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Don and I were due to meet up with friends in England in September 2024. We decided to fly across the “Pond” a week or so before and explore the English countryside. The Cotswolds to be exact. The Cotswolds is renowned for its rolling hills, storybook villages, impressive churches and lovely sheep farms. It is … Continue reading Petals and Pubs amid a Picturesque Landscape: The Cotswolds

It sounded like a good idea when we planned the boys’ college spring break trip a few months earlier – a relaxing adventure after the busy weeks just before Lauren and Holton’s wedding followed by the scramble of moving out of our temporary apartment in Texas. My next stop would be New York City, but … Continue reading In Iceland as the World Began to Close

I’ve mentioned a few times in other blog posts about my struggles with giving up my career and being a stay-at-home mom. You may have noticed that I find patterns in unexpected places. One pattern I’ve observed – and shared more than once – is that women who stayed at home with their children often … Continue reading My Grandma Era

My first peek at Washington State was three months into the Covid pandemic. Our hotel in Moscow, Idaho had a flyer for picturesque scenes in Palouse County, Washington. So of course, we popped on over and snapped some photos. Since that time, I’ve been to Washington at least a half dozen times or so. I’ll … Continue reading Postcards from the Evergreen State

The Mid-Atlantic coast is a bit of a jumbled blur in my mind, especially the Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey states and how they fit together. Did you know that Scranton Pennsylvania is north of New York City? If you did, you know about that area better than I do. Or did, until … Continue reading Harbor to History: At the Threshold of the Chesapeake Bay

When planning our Moroccan adventure, we decided that after two nights in Marrakech we would stay local(ish) rather than flying off to other parts of Morocco. We just had to get to there. So we rented a car and drove to three different locations outside of the city, all relatively near the base of the … Continue reading Between Peaks and Pouring Tea: Stories from Morocco’s High Atlas Villages

To prepare for one of my most anticipated trips, I read a novel set in Marrakech and the Atlas Mountains, checked the weather, and consulted ChatGPT for a packing list. That didn’t seem quite enough, so while in the airport and on the redeye flight from NYC to Morocco, I read parts of National Geographic’s … Continue reading Marrakech: Doorways to New Perspectives

My final tour was the morning of my departure in the Roosevelt Row (RoRo) neighborhood which began with a simple question (mine). Are palm trees native to Phoenix? They are not. Most of the palms you see in Phoenix today were imported from California and Mexico during the early 1900s to make the city seem … Continue reading Phoenix in Photos Part 4: RoRo Street Art

The next morning we started our day with a behind-the-scenes-tour of Taliesin West, the southwestern home of Frank Lloyd Wright’s apprenticeship program. He and his third and final wife, Olgivanna, had a house on the campus as well. Wright grew up in Wisconsin, attended college for less than two years and as a 20-year-old moved … Continue reading Phoenix in Photos Part 3: Taliesin West and Wrigley Mansion