The days are passing quickly

Freshly squeezed tangerine/grapefruit juice from the neighbor's trees

Tomatoes, basil and fresh mozzarella

 The oleander are especially pretty right now

I thought I'd share a few pretty colors around the house with you.  As if I haven't already, I am going to take a blogging break.  We have a lot going on and I just can't get into the mood for writing. 

Always this time of year, things get a little hectic for me.  I like to have a schedule and traveling always throws me off.  We will be heading north shortly.  We will be visiting my brother and his wife, my niece and family and then further north to spend time with daughter #2 and family.  Then flying to France and spending three weeks in one of our favorite places in the world.  We are very excited to have plans  to meet a blogger who lives in Provence.  We also will be staying very near the Mediterranean, so seafood will be on the menu often. 

The trip will end with 4 days in Paris.  We will try to see what we missed on our last trip to this beautiful city and again repeat favorites such as the Eiffel Tower.

Then we will be heading further West in the US to visit more friends, daughter #1 and family and then to Montana until the fall.

Organizing a wardrobe for all these climates can be challenging, but we always seem to pull it off.

I am planning on blogging about our trip after I get back from Paris and then off and on as the summer continues.  I will be checking in on your blogs after we are back in the States.  Bientôt

A few final travel thoughts

The sign above belongs to a beautiful hotel in the town of Equisheim, France, which is also recognized as the best Alsacian village. We stayed there 20 years ago and had a photograph of the outside of the building. We wanted to go back. We found it, but it was slightly different. It had a different color and a more beautiful sign. It had been sold 12 years ago to the new owners, and the lady of the house was so tickled to see my old photo, she immediately asked if she could make a photocopy of it for herself. It was too early for lunch, but it was such fun to go back after all these years.

The signage is what always takes my breath away. It is so beautiful. You can just see the pride that the owners have in their establishments.

Another sign of a vintner in the Alsace region. And now, just a few more thoughts as I bring this trip to a close.

Luckily, it is not such a great challenge anymore, switching from an automatic to a manual transmission in Europe. The Trout does very well, and I simply do not drive in Europe. Another challenge is filling the car with gasoline or diesel, which we use. It is not so simple, at least for us.

As Americans, our credit car are accepted almost all over without a problem, but filling the car can be a real problem.
First rule, start looking for a gas station when the tanks hits 1/2 full. Our credit cards lack a chip which allows them to be used in gas stations without an attendant. You need to find someone working at a station who will swipe the card for you. Just another challenge we have gotten used to.

Now, how about those toll booths! Once in Italy, not finding a slot to put the money in, we simply threw it in an unmanned open window. Luckily, there was not a barrier in front of us.

In Norway, we could not translate fast enough in heavy traffic to know which gate to enter and, of course, we entered a "paid pass" gate and just kept on flying through. I hope we were smiling, which I doubt, because our pictures were taken, sent to the rental agency and we were billed an extra $80 for that mistake.

A couple of years back, in France, we again could not find the slot to put the money in. This time, the arm would not rise before paying, so cars were building up behind us.

An elderly lady behind us got out of her car, but wasn't much help either. She did find a HELP button which we pushed. With our fractured French and the HELP man's fractured English, we finally figured it out.

Parking lots also need coins deposited and then the receipt placed in the front windshield. There have been times when we failed to find the box to put the money in, but we have never had a problem with the police.

This year we also bought our train tickets over the Internet while still at home, printed them out and this way we avoided long lines at the train station. There are many ways to make traveling easier on yourself, and I think we have them all figured out by now.

And what lies in the future, well....the Trout has been searching homes to rent in Provence for next spring. We'll see what comes out of this plan. Nothing is definite yet, but we are working on it, and that is just as much fun, if not more, than the actual traveling.

Over the big pond we go!!

Only in Europe can you find a scene like this one. This was taken in France several years ago. Tomorrow morning we are leaving for the Black Forest of Germany and for the Auvergne region of France in south central France, Massif Central. I will not be taking the computer with us, but hope to find an Internet cafe now and then to simply check on things.

I will be back in 3 weeks and will be blogging again then. I plan on taking lots of notes and lots of pictures so I hope you will be back then to share the journey with me.

Onward toward the West!

There has never been a time, while driving to Montana, that my thoughts haven't gone to the American pioneers, traveling west in their stagecoaches, enduring unimaginable hardships along the way. And here we were today, flying through North Dakota with a speed limit of 75 on I-94, with our own hardships. The prairie bonnet was flapping in the strong wind and restrooms seemed to be far and few between. (smile)

The pictures you see are of the Painted Canyon in Teddy Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota. Untouched by human hands. All of a sudden, out of the flat plains, you come across this sight. And once again, I ponder, what must the pioneers have thought on their first glimpse? We all come from such very strong stock. No doubt about it!

By the way, of interest, did you know there is a small town in western North Dakota named "Home on the Range?"

We're Home!

The trip isn't over until the mail has been collected and the laundry is done! We are getting there slowly. Got home at noon today and have been flying ever since.

Last night was unusual. We spent the night in South Carolina because we had driven 11 hours during the day. Because we are always traveling with a dog, we have stayed in motels that are happy to have dogs as guests. I can see now that I will need to do more research before the next trip. This brand of motel is getting worse and worse. Trying to get a reservation by phone while on the road, the last few times we have encountered accent problems. It seems more and more motels are being managed by people with East Indian heritage. They cannot understand our accent and we cannot understand their accent. So after trying to spell our last name at least 6 times, we just told him to forget it and we took our chances. Yes, we got a room.

Next, we got into the motel and were hungry for Chinese. Wrong idea! We called the local Chinese restaurant that delivers, and could not get our accent across to the Chinese lady on the other end. So, we drove to find it. It was still very difficult to make them understand at the restaurant what we wanted to order.

The Trout and I looked at each other and felt like we were in a foreign country. Is there something wrong with this picture? We have traveled to Europe often, and we always make an extra effort to speak the language as much as possible and try to fit in as "when in Rome."

Enough said. The frustration is over. This is America and all are welcome. This sure makes RV travel sound a lot better, doesn't it?

Traveling on

We have had some good traveling and have now landed in Ohio at our daughter's home. Kippy is hanging in there, even though she was taken advantage of because of her small size. My brother has two Gordon setters which are beautiful dogs, but large compared to a Bichon.

Kippy's traveling pancake snacks, her Puperoni snacks and her glucosamine tablets were all devoured quickly upon arrival in North Carolina. I wonder why those Gordon's liked me so well. I guess because I brought unexpected treats!

So, had to make a trip to PetSmart this morning to stock up on what was no longer. Kippy is smiling again.

Our guest room at my brother's was beautiful. And this was the view out of our window onto the lake they live on. The Trout went fishing in the boat with my brother and we had a lovely, relaxing time, talking about childhood memories. I also told him about my genealogy research.

Now at daughter's house and loving those grandboys. Angie has beautiful snowball hydrangeas in her back yard. We are enjoying the upper Midwest plants and trees which we do not have in Florida. Need to catch up on reading all my favorite blogs that all of you write.

Heading out of here

Busy day here today as we are packing up to head north and get out of the tropics and the heat, heat, heat!! Going to North Carolina to spend some time with my brother and his wife before we head to Ohio to visit daughter and family.

Love Florida, but we still have trouble adjusting to the heat in the summer. The spring rain is slow in coming, so it is also very dry. I will still say and always say that running the air conditioner in the summer in Florida is a lot more fun than running the furnace all winter long up north.

Will be in touch and will keep up reading all your blogs. Unfortunately, Kippy, the Bichon, is figuring out that she will be in for a long car ride and it is not her favorite thing. Will need to shut the bedroom doors before she crawls under the beds in hopes we forget her. And, it looks like rain is in the forecast further north, and she is deathly afraid of windshield wipers and rain on the roof. It is the child that never left home..

I feel a Nor'eastern coming on!

The planning has started. Back in October, I talked about my 'Bucket List.' We are now in the process of planning a trip that has been on that list for many years. Three of the states we have not seen are New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. The more we study these states, the more excited I have become about seeing them. We will be there next month.

One day, while The Trout is fly fishing for trout on the Connecticut River, I will be spending the day at the King Arthur Flour Mill, just outside of Norwich, Vermont. Can't imagine leaving that place without added weight. If you check out the website by clicking on King Arthur Flour Mill, you will see that most anything is available there. It seems the test kitchens are going all the time.

A quaint B & B in Kennebunk, Maine, will be a treat. Hoping to get my fill of lobster. I don't think it is lobster season, but will be searching for them anyway. If any of you readers know anything about the southern part of these 3 states, I would love to learn more.

Of course, we are both anxious to see L. L. Bean and Orvis. We have been getting these catalogues for years. We will be close to having every state covered by the end of this trip. The Trout has me beat though, as he has been in Alaska several times and I have yet to make that trip.