When you look at that photo do you think warm, balmy breezes, bathing suits and beach towels? Or brisk wind and promise of whitecaps? The first night we were in Maine we visited a restaurant (just behind me where I’m standing taking this photo) right on the water in East Boothbay and I’d bet it was about 45° and windy. A few days later we visited the same restaurant for breakfast (the photo above, their last day of the season) and it was closer to 80°. What a difference . . .a . . day . . makes. A day or two anyway. We did have rain several days of our week in Maine. Hard enough that we didn’t really want to go outside much. And then there were a couple of days of very warm, summer weather. Indian Summer, right?

We have a friend who owns a house near Boothbay, and she very generously offered to let us use her cute-as-a-bug Victorian house. She lives in San Diego and visits her house a few times a year. Thank you, Nancy, for letting us enjoy the Maine countryside and coast for a week. Here are some photos:

Clockwise from top left: the backyard (Dave is sitting in one of the rocking chairs reading a book); the quaint and cute nautically themed kitchen, the barn (where a family of chipmunks lived underneath and frequently darted back and forth in the yard) and the family room where we spent many hours reading, sipping cups of hot tea, and watching television. Mostly the Weather Channel.

Clockwise, from top left: the view from the kitchen table; the ultra-green grassed backyard; the formal living room including a very baby grand piano; and another shot of the kitchen table where we also spent many an hour plotting our travels in the area.

We took jaunts in every direction. North to Camden. Oh, what a cute town that is. Including a stop at Camden Cone, a miniscule ice cream stand, a favorite of Martha Stewart (she always orders Maine Blueberry). It was drizzling some of the time there; I didn’t even lug my camera as we darted in and out of the cute local stores. We ate dinner twice at a place in Boothbay Harbor called The Thistle Inn. One of the best restaurants on the whole trip, according to me. Very innovative food, and just full of flavor. We cooked dinner in on three of our nights. I made the the Risotto with Turkey Sausage (and corn, leeks, spinach) for us all.

West to Brunswick, where Dinny and I visited the Bowdoin College’s art museum, to see an Edward Hopper exhibit. THAT was really interesting. I studied Hopper’s work  back when I was in college (Art History), and knew there were stories to tell about his art, although he’s known as a realist. Learning more about his art career, and his eventual success painting lighthouses in Maine, was enlightening. This one is my favorite – at least my favorite of the hundred or so paintings on exhibit. I like the colors, the sky, the angles. This one, called Captain Upton’s House was painted toward the end of his life. Watching a 30-minute video about his art at the exhibit, we learned that he and his wife (also a painter, but she eventually took over managing her husband’s career) would conjure up stories about the people who appear in some of his paintings. Apparently some museum has all of her notes when they were in the process of creating one of his “people.” Like this one:

One of his more famous paintings, this one’s called Nighthawk, shows 4 people sitting in a New York diner at night. I remember studying this one in college and as students we had to make up stories about the people, to explain what we thought Hopper’s purpose was with each character. Those are called allegorical, yet Hopper maintained that he didn’t paint with allegory in mind. It’s just that in order to paint faces or postures, he thought it helped to visualize a person before he set paint to canvas. The video we saw also alluded to the fact that Hopper wasn’t happily married, but there was no further explanation.

This has nothing to do with Edward Hopper. It’s a wall of a house near where we stayed. The folks who live here have a real sense of humor. That’s a painted wall. Or a painted garage door, I suppose it is, although I don’t think the door opens at all.

That’s it for today, folks. More stories in a day or two . . .

Tweet

Because we live in a huge state (California) that’s nearly a thousand miles north to south, we were surprised each time we so quickly crossed from Massachusetts, to New Hampshire, then seemingly just a few more miles and we were in Vermont. Then into New York too. And back. I don’t remember where I took that photo, but you can see some of the trees have lost lots of leaves already (from the tropical storm). I think this was in Manchester, VT. A charming town, if you haven’t ever been there. It’s rural, yet pretty, quaint and also upscale if you shop in the small downtown big-name stores. It’s the home of Orvis. And the Vermont Country Store. And a small designer outlet mall too. We didn’t shop at all except at the bookstore (below), but the shops sure were attractively built to blend into the local architecture.

We visited a gorgeous book store there, called Northshore Books. It was a big store, and just full of nooks and crannies of interesting books, large and small. I wrote about it some days ago but couldn’t upload this photo. You had to walk over this as you entered the store. So cute! So true!

We allowed ourselves two nights and one full day to explore the country roads everywhere in the area of Manchester. To Dorset. East Dorset. Or was it West Dorset? Ludlow. Londonderry. Our friend Dinny, who lives in Nottingham, England, felt right at home with all those names. We drove to Woodstock VT too, and it’s there that we saw the most damage from the tropical storm. Dinny had never seen a covered bridge. She had no idea what we were talking about, then we spotted one.

There in the bottom photos you can see the uprooted trees. We went across the covered bridge (fortunately it was high enough that the rising waters didn’t damage it) and took photos of the river’s edge. Below is a photo that hardly shows the damage at all.

We did visit Fort Ticonderoga, having never been in that part of the country before. We took a quaint little ferry (we were the only car on it) across Lake Champlain (quite narrow at that spot).

It was cold, blowing and some mist in the air on the short ferry ride across. The fort is just on the other side. I didn’t go inside (Dave did) because it was raining lightly. And my foot hurt that day.

The grounds of the Fort were quite beautiful. I think the Fort is owned by a private family who bought it in 1809. I did snap a few photos.

The road less traveled. Probably not worthy of a painting, but I thought the view was pretty.

You can see why the Army thought this was a safe and defendable location on the lake. We drove down to Albany, NY to pick up our friend Dinny who flew in from England to go with us on most of this trip. That all went well – she was waiting for us in the airport lounge and we were off and running within a few minutes. We zipped back to Vermont.

Tweet

This is most likely the prettiest tree photo I took on our leaf-peeping trip.

Now that I’m home, and CAN upload photos, it’s as if I need to start at the very beginning of our trip, 3 weeks ago, and begin telling you about it. I won’t bore you with day by day photos – but will give you some of the highlights. On the last day of our vacation a very kind gentleman explained to me why we saw such poor changing leaves. He said it was because when Hurricane Irene hit the east coast some weeks ago, it brought lots of salty, wet air onto the trees. Trees don’t like salt, so the leaves not only blew off during the hurricane (tropical storm), but those left on frizzled and died rather than going through their usual cycle of colors. That story made sense. Don’t know if it’s true or not. We did see some leaves – mostly in Maine, but the trees seemed quite sparse but I didn’t exactly figure out that most of the trees really didn’t have as many leaves on them as normal.

Nearly 100% of the trip planning falls to me when we travel. I enjoy it, but after years of making short and long trips, I’ve learned that we want to travel at our pace – sometimes it’s a fast one – other times we take more time. This trip it was the latter. The more I read about things to do and see in New England, the more days I added on to our journey. Our first stop was Lake Winnipesaukee. I did upload a couple of photos from there, but they were very small and fuzzy because I tried to increase their size after I uploaded them (bad idea). I’ve now uploaded the full sized ones if you’re interested, you can click back to that post to see them. It rained while we were there, so the photos aren’t the best. The Lake, however, is certainly beautiful. And huge. Mostly private property, it’s hard to see the lakeside except in a few places. We drove all the way around the lake – that takes hours if you make any stops along the way. The rain reduced to a drizzle a couple of times so I did get out and take some photos.

Both photos were taken from our hotel room or across the street from it in Meredith, NH. One of the few places you have lake access. I noticed all the Adirondack chairs everywhere. And just a few leaves changing color across the way.

We spent 2 nights in Meredith because I wanted to have a full day to drive all around the lake. On the NNE side of the lake there’s a house called Castle in the Clouds. Built in 1914, the house was the very forefront of home building in its day (craftsman style). A shoe manufacturer, Tom Plant, built it when the lake was still quite remote. We took a tour and learned all about the history of the house and the families who have owned it.

There are exterior photos. Notice that the house is all built of rock.

The home isn’t gigantic – probably about 4,000 square feet maybe – but that was huge in 1914. The grounds are beautiful (often used for weddings).

We headed north from there, up to Conway and North Conway, then on up into the White Mountains. I allowed us an extra day there so we could criss-cross all the highways in that part of the state, hoping for lots of changing trees. The only place we saw them was on the Kancamagus (pronounced Kank-ah-maw-gus or just “the Kank”), but it was absolutely pouring buckets as we drove through it. It’s a 26-mile stretch of curvy highway. I was gripping the wheel tightly through there as the roads were slick.

We stopped at the Cabot Creamery (cheese fame) and shopped a little bit. A very large tour bus was also sharing the parking lot with us (as well as another 20 or more cars) and as we were leaving the bus headed down the steep slope of driveway and as it reached the road and began making a wide-sweep turn, the read end of the bus hit the steep driveway and stopped it dead in its tracks, completely blocking the road from one side to the other. Fortunately after 10 minutes or so some kind bystanders began directing traffic – and we were able to sidle past the bus and head out the other direction. Thank goodness for the GPS – it guided us another way – maybe even prettier than the highway we had been on.

More tomorrow . . .

Tweet

. . .  you arrive in the room, go into the bathroom and find Molton Brown products on the sink. Maybe a couple of other times in my life have I stayed at a hotel where Molton Brown was offered, but never so many different ones. I’m a fan of the products – they’re made in England – and likely that’s where I was first introduced to them. Here in the U.S. the stuff is pricey. Last summer when we took a trip to England, I stocked up on the body lotion, which comes in multiple scents. I love them. My skin likes them. We left behind the mouthwash and the shower gel. Dave took the shampoo and conditioner. AND he took the body lotion until I squawked about it.

So, now, down to the point. Here’s where we were:

The Broadmoor. Does that look idyllic, or what? Makes me think it’s a modern castle on a lake in Switzerland. But no, it’s right here in the U.S. of A. On the foothills side (west) of Colorado Springs. And it’s a huge complex. Yet, despite the fact that they do conventions, and have a huge parking garage buried underground a block away, once you’re happily settled in, you’d hardly know there could be several hundred people staying here. You see, there are numerous hotel buildings – meaning you can stay in several of the different buildings which range from rooms, to suites to apartments to houses. Here in the picture above, I was standing on the west side of the famous Broadmoor lake looking back toward the main building side, although that structure you see isn’t the main building. But do note the pretty arched bridge. There’s a paved walkway all around the lake with a few well situated benches for sunshine or shade. Our room was on the ground floor just behind the big tall tree on the far right of the photo. We had a tiny, little terrace surrounded in shrubs. Mostly it was too hot to sit out there, though.

There’s our room with Dave standing in an anteroom that faces the lake. The décor was lovely. The room was very roomy. The bathroom (around to the left in the photos), was large and luxurious with both a shower and jacuzzi tub. We had a nice, big television, a desk (behind Dave) and two small desk-type chairs.

If there was any complaint, it’s that there was just one comfortable chair in the room, which meant if we spent time in the room relaxing, the other of us was either lying on the bed or seated uncomfortably in one of the small straight chairs.

So here’s a collage of photos from the Broadmoor.

(1) Walking out of the main building at lake level, they have a very large patio with big and small tables, some with umbrellas. We sat out there for a few hours reading.

Waitresses are available to bring beverages if you want them.

. . .

(2) On the other side of the lake is one of the fine dining restaurants (they have 3 fine dining and several others that could be called family friendly).

This one was Charles Court, and we were sitting outside on the terrace there, overlooking the lake.

If I turned around 180° I’d have the view you saw up toward the top of the post.

. . .

Lastly, there’s another photo looking up at one of the lower mountains. Everywhere you turned there was a lovely view.

. . .

. . .

And all the bathroom towels had the beautiful big B monogram. They were ever-so puffy and fluffy and white.

. . .

. . .

. . .

. . .

I think this may be my favorite shot of the hotel. With the drooping trees framing the photo.

There’s no question we want to return to the hotel. It’s just a matter of when. Staying at The Broadmoor was on my “bucket list.” I’ve wanted to stay there ever since I lived in Denver back in the 1960’s. I’d read about it – never visited it – and yearned to actually stay there. This isn’t your down-the-street Best Western, if you get my drift. It’s for a special occasion. We talked with people who were there for a week (wow, would that bill be expensive). We got a summer special rate, which made it still more expensive than almost any hotel where we’ve ever stayed before. (An aside, I think the most expensive hotel we’ve ever stayed – in a room with a view – was on the Isle of Capri, and it was over $400 per night. And it was lovely.)  But, The Broadmoor was really nice. I wanted to buy something with the logo on it, but couldn’t find anything I thought I’d actually use. There are several stores within the hotel, including one with kitchen stuff. That store carried a nice collection of McKenzie-Childs furniture, dishes and accessories. I’m enamored with their black and white check line, and wanted to buy one of the cup and saucer sets, but since I drink (usually) just one espresso cup of coffee per day, it made no sense whatsoever for me to buy a large enamelware coffee mug and saucer. Which would languish on a cupboard shelf somewhere and rarely get used. Besides, it wasn’t a Broadmoor mug. I’d just have remembered that that’s where I bought it!

So, if you’re ever looking for a special place, to celebrate a special occasion, think about The Broadmoor. Or if you’re vacationing in the area, include it in your itinerary. Do plan to stay at least two nights so you can spend the in between day enjoying the surroundings. We had their famous Sunday brunch (it was amazing). But do go there. Someday.

Tweet

When we flew to Denver recently, we visited and stayed with our friends, Sue and Lynn (left) who live in Morrison, a foothills suburb of Denver. They’ve been friends for years, having moved last fall from where we live in California, to Denver, to be closer to their daughter Megan (who reads my blog – hi, Megan), their grandchildren, Lynn’s parents and sister and family.

We stayed in Sue and Lynn’s lovely new home, enjoyed many a delicious meal (and some of Sue’s recipes will be posted in coming days), sat many hours out on their superb deck, watching for deer and fawn, sipping on Colorado wine and Bombay Sapphire Gin and Tonics. It was warm while we were there, but it’s so dry – we didn’t notice the high temperatures so much.

For two of the days the four of us drove up into the Rockies. That’s when we saw this:

I think it looks like a postcard. So beautiful. It was really pleasant temperature-wise, and the snow was melting away (very late this year, they said). We spent the night in Leadville – an old mining town that’s still a lot like it must have looked like more than 100+ years ago.

We spent the night at a cute Victorian bed and breakfast in Leadville: The McGinnis Cottage. Rooms are very small (and I mean really small), and the bed was just so-so. The house is cute, though, with lots of interesting history. The owner is charming and helpful. We had dinner in town at a really good Italian restaurant, Zichittella’s. I don’t remember what other people ordered, but I got a crusted chicken dish, kind of like chicken Parmesan, and it was delicious. It was good enough that if we went back to Leadville ever, I’d go there again. It’s a good family friendly restaurant.

One of the days we visited, we went into downtown Denver to a spectacular restaurant:

Rioja

1431 Larimer St. (Larimer Square)

Denver, CO 80202

303 820-2282

We took Sue and Lynn there for lunch and enjoyed sandwiches, salads and I ordered a kind of charcuterie plate. My DH ordered a lamburger.  The food was outstanding. The service was excellent. I’d recommend it to anyone – anytime. It’s not inexpensive, but we thought it worth the cost, no question!

Our second day out on our road trip with Sue and Lynn, we stopped in Vail for lunch. I don’t recall the name of the restaurant, but it was open (not all Vail restaurants are open during the summer – the off season). We sat outside on their patio and enjoyed a very lovely meal.

This was the picture from our table. It’s located in one of the Vail hotels, on a side street.

More stories to come.

A year ago: Chicken Breasts with Apricot Onion Pan Sauce

Three years ago: Onion Pepper Marmalade

Tweet

When we get home from our trip I’ll write a full post about this special place. It’s in Colorado Springs. Photo was taken with my iPad camera function. Somehow I left home without the camera to USB cord so I can’t transfer any photos from my camera to my iPad. My iPhone 3G doesn’t take the best pictures. And I can’t do much photo editing either. The iPad is the greatest for travel though. It fits in my just slightly larger purse. More soon.

Tweet

Our last stop on our 28-day journey to Down Under, was a few nights in Queenstown. It’s a quaint little town, right on the side of a magnificent lake. The town was easily accessible because the hotel was a block of two away. There were a few stores, numerous restaurants, and views of the lake from nearly every location.

This will be my last post about our trip. I hope all of you have enjoyed being armchair travelers to see Australia and New Zealand through my lens. We flew from Queenstown to Auckland, on the north island, and boarded a big jet for a 12 1/2 hour flight home.

Just after we got here my DH had his heart attack and subsequent bypass surgery. He’s recovering well, thank goodness. He still doesn’t have his energy back completely, but it improves almost every day. He’s driving, back to cooking breakfast, washing dishes and doing my grocery shopping for me (he wants to – it’s not because I make him do it!). He’s definitely on the mend!

Tweet

Part of the visit to New Zealand, when you go on an OAT tour, is an overnight visit with a local family. The top and bottom photos above are views from the home of the family we stayed with in the town of Fairlie. The family run a cattle, sheep, deer and hind (a cross between a deer and an elk) farm – all the animals raised for the meat. I went online to read a bit about this cross-breed, the hind, and found this: In New Zealand, where deer have been introduced, there are hybrid zones between Red Deer and North American Wapiti populations and also between Red Deer and Sika Deer populations. In New Zealand Red Deer have been artificially hybridized with Pere David Deer in order to create a farmed deer which gives birth in spring. The initial hybrids were created by artificial insemination and back-crossed to Red Deer.

Jenny (wife and mom) made us a lovely dinner – appetizers with a delicious chutney/relish, lamb chops (of course, this is lamb country – we love lamb!), several veggies, salad and a trifle for dessert. It was a treat to have a home-cooked meal after all the weeks of eating out morning, noon and night. We took a bottle of wine along and shared that with Jenny and Wayne (father and dad).

For breakfast we had a huge spread – I had poached eggs on toast with bacon (New Zealand style bacon – we eat streaky bacon here in the U.S. – theirs is almost all meat, and maybe a bit more salty).

There’s a photo of the family – from left to right: George, Wayne, Henry and Jenny.

And lastly, there’s Henry’s breakfast plate – he likes his poached eggs sprinkled with ample shots of Worcestershire sauce. It doesn’t sound at all appealing to me, but it’s common down under, apparently!

We had a very nice visit with this family. Wayne took us on a lengthy drive around to many of the paddocks full of the different animals. All of their land is surrounded in mountains in those top photographs. Breathtakingly beautiful.

We particularly thank the family for inviting us into their home, and allowing us to share a lovely meal with them and a comfy bed as well. I promised I’d send them an email when this post went up. They’re in the middle of summer there now. It was very pleasant the day we were there.

Tweet

Near Queenstown, New Zealand, there’s a very fun ride, the Shotover Jet. A very zippy boat that goes up and down a small portion of the river. Everyone in our group went along – our guide, Marilyn, took the photos for me, as they wouldn’t let me take my larger DSLR camera on the ride. It’s a darned good thing, too, since on the very last spin we did, thanks to the intrepid boat driver, Dave and I (we’re in the front row, I’m sitting there on the right edge, waving) got absolutely soaked. We took a huge wave right over our heads – we were the only passengers to get soaked. It was about 30 seconds after this above picture was taken.

But meanwhile, we went up the river, through narrow channels. It was great fun.

We went up that river, there, about 1/2 mile or so, darting here and there.

The driver did the very last spin right in front of the loading area. Adrenaline. G-forces. Fun. Wet.

Tweet

Of all the photos I took of our trip to the South Pacific, I think these in this post, from in and around Milford Sound, and Fiordland National Park, are my favorites. Hope you enjoy them.

One of the most visited attractions in New Zealand is Milford Sound. And although I’d glanced at a map of the south island, I had no idea how remote and rugged the western side of the island really was. There are few roads, and what few there are, are narrow, windy and long. All of the above photos were taken from a moving bus – so they’re a little bit blurry.

We drove through some of the south island, going from Christchurch down the middle, sort of, to Queenstown. On the western side of the south island is a protected area – called Fiordland National Park.  It’s a long, steep and jagged mountain range with very few access roads. Most of the access is from the sea on the far side of those mountains.

Look at the blue of that water! Milford Sound – as I may have explained before – isn’t really a sound, but a fiord (in Scandinavia they spell it fjord – in the South Pacific it’s called a fiord). However, when someone informed the government, it had been named for so long the powers-that-be decided to leave it as a Sound. A fiord is an inlet with steep, sheer sides. A sound is an inlet too, but it’s wider than a fiord. We careened our way (by bus) from Queenstown to just get to the inner end of the Milford Sound. Those of you who are athletes will know that hiking the difficult, sometimes treacherous paths of the Milford Track, is a big global rite of passage for hikers. We didn’t get to see the end of the Track itself, although it was right where we stopped at the inner end of the Sound. People who trek  may only walk in one direction, Glade Wharf to Milford Sound, during the booked walking season (late October to late April), with a maximum of 40 independent walkers permitted to start the track each day. Periodic huts have been erected for hikers to sleep and rest. The hike takes several days. We have several friends who have done all or part of it.

It’s about 295 km (about 200 miles) from Queenstown to Milford Sound. Did I tell you that the road was curvy? And that I didn’t feel good nearly all day? Busses, curvy roads and me don’t get along very well, sad to say. Because the road is remote, 2-lane and curvy, it takes many hours to get there – I think it took us about 5 1/2 hours each way. We did make a few stops for photos.

Once at the Sound, we took an hour or two boat ride – out to the entrance of the Sound itself. Stunningly beautiful the full 365­ degrees. We were there on a clear, sunny day too (which doesn’t happen but one in every three days).

The national park provides plenty of short walks and boardwalk trails. This was a particularly beautiful one with the reflections.

That’s the color straight out of my camera. No wizardry involved. Just mother nature working at her finest!

And I did tell you, didn’t I, that there were lots of curvy roads to make one’s stomach do a lurch!

Isn’t that just stunning? You can see why I’d like to go back to New Zealand. Maybe in a car, with me at the wheel, I wouldn’t have spent most of the day wondering if my last meal was going to stay down.

Tweet