A Trip To The Garden

What a beautiful weekend it has been!  The weather has been fantastic…warm, but not TOO warm (as it can get in the area during this time of the year!).

We decided to take a trip through the Wine Country on Hiway 12 to Luther Burbank Garden located in Santa Rosa, California.

Check it out @ http://ci.santa-rosa.ca.us/departments/recreationandparks/parks/lbhg/Pages/default.aspx

I have lots of pictures to upload, but here are a few of my favorites!

 

Watch for these and others  in my Etsy Shop very soon!

Water Water Everywhere!

 Flooding was significant throughout northern California from January 9 through 14. …

After weeks of preparation and building excitement, we were finally ready for our first one-the-road adventure. As departure day approached so did one of the worst storms in California’s history.

The rain began and just kept coming down. It rained and rained and rained!  We watched as the ground around the KOA campground began to disappear and a lake took it’s place.  The wind blew the campground trees and the dirt roads, separating the rows of camping spaces, became a muddy mess of broken branches. 

We wanted to leave SO badly!  We eagerly arose each morning with the hope the nasty weather had subsided during the night.  We had waited for so long and now it just seemed like Mother Nature was holding us back just out of spite!  We toyed with the idea of leaving anyway.  My husband had driven 18-wheel trucks for many years so driving a pickup truck with an attached 30 foot 5th wheel was a walk in the park to him.  He wasn’t nervous about leaving but I was.  I was concerned about the wind, it was blowing hard, and there didn’t seem to be an end to the rain.

Our mind was made up for us when we walked to the edge of the campground and realized the entrance road was gone.  It had disappeared under three feet of water!  We couldn’t even get out of the campground! 

Although this picture was taken a little north of the campground, this is how it looked in many places in the area…..

Whether we liked it or not…we had to wait…and hope that by the next day we could start our adventure….

Stay tuned as we finally leave the campground and our Land-Yacht blows in the breeze…..

Base Camp

Having made the decision to sell our house and hit the road, we needed to find a place to park our new home-on-wheels. Not far from us was one of the best KOA campgrounds in the country, and that’s where we decided to start our adventure.  Our Base Camp…the place to which we would always return.

The campground space we choose was under large beautiful trees that provided  filtered sun and a multitude of singing birds.  Although not far from town or the freeway, the campground seemed a million miles away from civilization.  We were now full-time “RV’ers” and loving every minute of it!

It took us a few months to settle in and get used to our new surroundings but, once settled,  we developed a case of  ”wanderlust”.  Where to go?  What to do?  What to see?  So many choices!   We decided the first time out we would be gone four months.  That would give us time to “shake down” the 5th wheel and get our travel legs under us.  It would also show us how well our Cocker Spaniel would travel!

We would begin our maiden voyage in the “Land-Yacht” right after the new year.  We couldn’t wait to get started….

Follow our adventures as we traveled the Western States….but first we had to get out of town and that was an adventure in itself!

Come With Me……

When our children were grown, and the last one left the house to start a life of her own, my husband and I decided to sell our home and travel…full-time….in an RV.  It had always been our dream. 

We spent the majority of our married life camping with the family in travel trailers and, finally, a motorhome.  Now we wanted to experience all the freedom of just traveling all the time!  To “go” and “see” and “learn” and “experience” this country.

It was going to be a whole new way of life for us.  Selling our home was, at the least, an interesting adventure.  We had a number of “piles” we were contributing to each time we picked up an object.  Would it go to “the kids”, “the trash”, “the recycle”, “the charity”, “the storage unit”, or “the trash?  We were grateful we sold our home the very same day we listed it!  In fact, I had to come home from visiting my oldest daughter in the hospital after delivering her youngest child, to sign the papers!

It was an exciting time for us!  Oh the freedom it represented!!  We had done our job as “parents”!  It was now our turn!!

We bought a 30 foot fifth wheel trailer with some of the proceeds from the house.  At the time, it was big enough for us.  We were (and are) lucky that neither of us required a lot of “personal space” and…the most important thing…we not only “loved” each other…but we really “LIKED” each other!!  You HAVE to like each other to live in a small space together!!  It’s a “dance”…always a “dance”.

 This was our first itinerary.  Come with me as I share our travels..on the road full-time!  Stay tuned……

What Do You Think?

A couple of years ago my husband and I were visiting the town of Auburn California.  It’s an old town with rich history located north of the capital of California, Sacramento.  While walking through town, enjoying the antique shops and old buildings, we noticed this woman standing off to the side of the main street.  It was summer, and many motorcyclists had gathered in the town after a morning ride.

I haven’t any idea just WHY she was dressed in a bright red dress but she was a sight to behold!  Obviously a local, she had her own far away dreams and her own reasons for displaying them in the middle of town!

As I caught her image, I wondered what she was thinking.  Why was she there?  What was her story?  How long had she lived in this town full of California history?  Had she been a dancer in the local Saloon?  Was she confused with the new look of the town?  What did she think of these “intruders” on noisy motorcycles?  Did she want to ride?  Did she look for some excitement in her aging life?  Did she yearn for the quieter life she may have lead for years in this town?  Was she alone and searching for attention?  Where was her “family”?  Were they aware she was roaming the streets…alone.

I didn’t get the chance to ask her.  By the time we reached the spot where she was standing…she was gone.  She haunts me sometimes.  I’m pretty sure she’s passed to a higher place now….. since this picture was taken a few years ago.

I’m a photographer…for what that’s worth.  Sometimes I’m able to catch others when their guard is down…and they are pure and unguarded in their repsonse.

What was her story?  What do you think?

Sea Legs Included?

This is where I’d like to be this weekend.  Not that I have a sailboat…not that I even KNOW anyone with a sailboat…not that I could even afford to RENT a sailboat…but doesn’t it look like a boat-load (sorry, I had to do that!) of fun…..on a CALM sunny 72 degree day on the San Francisco Bay? 

Well, it would be great fun as long as the wind wasn’t  blowing so hard the top of the sailboat was bobbing up and down in the waves…and I was sitting on the opposite side of the boat hanging on for dear life!  Yep, I’ve seen a LOT of those sailboats on the San Francisco Bay!  Hearty souls they are!  Me?  Ahhhh… not so much!

That’s Alcatraz Island you see on the left.  You know, the prison that held a bunch of really bad guys!  Alcatraz means “pelican” and it started out as a military fort back in the 1800′s.  When the miltary decided they didn’t really need it anymore, the prison emerged.  It was used as a prison for more than 100 years finally closing in 1963.  Alcatraz was opened as a tourist attraction in the fall of 1973.  If you look closely, on the right side of the island you’ll see a tour boat docked along the shore.  Over one million visitors from around the world visit Alcatraz Island every year…

Back to the weekend and the sailboat…looks like I’ll be helping my Hubby plant our new veggie garden instead!  Oh well, this is just the first weekend of many coming up that will be beautiful in the city of San Francisco…

Egg Factory Workers Unite!

                                                              EGGS-TRA!  EGGS-TRA!!   

Hey Mabel…….keep it on the down-low….we’re beating feet out of this joint tonight while that ding-a-ling Rooster ain’t lookin!!

It’s all about Family!

A family of Canadian Geese stopping by for a rest on their way South for the winter……

Family…what does that mean to you?  To me…family means an eternal connection.  It means unconditional love and unconditional forgiveness.  It means being together through thick and thin.  It means taking care of each other….always.  It means accepting each others differences and each others likenesses.  It means reaching out to touch each other in times of turmoil and in times of success.

I’m an only child.  I had a great childhood…I felt loved and cared for through my growing years….but it was sometimes lonely.  What I had was mine…and I made up games I could play by myself.    It wasn’t until I had four children of my own that I was forced to understand how siblings react to each other.  Sometimes it was hard for me to understand the dynamics’s involved….I couldn’t  draw on anything in my lifetime.  I wonder…occasionally…if I let my children down because I couldn’t relate to some experience they were feeling at the time…

I’ll never know that feeling….that feeling of a sibling who might “tell on you”…or who might keep your “secret” to the grave.  I miss that sometimes…if I’m being truthful.   Maybe as I get older…I miss that more than I did before…but I try to live it through my children….

My children are my greatest achievement…above and beyond anything I might do with my photography.  They are the most beautiful and accomplished women I have even known!

I am proud to be their Mother!

Spring Speaks to Me

Spring is my favorite time of the year.  Like many people, I think of Spring as a renewal of life.

I’m not quite sure why this particular picture moves me so much.   Maybe it’s the green of the grass or the lone tree with it’s tiny buds just beginning to show.  Maybe it’s the basketball left in the grass after a friendly game in the springtime sun.  Perhaps it’s the wispy streaks of clouds crossing the blue sky.

Whatever the reason, to me, this image says Spring is here!  Horrah!!

A New Face

OK..it’s me and it’s current! 

 Anyone who knows me knows I absolutely hate nearly every picture that has ever been taken of me. 

 Even when I was little, my Dad would tell me I always looked like I smelled “something bad” each time he tried to take my picture!  You can imagine that statement doesn’t help much with my thought process when it comes to having my picture taken! 

So it’s a BIG deal for me to plaster my picture up here, as well as on twitter and Facebook! 

I can only say “It is what it is!”  And thanks Vini…. you ROCK!