The Blizzard of the Century

Just as predicted, the winds arrived at 4am this morning...how do I know? I was awakened by their moaning and howling! The gusts literally do howl over the top of my wood stove pipe...kind of like blowing over a bottle top. Yesterday was a 'work from home' day. As I checked voice messages and work emails, I watched it snow and snow and snow...to a total of almost 15 inches. Then early this morning, the snow moved out and the winds began to blow. Coupled with dropping temperatures into the single digits today and below zero overnight, this has been labeled a 'dangerous storm' and the 'blizzard of the century.' Hyperbole? maybe...maybe not! All I know is that I'm home again today. Who knows when the road will be plowed? Lucie, Sis the Cat, and I are fine...warm and snug inside with books to read and movies to watch. These big weather events do make me pause and think about how little control we really have over our lives.

I shot this video standing on my back walk looking east over the gravel road towards the ridge. This is what an Iowa blizzard looks and sounds like. Makes you appreciate the hard life the early pioneers had, huh?

The Final Obsession

What do strings of iridescent beads, tiny white lights, silk poinsettias, and Versailles have in common? They are all decorations on the small, artificial Christmas tree in my bedroom. Versailles is represented by postcards that I purchased there during my 2007 visit. See, I told you I was obsessed with cards this Christmas! Versailles took my breath away; it was over-the-top luxurious, opulent and beautiful. While I took many interior photos of the Palace, the postcards show it off the best.

Okay, I promise...no more Christmas decorations! But, I do want to share with you that I really was at Versailles. I took this photo of myself in one of the mirrors in the famous Hall of Mirrors. Last year I visited with a woman who is a huge traveller. She always takes a photo of her own feet at her travel destination to prove that yes, she really was there! Do you take photos of yourself when you travel?

Obsessed

I confess. I've become obsessed with cards this Christmas. No, not Christmas cards...postcards and business cards. It all started with my postcard Christmas tree. Suddenly, every card I've ever collected became fuel for my imagination. I remembered the business cards I collected from my trips to France. Mickey got me started with that; she asks for a business card at every restaurant she visits and tucks them into her travel notebook for future trips. I became a collector as well, but usually because cards from French businesses are so pretty and unusual. And now these pretty and unusual cards decorate another small Christmas tree in my entry hall. The one you see here with the different colored squares? that's from a tea shop in Paris and those are all labels from Kusmi tea which the shop features. The blue one with the mountain...that one is from l'Oustal, the B & B I stayed at in Montsegur. Restaurants represented in this photo are La Fregate, Le Christine, La Rotisserie d'en face, and L'Epi dupin..all in Paris. If I page thru my travel journal, I can tell you what I ate at each one!

The green and yellow card is from E. Dehillerin, a virtual paradise in Paris for serious cooks. Lined floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall with every kind of cooking gadget, pot, pan, dish, bowl, utensil you can imagine, this store is a treasure trove of goodies. The only problem is this: remember if you buy it, you have to either carry it home in your suitcase or have it shipped. You might think twice before you get carried away and purchase those lovely and colorful enamel-covered cast iron pots by Le Creuset! The card that is a picture of a pretty Lot village is from Lou Bolat, a delightful terraced restaurant perched on the hillside in St. Cirq Lapopie. I ate there twice; yummy both times.

Tiny red lights and gold bead chains complete the look of my memory-filled Christmas tree. But wait...I'm not done yet! Come back again for another card tree.

Red Belle Update

A quick update on Miz Red Belle....her headlight and fender are fixed, and she's back, better than ever! The entire repair process went smoothly and with hardly any hassle. I used Jack Anderson Body Shop in Indianola and I can wholeheartedly recommend them for your body shop needs...they were fantastic! We allowed 2 days for the repair, but the guys got it done before noon the first day. Because Enterprise didn't have the right car for me to rent, they dropped me off at work. When the repair was completed so quickly, they simply picked me up and took me back to the body shop...no charge! Gotta like that. I will also recommend Enterprise now to anyone who wants to rent a car. Their customer service couldn't have been better.

Kelley at the body shop said the guys were really excited to work on my Smart car since they'd never seen one before. They started on her before I even left the shop! They said the car was very easy to work on...everything just pretty much snapped into place...no worries! Kelley said she even had a woman come into the office who saw my car parked out front and wanted to know if she could look at it...she'd never seen a Smart car up close! All in all...a very pleasant ending to the deer vrs. car story.

The Postcard Tree

I adore postcards! I love to send them, I love to receive them, and I love to buy them just to keep. When I travel, I frequently buy postcards of interior spaces where photos are prohibited. The postcard is always a better picture than I could take anyway. I can't bear to throw away postcards that I get from friends and family which means I have quite a few tucked away in drawers. What to do with all these mementos? Decorate the Christmas tree with them, of course! My big tree in the living room is full of beautiful cards from national parks, trips to New Hampshire, Las Vegas, Hawaii, South Carolina, and Disneyworld. I've hung cards from Vienna, Mexico, British Columbia, Thailand, France, Spain, and Lithuania. If you've sent me a postcard in the last few years....it's hanging on my tree!

There's always room for one more, tho....so don't forget me when you travel in 2010. Your postcard could end up on next year's tree!

What do you do with your old postcards??

A Quiet Holiday

Thanksgiving was a quiet holiday this year. I actually went in to work for a little bit...don't feel sorry for me, tho, as it worked out better for me to make the trip to get an employee evaluation completed. Back home, I treated myself to some turkey with gravy and mashed potatoes. And I opened this special bottle of wine. It was given to me during my month in France by Christiane and Jean-Paul, my dinner hosts one evening. Laury and I were invited for aperos and dinner...a very special treat for me. They have a lovely old house just up the hill from Laury's. It has a grand fireplace in a cantou, which is a stone inglenook that has seating along each side. Aperos of red wine with cassis were accompanied by crackers, dry sliced sausage, olives and cornichons (tiny pickles) along with rock-n-roll oldies (American, of course!), lots of laughter and some spontaneous singing along to the songs that took us down memory lane. Who knew the French loved American rock? Dinner was a country delight. Christiane put together a yummy salad of greens sprinkled with walnuts, sliced duck gizzard and homemade fois gras. Our main course was a casserole layered with duck, mashed potatoes, wafer-thin slices of squash, and 3 kinds of mushrooms drenched in a wine gravy. My mouth waters just remembering how good it was! Then the cheese course...a cantal, a soft cow cheese, a pepper-coated goat cheese, and a sharp local roquefort. Wine, wine, wine, of course...then an apple tart with a tiny glass of prune eau d'vie...a fruit-based Everclear-like alcohol, very strong! More laughter, more stories in rapid-fire French that Laury had to translate. And then as we prepared to leave, Jean-Paul gave me this bottle of wine. It flew home with me carefully wrapped, nestled deep in my suitcase. Opening it for Thanksgiving brought all those delightful French memories flooding back. I am thankful for new friends!

Remembering Family and Friends

I travel alone, but I always carry family and friends in my heart as I journey. Frequently, I come across a sight, an image, a color that immeditately calls someone to my mind. Then even if it's a not a particularly memorable shot, I feel compelled to snap a photo of it. Take this zaftig sculpture that sits on a promenade along the harbor at Banyuls-sur-mer. Created by Aristide Maillol, she was given to the town in thanks for the sculptor's visits there. I almost backed into her as I photographed the colorful harbor and its bobbing boats. My surprise gave way to delight...I knew my friend, Mickey would love to see her sitting there by the sea since she's a huge Maillol fan. Snap!

I saw St. Jacques everywhere I walked in Conques. OMG...throw a sombrero and a cape on my brother, Jim and hand him a walking staff....he could be St. Jacques! Even the names match..St. James in English. Snap!













Every time I'd see one of these adorable deux cheveaux automobiles puttering along a country road or parked by an old stone building, I'd think of my brother, Walt...the car guy! Not that he'd ever in a million years drive one of these antiques, but he would certainly appreciate the loving care that their owners lavish on them to keep them shiny bright and running. Snap!





Some of my most vivid memories of my dad as I was growing up are trips to the beach where he would surf fish. Standing thigh deep in the salty water, he'd fling the heavy tackle out into the crashing surf hoping for a catch. His fishing rod and reel seemed huge to me, and I was always amazed that he could stand for hours in the cold, frothy ocean. When I spied the fishermen casting out into the brilliant blue Mediterranean waters at Collioure, I immediately thought of my dad doing the much the same thing along the coast of southern California back in the 1950's. Snap!



How do you remember family and friends when you travel?