Travel Presents and a Guessing Game

As promised here is a photo of some of the gifts from hubby's travel in Asia.  Above is also a picture of a lovely small ikat table runner that my husband brought me.  (I have a nice collection of ikat weavings and this will add to it.)  In the first photo are all the little things that he brought home.  Can you guess all of them?  I will email a nice sunset photo or fall photo  (your choice--or perhaps a print) to the blogger who gets it right first!

(With the new Blog editor bar it appears that there is no longer a spellcheck?   I am a terrible speller and apologize until I can figure this out!) (I will turn on comment moderation.  I just checked the comments and no one has gotten all of them yet.  I'll give a clue...Indonesia was known as the spice islands.)

Odd Neighbors

Every neighborhood has someone strange living in it. That odd person that you pretend to be nice to, but you often wonder about them. They are just a little odd. Some idiosyncratic behavior of theirs makes you keep your distance. Perhaps they wander around in loud colored shorts or perhaps they peek at you through the drapes or perhaps they spend too much time washing that fancy car or perhaps they sit on the porch and pick their nose for what seems an endless amount of time. I am sure that sometimes my neighbor has second thoughts about asking me out to lunch as she did the other day. Her husband was out running a tractor, grading the roads to the farm they lease out, and she knew I had been alone for several weeks. So she offered a lunch date followed by a healthy walk around the island.

The reason I think she must have second thoughts about my stability is that she can now see me in my yard as the trees have become sparse of leaf cover. She can see Tabor walking up and down her driveway or standing out on her deck at all hours of the day with camera in hand. She sees me stop and then bend over peering into my camera with my butt out in the air like some freak flag flying and taking a picture of the driveway, or photographing the seat of my deck chair or even taking a picture of what at times looks like my feet!

I am sure she thinks I am a very strange bird. But I keep finding beautiful things as I walk around the yard that I need to photograph. I keep trying to stop time!




Do you blame me?

This and That

What does it say about us when we post colored charts for threat levels on terrorism and Canada posts colored charts for this .

I decided that I would adjust my blog settings so that any comments that come in more than 10 days after a post would be held until I could moderate. I did this because for some reason blogger lets spam and scam through for commenting on older posts. I get comment posts weeks later and of course I don't get back fast enough to read those posts to delete. So now they sit on my dashboard hidden until I decide to delete. I have been getting quite a few lately.

I also have been feeling guilty for not commenting on some blogs. I read the entry but can't really think of anything interesting to say when everyone ahead of me has said the same thing. So I just keep my keyboard shut.

My husband's trip took him across the many, many, many islands in the Indonesian chain as well as some bordering countries. Indonesia is both Muslim and Christian but Bali is mostly a hybridized Hindu. He noticed that the island and/or villages where the majority of citizens were either Muslim or Christian remained relatively peaceful and the areas where the division was 50/50 or 40/60 were full of rancor and anger as each group fought for control of the local political system. Why does God make people so angry? I know, I know...just had to write that

While staying at my daughter's house last week a young father came by with his son to play with my grandson. As we got to talking I learned that his wife worked for the FDA and was in the office where they worked on drug approvals for humans. He said she had been there for 10 years. I asked how she liked her job and he said that during the past administration their budget had been cut substantially and they had also felt pressured to get drug approvals moving faster and she had been very miserable. Now she is happy as they have been given a decent budget and are being allowed to do their job as professional scientists without any outside interference.

I took hundreds of photos of fall scenery over the last month and recently found that my camera settings had been on a lower resolution than I usually have. I guess it was from fiddling around with settings that I don't really understand as I experimented with photos. When I was younger I could immediately figure out a camera setting and easily focus on the subject. Now with age I forget to make changes and focus...well even depending on autofocus doesn't always work! I do not like getting old, but I do love having the time to play with the camera.

Hubby brought back a number of gifts from the islands...most from him but some from friends of his. I will post on that later. They are not the usual things one brings from an overseas trip.

Lucky Friday the 13th

I do not fear Friday the 13th. Both hubby and daughter are due home today. The winds have slowed and so have the rains. The water rose to the end of the dock but not over the top. No downed trees although the yard looks like a major battle took place. Those two trees that lean across the dock on the right in the photo above are widow-makers and I wish we could get someone to cut them down. It appears that since they are so close to the water we have to get a permit. (Others, of course, were not so lucky in this storm.)

I will actually venture out on this lucky day to shop for food since I have eaten every scrap that was in the refrigerator and now need to begin cooking for two again.

Boy I hope Mother Nature doesn't tie one on again like that anytime too soon!

Rushing (T)Rains

I had just returned from two days of taking care of two preschool grandchildren last night. They had tag-teamed me and while the deafening roar of children screaming, laughing, crying, shouting was still ringing in my ears, I removed faded jeans and sweatshirt to put on the softer pajamas as I heard the roaring and banging of the weather. The wind has been pummeling this end of the bay for over 24 hours. The rain bangs intermittently on my kitchen skylight and I can see the glisten of water in every area hit by outside lights.

I had arrived in the dark and hurried out of my car in the pelting rain to open the gate. There were no trees down in my driveway, but I am too far from the dock to see how high the water is and it is too dark to see if the wind has brought down trees elsewhere in the yard. I snuggled down beneath the covers so thankful that I have shelter from the storm and can worry about damage until tomorrow.

The continuing tempest of nature woke me at 4:00 this morning and I am sitting here waiting for the sun to push a little gray light through the tropical storm clouds. I am curious to see the sudden transformation of naked trees and also to see if there is damage. This lovely summer without any storm made me complacent and I am surprised by this violent aftermath of late summer that pushed her way up here in our late fall.

The sound of rushing trains continues as I post.

Danger, Will Robinson!

When I was a little girl we only shopped at two department stores. My father called them Monkey Wards and Sears and Roarbucks and of course, we laughed at his joke.

During the first week of November I had to head up to the city to do some babysitting as both parents had to do some business travel...in opposite directions, of course. During the two days that I was there and after dropping children off at their respective schools, I decided to take advantage of being near the large malls and get started on my holiday shopping. I tend to forget that traffic problems begin this early.

Well, I would like to caution others that may have this same plan. First, do not shop at Sears. It has not changed. There is no help, only one register with long lines (even in the middle of the week), and staff that speak limited English and always seem to be learning how to use the register for the first time. After spending many minutes waiting in line to pay for my purchase I was then rewarded for my patience by having the alarm go off as I left the store with a loud voice blaring that the security tag MUST be removed. I walked all the way back across the store to the ONLY open register and was told that the security tag was "probably" inside the box and to just ignore the alarm. I cannot tell you how hard it was to 'steal 'myself to leave the store a second time while a very loud robotic voice demanded that I return to the store!

The second shopping warning is to let you know that sales people in both the chain stores and the kiosks in the mall have been given strict instructions to part you from your money using any sales pitch they can find. Clearly this recession has convinced them that they will be closing shop if this holiday season does not turn a substantial profit. The recession is hovering darkly over the retail industry. These staff are the managers who hope to be working there in January as temporary staff have not yet been hired. If you ask for assistance they will answer your question or direct you to the correct area, but then will proceed to convince you to buy at least three of the item due to the huge discounts and sales. If you explain you really only want one, they will then direct you to their other sales specials, their newest products, etc. etc. and it will take some very polite determination to get out of the store with your wallet and sense of humor intact. I actually had to pull my hand away from a young Israeli man who insisted his product would make my hand 20 years younger!

(The blog title is for those who can remember 1960's science fiction TV.)

Just Teasing

Today was the oddest day. It started out in the 50s (F) and then climbed to the 60's. A batch of orange robins had flown in the night before and blended perfectly with all the orange brown leaves that I had not raked or blown away. We do not have robins here during the summer months, so I knew they were on their way to Florida. I got started on the yard at mid-morning and was enjoying watching roils of leaves tumble into the woods revealing the spring green grass beneath. I cleared the patio and the deck and stored that nutrition in the compost bin. Then I began to clip away those perennials that had gone brown.

When I went to put away the rake and leaf blower I was met by a couple of sulphur butterflies and one bright orange and brown butterfly enjoying the last of the lavender flowers. I hadn't seen butterflies for more than a week, so it was a surprise to watch these dancing across my herb bed.

Later after I had picked some green tomatoes and arugula and several of the hot peppers and the last of the roses for my table, I noticed a number of small flying insects filling the air like little fluff machines. One landed in my hair and I discovered that it was a lady bug. They were everywhere looking for food. One even made it into the house that afternoon.

I was just beginning to wonder what had happened to fall when the sun started to set and the most lovely haze hung on the golden horizon making me think that I was back in Asia where the cooking fires created a smokey haze at the end of the day. It smelled dusty and musty and reminded me of the dry season in Indonesia. It was so much like summer and such a tease that I made my way down to the dock barefoot. Anyday that I do not have to wear shoes is a GOOD day. I was almost ready to believe that winter was not hiding somewhere up North.

The Last Roses

The last roses of summer. They are like gentle and fragile old ladies with lace collars and fancy fans that smell gently of soap and sweet bath powder. They are high maintenance because they know they are beautiful and popular. Their heads hand low from fall rains. They are lovely even as they fade. I miss that they must hurry off, but their cruise ship is waiting. Late in November, while I will sit by the fire trying to warm my toes, they will be having tea and ginger cookies along the warm equatorial waters somewhere. They promise that they will send their favorite nieces and they will arrive in sweet pale dresses in the spring and if I show them love, they will stay for a long visit in the rose garden next summer.

The little gal has what is called rose bloom balling due to the cooler weather followed by days of rains. It still looks lovely even though it will never open. I have to move many of my roses this spring as they are in one of the side beds that gets way too little sun. Living in a forest is deceptive. Roses are greedy for sun and I am lucky that I have not gotten any serious fungal outbreaks this year. Come spring I will begin the spraying as these are the only plants where I use pesticide and fungicide for prevention.

In the Mail Thursday Thoughts #25

About eight months ago I started to receive in the mail a billing notice from a collections agency regarding $113 that they say I still owe from the time I rented an apartment in 2005 through the summer of 2007. About two months after I checked out of that place I sent them that amount as they had raised the rent that month and I forgot to include the increase in my last month's payment. I do not have access to that bank account as it was closed and so do not know the exact number of the check sent. I have called the leasing office and the accounts receivable office and left at least 6 messages with no return to my calls. I even drove up there several months ago and met with the accounts manager who said my account appeared paid in full but they were re-doing the books and that they would get back to me. This "unpaid debt" now sits on my credit reports as an unresolved issue and no one returns my calls.

At my local post office there are several large blue recycle bins in the lobby. These are used by 80% of patrons to immediately dump without reading all those ads from various stores. The rest of the patrons are too stupid or too lazy and just leave their mail detritus on the window sill or the floor. These paper products for landfills is what is keeping the Post Office afloat. I would even accept this junk by email if they agreed to stop printing it on paper.

I subscribe to a newsletter "Consumer Reports: On Health." I have found it interesting for the most part, except the October issue had this brief paragraph: "Hugging Laundry. Dirty sheets, towels, and clothes can harbor bacteria and other germs, so use a basket---not your arms---to gather and transport laundry. And wash your hands after loading it into the machine." ??? While this might be good advice for those who are hired to do other's laundry, I think we are getting a little too germicidal in our lives...how in the heck do I get the laundry into the basket and out of the basket...rubber gloves? Does this mean I shouldn't hug those who wore the clothes?

I must be richer than I know on my fixed income. I also got a card in the same mail telling me I was pre-qualified to receive the exclusive Visa Black Card. (It appears that silver, gold and platinum have peaked in swankness.) If I get the Visa Black Card I am assured the highest caliber of personal service and concierge services. This card is limited to 1% of U.S. residents (how exclusive is that?), and they say it is guaranteed to get me noticed! No duh, so does a really bad hair day. Since it has an annual fee of $495 ($195 for each additional user) and an APR of 13.24% I guess I will pass. Swankness has its price and its level of stupidity.

Unfortunately, what I rarely get in the mail is letters.

( This post was written before the tragedy at Ft. Hood yesterday. More troops suffering from being exposed to trauma and tragedy will be coming home and resolving their issues by using either violence or suicide. War is a nasty disease.)

Century recycling

Above is a photo of something we use every year to hold the fall leaves and to transport to the compost bin. It is a tattered parachute. Hubby got it from some surplus store about a century ago and, while spotted with various paints and stains from our housekeeping life, it still holds strong and true to carry our leaves.

This photo is some of the oak wood we had split to use to warm ourselves this winter. I think this tree grew about a century ago before it was removed to build this house. Most of the wood that we split now is from deadfall and the disease scars are revealed in the heartwood. Seeing such lovely grainwood as above is rare and you can see the war it declared with the chainsaw.

Fine, Just Fine, Thanks

The sun is getting cooler every day, you know? I mean, over the long term, it is burning out. The spin of the earth is slowing down by about one second every ten years as well. So much for the old phrase, "Stop the world, I want to get off." Perhaps someday it will stop and you will fall off. There are times when I get overwhelmed by the fact that everything is evolving slowly but dramatically over time. The history that I know is very different from the history that my grandchildren will know. The picture that I paint is coded with time. I now realize that I have actually lived through history.

I hate the passage of time when I think how I am away from my son and my youngest brother, both very different in age and activities but similar in some ways. I know that you must love someone with open arms so that they can fly free. You must let them go but leave your arms open so that you can catch them if they fall. Both my youngest brother and my son need to be free. They fill their days with the busyness of living. I will always be here with my arms open, but the earth is spinning so fast that I can barely see them at times and I know they are not looking for me. They are staring at another planet.

Today I feel much smaller than that grain of sand because after I disappear, it will still be here.

Feeling Fallow Fall

This is the view toward the deer gate. I can almost see my driveway disappearing beneath the forest leaves. Will I be able to find my way out by next week? So much work!

Tonight, as I watched the sun go down from my living room, I prepared a lovely mushroom ravioli with homemade tomato/basil /green pepper sauce with the last of the vegetables harvested from the garden. I am home alone, so forcing myself to actually prepare a healthy and fresh meal was not easy. (I could have had microwaved popcorn.) I washed these healthy antioxidants down with a nice Sangiovese that I had purchased at my recent visit to the Biltmore estate. I am alone and so adjusting to enjoying good food by myself is taking some effort. I removed the small bag of frozen peach pie filling made months ago and after thawing added to a pie crust and sliced a fresh apple on top, added more cinnamon and sprinkled some granola cereal on top of it all. It turned out delicious with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Here is the back yard that I need to either rake or blow. It was clean just days ago, so I am being somewhat lazy and putting this off. It is a contest with the trees. They still have lots of leaves. They throw them down in the wind like yellow flakes of gold, as if they were gentlemen throwing down their yellow gloves as if in a challenge to duel. But then, when I look up, the trees still have more wealth to share. I will never win this duel.

The sex-crazed squirrels spend all their time chattering and laughing at my confusion.

Happy Halloween

I heard the screech of the famous pileated woodpecker and then he turned into a spook for Halloween. You may have to click on the image for the full effect. (One of these days I am going to get a decent photo of one of the pair that live here!)

Look here for some interesting Halloween Art. (WARNING: some of the other graphics aren't so PG.)

After Slowing Down

Well, here is the follow-up. It rained ceaselessly the whole evening. My son and I did get lost and he had a GPS on his phone...he is just a bad navigator telling you about a turn as you miss it! We also discovered that there are TWO places in the area with very similar names and we had headed to the wrong one. We still made it to the Keb Mo show on time. Food was awful as it always is at that theatre but it is intimate seating and so you feel close to the stage. On the way back to drop him off I did goof and turned onto a one-way street, but since the traffic was thin at 11:00 P.M., we survived that screw-up as well. AND as you can surmise from this post, I did make it back out of the city, but the drive was somewhat tense as pouring rain and glaring headlights meant I had to really concentrate the whole hour and a half on the way home. It was worth it to head bob with Keb Mo and to sit with my son.

Slow Down,

It is silliness, really. He wasn't her first choice. Well, actually, he was her first choice, but she knew he wouldn't get back to her with an answer until 24 hours before. If he decided he couldn't come, that would leave her too little time to fill his shoes. No, he ended up being her third choice. Her husband was the first. Hubby had several months notice, but blew her off for a free trip to exotic Bali and elsewhere just weeks before the date. She gave him a piece of her mind and was thankful that he had to leave before she could empty her entire brain.

Her second choice was her daughter. The loyal and faithful fallback. She had been the one to go with her to hear Chris Botti last spring when hubby once again had a conflict. The date tonight was set until yesterday when daughter called to explain she had an unavoidable business trip to either Georgia or Florida...didn't know until the judge cleared their access to the buildings. Anyway, she couldn't go, but she had found a fallback. Tabor asked if it was someone tall, handsome, and single! Of course, daughter smiled into the phone.

As you have probably guessed the fallback was her first choice. The son that she knew would enjoy the venue more than the other two. He seemed excited on FB to be going, but sometimes he was so unreliable.

Now she was standing in her closet with a pile of clothes on the floor. Everything made her look like a bag lady. Honest! She felt like a 16-year-old on a first date. She finally pulled out her reliable gray cords with the diamonds on the butt...that would fit with this crowd. She pulled on a cowl neck gray mohair and some silver beads. Monochromatic with her gray hair. Perfect, she grimaced. She would not fit, but she knew that no one would even see her in the crowded theater. But she didn't want to look to Mom-like with her son. More make-up...heavy on the eyes. It was a dark and informal place and she guessed the crowd might be a little noisier than she was used to. But she did so love this artist's music so very much.

So, since she was driving, something she hated and hated even more so in the rain, she spent several hours googling maps to both the meeting place in the city and the venue from the meeting place. Misgivings about getting lost be damned, she was determined to have a good time. The other kink was that after dropping her son off, she had to find her way back home. Since daughter was gone the S.I.L. had invited his parents down for the evening to help with swim lessons, etc. So at 11:00 P.M. in the rain she will be heading the long way back out of the city, hoping that she will not end up in some desolate area after getting lost.

If I post no more blogs, you will know what happened...or perhaps you will just be left to wonder.

Salt Is in the Air

Hubby left over a week ago and the days are now starting to wear quietly thin knowing he will not return for several more weeks. Fortunately the angles of the sun against the leaves of the trees and the visit of an osprey have helped pass the time. Today I blew the leaves off the deck and patio and the small back lawn. I startled a little gray frog that had set up his winter housekeeping at the corner of one of the steps under the leaves.

I then planted my 20 alliums, maroon and white, into a nice curve beside the chaste plant. I look forward to their blooming this summer.

I also got motivated and vacuumed the floors, cleaned all bathrooms, and dusted and polished furniture. When bored, Tabor fills her time with tasks that make her fill less guilty.

Then I sat down and poured myself a glass of Biltmore chardonney while I pondered how to industriously fill the rest of the day. Oh, nuts, I conceded. and just grabbed my camera and walked barefoot across the pointy gravel to the dock and began to do what I love the most, snap pictures. Below are photos of the lovely saltbush that grows prolifically along the riverside. It smells so musty and earthy this time of year and mimics the snows to come by throwing off its feathery seeds in your face as your saunter by. Be sure to click on the photos to really see the beauty of this bush.

Not Mr. Roger's Neighborhood

I just had my wrapping paper order delivered by a multi-millionare...well her mom is one anyway. They came via kayak. Is this an unusual neighborhood or what?

Missed Opportunity

Since I began blogging I realized that I had joined a family of writers and photographers and cooks (some anyway) with interesting ideas to share. I may not agree with everything they say, but all of them do express it so well and help me stretch my mind. The photo above is how close I came to Colleen's town and had we not been in such a rush to cross the mountains before dark, I just might have driven through the little town of Floyd and stopped in at the local cafe! I have been reading about this special town for several years and I am sure that I would have spotted Colleen right on playing a game of Scrabble. Missed opportunities are the story of my life.

What does amaze me is how many times I come close to where some blogger lives!

Bridging the Gap

One of my bloggers, Maggie, was right! Here above is one of the Hudson River view paintings.

Perhaps you have been watching the intriguing and important television series on MSNBC by Ken Burns, "The National Parks: America's Best Idea." If not, you are missing a compelling series on how difficult it was to set aside these unique natural areas (58 parks) in our country for generations to come so that they could see untouched natural beauty. The series talks about the wealthy and not-so-wealthy visionaries and outliers that made this dream come true. If you think that our natural resources are important to use and exploit for the economic security of our country, this series will drive you nuts. If, on the other hand, you feel at one with nature and do not live in fear that you might have to live in a cave some day, this series will reignite that lust to see all of our great country.

On my recent trip through Southern Virginia, my husband and I decided once again to see the Natural Bridge area which is a PRIVATELY owned natural wonder. This is a solid rock bridge carved by nature that is 20 stories high. It is well worth seeing, but getting there takes some fortitude. Because it is privately owned, the first stop is the massive parking lot with it's ugly signs and other non-natural attractions. Behind these signs is the view of the massive hotel where people stay so that they can leave their room and walk across the street to see this wonder.

The grand entry (photo below) where you must go to purchase a ticket includes a huge souvenir shopping area that has nothing to do with the natural wonders of this great country but is willing to sell you a lot of crap that will end up in the land fills of your back yard. Note the convenient ATM in the left side of the photo below.

Finally you can walk or take a shuttle bus down into the valley to finally see the natural bridge. It sits along a lovely rushing river. If you can ignore the bench seating for the evening light show about the creation of the earth, avoid the view of the huge speakers that now sit on top of the bridge nestled against the shrubbery, and also ignore the wedding taking place on the far left, you might imagine what this wonder would have looked like when first seen by America's early pioneers.

It is worth visiting, even though you will feel a little fleeced by the time you leave. Baaaaa!

A Place to Rest Your Head at the End of the Day

Travel requires some planning prior to departure on where one can stay. Well, some people pack a bag and pull into anywhere along the road. I have had a few experiences where a soccer tournament or a convention have forced me to stay 30 miles outside the city, so I always make reservations and have a plan. On my most recent trip I stayed at a Budget Inn that cost about $65 for the night. The room was very small, only two thin towels, a comfortable bed, no coffee pot or hair dryer, but clean. If I wanted to eat something I had to get in my car and drive a small distance as the restaurant across the parking lot did not smell all that good, really.

The second place that I stayed was a Fairfield Inn. This is the low end of the Marriott chain of rental residences and cost us just under $100 for the night. We got a hair dryer, good coffee, a large room with a sitting area, and a free communal breakfast area with make-your-own waffles or heat-your-own pastries and cereal, fresh fruits, and yogurt. Distance to nearby tourist areas was short. We are Marriott members so we also got points and discounts.

Our final place to stay for three nights was a B&B (Bed and Breakfast) out near the mountains of North Carolina. This was a lovely old home that had 10 bedrooms on three levels and has been an operating B&B for over 15 years. The rooms had interesting themes and the one I reserved was called 'Light and Shadows' and was the photography room with antique cameras and a magazine or two on photography. The quilt and decor was very nice. It had a small sitting area and a lovely claw-footed bathtub in the bathroom that was a challenge for me (who is in pretty good physical shape) to enter and exit. The bathroom had super thick towels, fragrant shampoos and soaps and a hair dryer. There was even a small private deck outside our bedroom with two small chairs to sit and look over the beautifully landscaped gardens. B& B's provide full breakfast and this one would even cook a dinner if you requested. The breakfasts were delicious and filling if not outstanding. There were two sitting rooms in the common area, one with a free computer access and lots of books to read. Artificial fireplaces were everywhere adding to a very cozy atmosphere. A small area was set up for coffee, tea or cappuccino at any time of the day or night. There were fresh homemade cookies waiting for us at the end of every hiking and touring day. There was no television, thank goodness. The cost was $130 per night.

Bed and Breakfast establishments are usually more expensive than staying at more predictable chains. Some of my friends stay at higher end hotels that cost between $200 and $300 a night and think that is a reasonable price to pay for what they expect. To some extent you get what you pay for in this world of travel. Location is probably the most important feature if you plan on seeing anything in the area.

B&Bs are not everyone's cup of cappuccino. They usually attract garrulous Garys and chatty Cathys; people who want to talk at breakfast before you head out and who want to hear about your day and tell you about theirs before you head up to bed. The Innkeepers themselves are great for communicating important information about the area and they love to hear about your experiences, because they live there and run an Inn and don't get out much anymore! Therefore, if you are a private and quiet person you may want to clarify this before you make reservations at a B&B so that the innkeeper can put you in the most remote bedroom and keep a smaller table available for you and your buddy at breakfast. OR you may wish to check into the nearby hotel.

The fun part of B&Bs is the people you meet. I ate breakfast with a young couple that live only two miles from my brother's house in Colorado! I ate another breakfast with a minister and his wife on their anniversary vacation and a couple from San Francisco who had not ever traveled much, so we could be the experts. I chatted with a widow whose husband had planned the trip months ago and then had a massive heart attack on Father's Day while fishing. She and her sister took the trip anyway as it helped her deal with her grief.

Of course, the real serendipity experience was learning our waitress at the local Italian restaurant downtown came from Sulawesi, Indonesia where my husband was heading in just a few days! He got to practice his Bahasa which he has not used in decades.

Travel is great for the historic places and natural scenery, but also fruitful for all the people that you meet.

(The photo is the Biltmore Estate...and I did NOT stay there.)