one of many silly group photos.

Then we made our way deeper into the park for a stop at the Paradise Visitor’s Center.

At the Visitor's Center — At the Visitor’s Center

17_IMG_5473 — You can really appreciate the size of the mountain up close.

After stopping at the Paradise Visitor Center, we continued on to Portland. We stopped for one last look at the mountain.

15_IMG_5466 — Mountain shrouded in clouds.

It was a LONG day. While to route didn’t seem too intimidating on the map, that was the day we learned that drives through the Washington back country can seem VERY long. The roads were paved, but extremely curevy and rough. And all we could see in the way of scenery for hours on end was trees.

Entering Oregon via the Bridge of the Gods

We crossed the Columbia River into Oregon not long before sunset. Because we were all exhausted, completely tired of being in the car, and anxious to reach our destination, we headed west without stopping. We did make a brief stop at the Cascade Hatchery…

… then continued into Portland.

It was dark by the time we reached our rental house. We did go out for dinner, but didn’t take any pictures of our lackluster, sports bar meal.

Thus, this post ends at the conclusion of our first full day in the Pacific Northwest.

More to come later. I have to get to work. Sigh…

August 5, 2013August 5, 2013

Dual-purpose Road Trip

I finally finished painting the table and chairs I’ve been working on for my Dad. So yesterday, I decided to make a delivery.

He moved into a new home back in mid-June. The kitchen is not quite as large as his old kitchen, so he needed a smaller table. I told him he should let me find one for him. Knowing I have a knack for finding cool, old, bargain-priced furniture, he agreed.

Now, Dad can be sort of impatient. I told him it may take a couple of weeks, to hang on to the table that the former occupants had left behind. But a week or so ago he told me he’d gotten a temporary table. Aunt Bertha, who lives five houses down from Dad, told me that she hoped he would pass the temporary table on to her when he was finished. She said she was envious, that he always finds the coolest stuff. Neither of them would elaborate on where this table had come from.

Of course, the whole time I was working on his “new” dining set, I was worried that he might not like it. I mean, I do realize some people prefer plain wood as opposed to painted furniture. So I started worrying that the temporary table would be nicer than the one I was repurposing for him.

I was quite anxious to get the new set finished and see this mysterious replacement. After I arrived at his house, I told him I had to see the temporary table before I unloaded his “new” set.

This is what I saw…

They’d both been yanking my chain the whole time! It’s not often that folks can pull jokes off on me, so they were both quite tickled to have succeeded with the ruse. That’s why they’re still laughing in that picture shown above.

"New" Table and Chairs — “New” Table and Chairs

The table is the perfect size. And the leaves, when raised, will make it possible to seat six people.

Dad likes his new kitchen set. I’ll tell you more about the table in another post. I’m anxious to show y’all the transformation. But first, I have to explain the other goal for yesterday’s road trip.

We adopted K through the National Brittany Rescue and Adoption Network (NBRAN) in November 2009. She’d been living with a wonderful foster family in Lititz, Pennsylvania. It’s rare enough for adopters to keep former foster parents updated with pictures. Rarer still are actual visits. Since Lititz is less than 10 miles from Dad’s new place, I knew one day I’d take K for a visit. Yesterday just happened to present the perfect opportunity.

K is a very good car-rider. Unlike Meg who bounces all over the place, snorting, huffing, and puffing. And Belle, who is nervous in the car and pants constantly. K just curls up in her seat and rides along. She gets up every now and then to look out, but quickly settles right back down.

Before we left Dad’s house, I walked K over to meet the neighbors.

She wasn’t nearly as interested as I thought she would be.

K was only mildly interested in the cows.

I think the smells overwhelmed her. Not just the cow smells, the aromas in general. She doesn’t get to visit farmland often. In addition to the farm scents, there were road apples along the way, too, from all of the Amish buggies riding past. (None rode past while we were walking. I bet K’s reaction to that would have been interesting to see!)

The weather was absolutely gorgeous yesterday. During our visit with Dad, it was in the low to mid 70s and breezy.

I’d told Jenn I was stopping in for a visit, but I didn’t tell her I’d be bringing K. She and Matt, her husband, were happy to see K. As Matt explained, K’s pictures (I share lots) are nice, but she always looks grumpy. Or serious. Stoic is a word I’ve often used to describe her, too. You can see just how happy, loving, and sweet she is unless you see her in person.

Treats! L-R, Maggie, Eli, Bella, Hannah, and K

Jenn and Matt have three dogs of their own (Bella, Hannah, and Maggie) plus a foster, Eli.

Jenn’s Mom, Ann, stopped over to see us, too.

They were kind enough to take K and I on a walking tour of Lititz. I’d driven through on previous visits to Jenn’s house, but had never stopped to look around.

It’s a cute town. Of course, I took a bunch of pics to share here…

I just LOVE the name of that thrift shop.

In the heart of downtown Lititz is Lititz Springs Park. As you can see, a creek runs through the park. And the creek was full of ducks.

K was only a tad curious at first. I’m not sure if she’s ever seen ducks. I told her they were floating birds, but she didn’t seem to care.

Jenn was quite keen to get her into the water. And I really wanted to see her get excited about the ducks.

Our perseverance paid off.

I wish I’d had a video going when the ducks started quacking and flapping right in front of K. The look on her face was priceless.

We all had quite a laugh once she finally became interested in the ducks.

She almost pulled Jenn into the water there.

I’m not sure if K had more fun stalking the ducks or if we had more fun watching K. We laughed a lot!

All in all, it was a lovely day.

It was really nice seeing Jenn, Matt, and Ann again. And Jenn, thanks for taking pictures of me. It’s rare to see a post with this many shots of me, since I’m almost always the one behind the lens.

We will definitely be back for another visit.

March 17, 2013

Girlfriend Getaway – Part 2

After spending most of Friday at the Green Dragon, as detailed in Girlfriend Getaway – Part 1, we visited some of our other favorite places in that relative vicinity (Carson’s in the Cornfields and the Flower & Craft Warehouse), then grabbed dinner and called it an early night.

We’re not very exciting. But we like it that way. The whole point of the annual trip is to hang out and reconnect with friends. We’re not Moms, wives, daughters, sisters, etc. during that time. We’re just three girlfriends having a good time doing what we want to do when we want to do it.

Friday night, what we wanted to do was chill. So we did. Then bright and early on Saturday, we were back at the shopping thing.

Unfortunately, the room behind Tracey and I was occupied by a couple we think was auditioning for a porn movie. That’s what it sounded like, anyway. And at about 6:00 AM on Saturday, they were at it again. Unreal.

I capture that first image as I left to get some coffee. That was actually the view from our parking lot.

It was a bit later when I captured the second shot.

Lancaster really is crawling with Amish folk.

The buggy shot was from the motel parking lot, too.

I made the girls pose for a picture before we headed out for the day since we knew Tracey would be leaving around midday.

Tracey thought she was being sneaky taking a picture of me. So I took a picture of her taking a picture of me. I told you we’re exciting.

The barn is across the street from another one of our favorite places, The Olde Mill House Shoppes.

The Old Mill House Shop — The Olde Mill House Shoppes

Lancaster County is very picturesque. It’s a great setting for a relaxing trip.

Carol and I happened to stop back at our motel on the way to dinner, so I was able to capture these cool sunset shots.

The weather was cold and blustery the entire time we were there.

Lancaster always seems to be windy. I assume it’s because there’s so much farm land and open space.

Sunday morning was the coldest day of them all. With the wind blowing, it was downright frigid as we loaded up our cars. And I’m a cold-weather girl.

I didn’t take nearly as many “action” shopping photos as I have in years past. Why? Because I have taken so many of them in years past. And we’ve been doing this for a LONG time.

Maybe, as I get things situated around the house, I’ll be able to reveal some of the stuff I purchased. I didn’t come home with any large treasures, but I did get lots of cool little home decor stuff. I did some Christmas shopping, too. Which means, I can’t reveal everything I bought.

All in all, it was a fabulous weekend. Except for the fact that it went by far too fast.

Girlfriends are some of life’s best treasures. Especially when you’ve know each other since you were kids. And your friends know your family personally. And your whole history. Even the not-so-attractive bits.

I am always thankful for my friends, old and new. But lifetime girlfriends are priceless treasures. I am very thankful that I have both of these wonderful ladies in my life. I’m glad we have all made the effort to get together on a regular basis, even if it is sometimes only once a year. It’s not always easy, or convenient, but it is always, ALWAYS worth it.

I love you both dearly and am already looking forward to our next rendezvous.

March 14, 2013

Girlfriend Getaway – Part 1

I was going to do a single post all about my recent trip, but then I realized I got so many interesting shots at the Green Dragon that I should just share them. I mean, the Green Dragon is quite a unique and colorful place.

My two girlfriends and I have done an annual trip like this for 18 years running. All but one of those trips has been to Lancaster, PA. And most have included a visit to this crazy place.

The Green Dragon, billed as a “farmer’s market and auction,” has been in business in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, since 1932. It’s an amazing, eclectic collection of merchants selling the widest variety of stuff you could ever imagine. Most of these pics speak for themselves. So sit back, scroll through, and enjoy.