Finally, no more political ads

The election is over.

I'm not speaking to most of my Facebook acquaintances.

Some of the candidates I voted for won.

Some did not.

Some issues won.

Some didn't.

This election was not as much fun as others.

You have to remember I'm from Iowa. We don't have a professional sports franchise. We have politics.

It just wasn't as much fun as it usually is.

But it is over now and from what the pundits say, we have almost 18 months before they start running again.

The fact that they started the Black Friday sales before Halloween seems kind of ironic.

But, HRH has recommended I write a segment on my recent struggles with pastries and caffeine since every time I tried to tell it SOMEONE walked all over my stories. So I have something to write between Firefly marathons and Thanksgiving cooking. Talk to you soon.

Planned Parenthood Book Sale weekend

It has been two weekends since HRH joined CaDiva, The Mom and I on a weekend. First HRH had a head cold and then she had to work. So the last time we got to play was a cold and rainy weekend at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. Above, you can just barely make out the wind turbine against the gray damp sky.

We started that weekend with the little hrh at Home Plate Diner.

The food was very tasty and welcoming on such a dreary day. I regretted ordering the patty sausages with my omelette. They tasted wonderful but my old GI Buddy was back in town. Upper GI that is. Regardless of my temporary amnesia regarding my digestive system I enjoyed the meal and would go back there any time.

They have a seriously family friendly attitude. Little hrh was in a fine mood until just before we entered the diner. But she had started a tiny tantrum as we approached the table. We weren't even seated before the server showed up with a Barbie doll and a My Little Pony to distract the little terror...excuse me, I meant the little hrh.

We all enjoyed the joking and teasing between the servers and customers but we laughed out loud when we realized it was a customer who was offering us a coffee refill. I'm going to guess the rule is, if you want coffee you can get it yourself but you have to offer it to everyone else too.

We went across the street after brunch and dropped the Mom, HRH, and the little hrh off at the book sale while CaDiva and I found parking. I have been going to the book sale since it was in the Ag Bldg (aka the old 4 H building if you are old enough to remember) and the parking is much improved over the years. But we are wienies and didn't want to park in the back forty  And why should we when CaDiva can parallel park like she invented the concept. It is really quite sexy to watch, I should film it and load a video here.  I could probably charge people to watch it.

We got out of the book sale on Saturday only $50 light. And we only dropped another 40 or 50 bucks on Sunday but that was a half-price day. And you really can't count the $30 we spent on Monday because that was 75% off day and we delivered over 35 books at the Mom's house that day. She is pretty much set until the spring sale.


We tried out the children's consignment sale but I wasn't really impressed. I did find a cutie pair of boots for the little hrh. They light up and looked adorable on her. And we did find a Christmas or Birthday present for her too. I'll explain later how grotesquely unfair it is to give anyone a birthday so close to Christmas.

Well, like always I started this too late and I need to get off to bed. I will give you an Dunkin' Donuts update tomorrow if I get home from work at a decent hour.

Leaf Peeping in the Midwest

And I looked it up, it is so too a phrase. Although I'll admit it is a silly one. I have been leaf peeping for two weeks now and am just amazed at the Autumn we are sharing this year. Maybe it was the drought or the late cold snap in the spring, but the colors this year are more of an earthy, warm, welcome than a cacophonous inferno.

The autumn colors are coming slowly, leaving many trees a half and half event.

I took The Mother home from the hospital on Sunday traveling the long way around so that she could see some of the changes she missed while she was confined this last week. I tried to talk CaDiva into coming with me on Monday but she was busy baking the thank-you cookies and such. This is when I discovered leaf peeping is definitely not a solitary activity.

I tooled around in the old Bonneville from Windsor Heights to River Bend and saw some magnificent sights but pulling over in traffic at a high enough elevation to snag the pictures I wanted was not easy. Texting and Driving is bad, Drinking and Driving is worst, but Peeping and Driving is definitely difficult.

After delivering the aforementioned thank-you baked goods, CaDiva suggested we make our semi-annual ice cream run to the south. The air was sweet and warm. the sun was shining and even though the kitten hadn't been fed we took off.


Now before you go all PETA-nuts on me, there was food in the house and it was in her dish. But this particular feline does not consider food in her dish to mean she has been fed. She believes, and doesn't know why we can't understand, food in her dish has previously been rejected and is beneath her consideration. But she is also species-confused, given that she will beg like a Labrador for salmon and brie shortly after flopping on her back and demanding a tummy rub. So I tend to disregard many of her more persnickety traits. OK  yes, I see the irony in the comparison to a canine when she never begs for anything that costs less than $12.00 a pound.  But I digress.



Even the reds are more of a burgundy this year. In every meaning of the word, they are warming and rich without being overly sweet.


This particular shot was from the "lake" at Lakeside Casino. You should know in Iowa we can have casinos on land owned by the Native American's or bodies of water. No one said how long the body of water had to be there before you can put a Casino on top of it.










In case you didn't read the blogs about Ragbrai and still thought Iowa was flat I wanted to share this gently rolling hill for your consideration.



Autumn in Iowa is also not just trees changing colors.

And just one or two parting pictures that made my vacation worth the time and energy.

The Raccoon River - yes the same one that was party to the flood of '93. So when we say we are having a drought...we ain't just whistling 76 Trombones.


OK, yes, sometimes we are showy even in Iowa. 

I'm hungry. Is there a Casino anywhere near here?

Today was the first day of my vacation. I haven't actually been to work since Thursday. The Mother sprang another leak and Herself allowed me time to stay with her at the hospital and still take my vacation this week. I can't count Monday as vacation because The Mother had a home health care representative scheduled to to follow up on her hospital stay.

However, today CaDiva had a great idea to deliver Thank-you baked goods to the hospital staff followed by a leaf-peeping and ice cream run.

I have been planning an autumnal blog so this suited me very well. During the run to Eagleville, we found the Happy Apple Orchard. It was closed but we quickly made plans to visit it this weekend. We checked out some scenic by-passes and took lots of pictures I'll share later. On the way home we realized the gas tank and our bellies were riding on the bottom half so we decided to make one last pit stop.

The only problem is between Bethany, Missouri and West Des Moines, Iowa, there just aren't that many places to stop for a sit down meal. Oh, there are Casey's General Stores every dozen miles or so. However, I may have mentioned that I already ate my lifetime allowance of Casey's food during our Ragbrai trip.

Fortunately Osceola has a fine dining establishment known as Lakeside Casino. It used to be Terribles. The Casino was Terribles not the dining establishment. Truth be told we only ate there once before so I can't say it wasn't Terribles. As I recall it was more mediocre than Terribles.

The restaurant wasn't opened until 4:00 PM. This wasn't as bad as the orchard. I mean it wasn't as if we had to wait until the weekend but we had to find some way to kill 20 minutes. Conveniently, the Casino restaurant was attached to a floating structure filled with slot machines. What with the $30.00 of free play Lakeside gave me us for being new players with e-mail and cell phones and $2.50 applied to the penny slots, we filled the time waiting for the restaurant to open.

We ordered the buffet because it was a Casino and that is the law. We paid $12.00 a piece for an all-you-care-to-eat buffet of Italian, Chinese, Mexican, and American fare. They also had salad and dessert stations. The American choices consisted of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and waxed beans, except chicken was on the Chinese station along with the fried calamari and scallops with the shrimp scampi. And no way would I list bread sticks, cheesy polenta, or pork loin with pineapple as Mexican.

I really enjoyed the scampi and the pork but I don't think I would pay $12.00 for such a narrow selection.

Route 66 can't dead-end if there is a Whataburger just over the horizon

I'm sorry I have been gone so long. The office got my attention first and now it is family matters. But I did find one of my pictures which will make a good blog. Just talk among yourselves while I deal with this latest interruption.

So what is your favorite burger? I first found Be Bops. Their burgers got me through some serious IBS issues. (if you don't know IBS is a series of undiagnosed symptoms which may be treated but not cured.) And the fries are notoriously good. In KC, we pinned our hopes on Back Yard Burger and their onion rings but it went all McBK on me. CaDiva introduced me to In-N-Out Burger...the double double will eventually send you to cholesterol Hell I imagine but you couldn't complain about the trip. On the way back from The Brother's wedding we discovered Whataburger and found a new meaning to having it your way. I even tried out Jack in the Box for breakfast-all-day but found the meaty delight between soft white bread buns just as enjoyable.

Lately, however, with no roads to travel, I am limited to national chains and Saturday lunch with the ladies. The Tavern Burger at Red Robin has tickled my fancy of late. It is smaller than their normal burger and I actually have room to finish my fries (if I don't order the mushrooms or rings.)

I'm still dealing with family issues (keep a good thought for The Brother and The Mother please) and you can discuss among yourselves which is your favorite burger. I'll be back soon.

What should we talk about next

I haven't traveled lately, not since the girl trip to Coralville. I don't know what to tell you about next. I'll admit my old friend IBS has been visiting for a long time, so I haven't been terribly motivated. But one name does keep coming back to me, Best Western.

Oh, I have several hotels on my top list. I sleep well at almost all Hampton properties. I have had some of my best meals at Marriott hotels. I spent three glorious weeks at a Double Tree in Sunny Isle, Fla. I even had one nice long stay at a Westin in Jacksonville. But one of the most surprisingly consistently hotel chains I have stayed with is the Best Western.

It started with the cross-country drive to bring CaDiva to Iowa. We made it to Cheyenne. It was dark, rainy and we were very tired. But we were also a day behind schedule. We got a late start leaving Santa Rosa and I got us lost in Sacramento, so we only made it to Truckee that first night. CaDiva wanted to stop in Cheyenne but HRH and I said we should push on. CaDiva's argument was the darkness and rain. I pointed out we were driving into western Nebraska, what was there to hit? During the course of later trips we would learn that rainy nights were not so bad that I couldn't drive us, especially in mountains. But that is a different story.

We discovered many tricks to traveling cross-country but this trip we were still learning. We would drive until we were within an hour of wanting to stop, then pull out the AAA tour books and look for the mile-marker about 60 out then look for a hotel. This particular night we found the town of Ogallala, Nebraska. And I just loved the word...O-ga-lla-la. You can't really beat that. I wanted to stay there just so I could tell people I had spent the night in Ogallala. Oh, the Nishnabotna River is good too but that night we picked Ogallala and the Stagecoach Inn.

They had a King on the ground floor and a Queen on the second floor. Since the Stagecoach didn't have an elevator CaDiva and I took the lower level and HRH took the upper room. The rooms were clean, comfortable and came with a continental breakfast. I learned not to eat the Cheerios since they had Honey Nut in the little dispenser and I can't do sweet first thing in the AM. But we needed to get a start in the morning anyway. We were one day from Des Moines and I would be sleeping in my own bed that night.

\

After that, we stayed at the Stagecoach every time we could. There was one trip we had to stay in Kearney instead because of some sort of state tournament took up all the rooms for 100 miles. By the way, it is apparently pronounced Carney even though they spell it Kearney.

We got to the point that we looked for Best Westerns.  We looked forward to a night in Newport, Oregon. But I took a miss turn and we drove two extra hours in the dark, through the mountains, and the woods. And no matter what she tells you, CaDiva did not see a jackalope as we rounded that one curve. Anyway, we didn't get there in time to luxuriate in the hot tub or walk the beach before our whale watching trip the next day. The hotel was under renovation but it was comfortable and welcoming as all the others we have stayed at since.

We stayed at the Best Western Canterbury in Coralville, Iowa for our first not-quite-annual Hahn Women girl trip. I fantasized about the tower suite there. Although the stairs would be have been too much for CaDiva and I. But it was a two story suite on the second story of the hotel. It had a hot tub on a private terrace. I originally proposed we rent it (way too expensive for just one of us) as a party suite for all the ladies. We still had a great time but when I get the oomph to plan another I think I'll take a few clues from that first trip and keep us with more time to bond and a little less free schedule time.

After our recent trip to California where we stayed at the Best Western Plus Bay View at Carmel by the Sea I learned there are three classes of Best Westerns. The Plus is obviously elegant but I still got a good price. It had a lovely balcony. You have seen it before. I posted a couple pictures of me and my sea gull friend, discussing who got my bowl of Cheerios. The room had a fireplace in a corner and a grand view of the bay.

We ate at Clint Eastwood's restaurant, of course that was before the empty chair incident. There was a cute little mini mart next to the hotel where we got sandwiches and drinks for noshing in the room. We took another whale watching trip and drove the 17-mile drive to CaDiva's brother's wedding.

I think there is a way on this blog to attach that map application where you can track your favorite hotels. I have had some great nights and and longer stays at some hotels. I would love to share them with you here.

HRH says I'm afraid of Birds

If this is true, then why do I have so many pictures of birds?

She got this outrageous idea eight-years ago when we went to California to move CaDiva to Iowa. I may have mentioned this before, but I talked a lifelong Californian into moving to Iowa. Generally, I alert people to take this as an indication they shouldn't doubt my ability to persuade. I haven't, however, been able to convince HRH I am NOT afraid of birds.

Breakfast with a friend in Best Western at Carmel by the Sea April 2011.

We have a tale we tell that usually takes about 20 minutes if you don't count the interruptions from HRH and CaDiva in their attempts to insert false memories into my story.  We generally title this story The Three Fat Chicks, Gay Guy, Great Dane and a Boat.  But, as usual. I'm starting this blog quite late on a Sunday and I doubt I have the time to tell the entire tale. So I'll pick up somewhere between "Are you eating something?" and "About that time, someone started to hum the theme to Gilligan's Island."

Seagull at Goat Rock Beach, Sonoma County

As you can imagine, CaDiva had a lot of friends in California. And each one of them begged for one last visit before she left so he/she could say goodbye. She had a dear coworker who lived on a man-made lagoon. He wanted her to come to lunch and a quiet boat trip down the Petaluma River and invited HRH and I to join them. In addition to a beautiful harlequin Great Dane, our host and his partner kept an aviary.

This was taken when we were on the Seventeen Mile Drive in Monterrey.

Inside a converted garage they had canaries and a feather-footed pigeon but the backyard and sheltered crawlspace hosted sparrows and other outside winged guests. We were touring inside home of free-flying orange and yellow canaries. We each held a lovely glass of wine, although CaDiva and I had also enjoyed a tasty  cold hors d'oeuvre of hard cheese and carpaccio. HRH, as I may have mentioned before, is not so adventuresome in her palate.  So she was on her second glass of wine on an empty stomach. I mention this only because it could explain her misunderstanding my position in the aviary.

This was the gull who was interested in our Egg McMuffins before we took our whale watching trip.

While I very sensibly kept a close eye on the bits of fluttering color as they attempted to dive-bomb me and my wine glass, HRH stood with her arm extended and glass uncovered, asking questions about the birds and their breeding habits. HRH took the fact that that I occasionally adjusted my head position to avoid in-air collision with the inhabitants of the aviary to mean I was afraid of them.

Off HRH's deck - sometimes you just get lucky.

After the rescue from the lock (I'll tell you about that one another time) I repeatedly attempted to point out that I was covering my glass since the birds didn't have a separate toilet area and ducked my head only to ensure none of them became snared in my magnificent mane of only slightly graying locks. HRH has always been known to have a judgemental streak so she still believes this was me being afraid of birds.

We were promised the best sunset view in the world off this beach on the Oregon Coast.  I haven't  seen them all, but this one has to be right up there.

 

I don't mean to indicate I have no fears. In fact, I have five.

1. Small things that scurry.
2. Sudden stops at the end of free falls.
3. Veins and eye balls.
4. Tall hills (which is actually part of #2 because the car will pinwheel over and over until it makes a sudden stop at the bottom of the hill)
5. Mammalian flying cousins to small things that scurry - which is not the same as a bird. (I'll tell you one time about the day I had to call in bat to work.)

Coming in for a landing in along the coast in Oregon.

I could hear them for a half mile, "This way, over there...I see a restaurant."

I would like to believe this is a Condor but I know it is over the Grand Canyon.

But I am not afraid of birds. While I'll never go birding like our good friends in California. I will make every effort grab other great pictures of birds I have captured over the years. I have a long winter coming and a lot of disks, thumb drives, and boxes of pictures I need to snag and put into one place. When I get those pictures I'll add them under this label. 

Another picture from outside HRH's house.

 As I have always said at work, I only steal from the very best. But I'll keep the pictures of birds I post to ones taken by HRH, CaDiva, The Daughter, and me. I hope you enjoy them.

Cardinal at HRH's bird feeder.

Same bird feeder - different season.

HRH got this one outside her house.

This pushy fellow stalked the picnic lunches up and down the beach  at Bodega Bay.

It was near this statue, you see...

I told you we got lost almost every time we left the motel. I also told you we rented a fire engine red 1978 Mercury Cougar in which we got lost most every time we left the motel. I even told you we were there for a March on Washington during which we drove a fire engine red 1978 Mercury Cougar in which we got lost most every time we left the motel. What I haven't told you is that we were too sophisticated to notice he was naked when we were marching on Washington in a fire engine red Mercury Cougar in which we got lost most every time we left the motel.

So let me fill you in on the bits and pieces I may have left out. I was young and politically naive which made me marvelously certain of my position. I joined the National Organization for Women and I participated in marches and campaigns and consciousness raising groups. This particular march was to extend the deadline by which the Equal Rights Amendment must be ratified. 100,000 women, men, and children dressed in white with yellow banners in the heat of east coast July celebrating our right to assembly and freedom of expression. This is something everyone should experience at least once in his/her life. Years later, I knew a woman who resigned her post as a federal employee as a matter of conscience and traveled to Washington to march in protest. She returned home and took her job back. I asked why.

She explained she had gathered with a group of people determined to tell our government that they were wrong and it was the intent of these people to run them out of office if they didn't change what they were doing. And that government put members of the armed services along the path of their protest to protect the protesters from anyone who intended to interfere with their demonstration of free assembly and speech. She said she could disagree with that government and work to change its policy. But she had no problem being employed by a government who protected it citizens even as they declared how much they disagreed with it and intended to vote every member out of office if they could.

In short, I'm just saying you need to vote, but voting isn't always enough. But I digress.

HRH and I found a parking place that wasn't in Virginia and we hooked up with the Iowa contingency. It was a long hot day and seemed to take forever before we began to move. Frankly, since Iowa was the third state to ratify the amendment I was thinking we should have gotten to be closer to the front but those who had water shared it and we sang all the songs and chanted all the chants as we waited. Finally we began moving. The energy was almost enough to dispel the onset of heat exhaustion, but more about that later.

We waved our banners and chanted, "What do we want? ERA. When do we want it? Now!" down the Mall, swept along by youthful enthusiasm and the swell of humanity when HRH turned to me and said, "Do you remember where we left the car?"

Well, that puts a damper on a middle-aged woman's enthusiasm. However, a 20-year-old, not so much. "We'll worry about it after the March." I'm not really clear on what else happened after that. I remember finishing the March. Well at least we were near enough the end that I could hear the speeches. But HRH was leading me to a place to sit down where she could splash water on me. Ok, it was the Reflecting Pool. In any case, she found a place under a tree and a lemonade vendor and got me cooled, rested and hydrated before we thought about the car again.

We weren't really worried. I mean how hard is it to find a 1978 fire engine red Mercury Cougar? Even in 1978 I knew it was a big-assed car. Besides, we remembered a lot about where we parked it. First, you could see the Washington Monument from where we parked the car.
  And it was near a park. And there was a statue in the park. The statue was of a naked Man, a Woman, and a Boy Scout. So we hailed a cab and asked the driver to find our car with this description. We didn't mention the naked part because we wanted him to think we were too sophisticated to notice. This good man drove us around and around the Mall five times before one of us called out, "There it is."

DC Cabbies didn't use meters back then. You paid them by zones and he didn't leave the zone. But we didn't balk at the $10.00 fare and even tipped him a couple of bucks, even though we never heard of anyone who ever had a fare of TEN DOLLARS.  But it was worth it just for the fact he didn't laugh at us until he got home that night. 

It just goes to prove my old saying, there is nothing so bad that can't be made better by having a good story to tell afterwards.

We didn't get lost this time

So far this week, I created, delivered or prepared to deliver four presentations as well as directed my employees in three more. My guys are really coming along but I have been lazy each night I get home and haven't been blogging.

I promised you the story about not getting lost in DC. That memory stands out because it only happened the one time.

First, you have to remember this was pre-Oklahoma City, pre-911...heck this was even pre-John Hinkley. OK, Squeaky Fromme was in prison by this time but that was it. So when I tell you tooling around DC was not anything like you would experience today, you've got to believe me. We must have driven past the White House a dozen times without noticing it. It was just sitting there like any old house in the neighborhood. When we finally saw it, I swear Billy and his hound were hanging out on the portico with a tall cold one while Momma Carter hung out a load of delicates. But that was the last day of our trip, this day was the night before the march. And we had plans.

I told you that HRH was unaware of my spatial impairment and you should know, she was not terribly understanding about it. By the time she found that I not only didn't know north from south but also didn't know left from right, she told me to quit talking to her in the car. I think her actual words were "Quit finding me after I'm not lost any more." It isn't like we had Google Maps or a GPS device.

It was road maps and tourist pamphlets.  And even so, this night she drove straight to the Mall and even found a parking place right across from the Washington Monument. And just as we climbed the hill, HRH looked at me and said..."The camera!" Oh my goodness, we left the camera at the motel. She hadn't taken a single wrong turn to get to the monument and now we had to reverse direction and repeat the process before we could see DC by twilight on the only night we had left before the march.

HRH twisted a bit and turned slightly but she got us back and in line for our last night of sight-seeing and it was everything they promised. I have been back several times but nothing matched that night for the camaraderie and excitement. My strongest memory is of Kenneth. He was a 2-year old Korean toddling tourist. As we all sat around the benches at the base of the white obelisk Kenneth kept us all entertained.

In later years, the tour guides would tell us about what we could see as we peered out those angled windows. When CaDiva and I went back a few years ago, we even saw the eternal flame in the distant twilight. That night, HRH and I stood at one window and then another one and just let the view bedazzle us. I hopefully will be able to find those pictures and scan them for you. But I can tell you this, if they can repair it and you get a chance to go up to the top of the monument, go at twilight. There is no view like it in the world.

When the weekend gets quiet I'll tell you about losing the rental car.

I haven't forgotten you.

We took HRH, the Mom, her friend and her friend's friend out to lunch yesterday. Red Robin ... YUMMM! ... again they made over us all over again because of the nice e-mail CaDiva wrote on their website. Yeah I know, it is the same thing as asking the car to let us in when the 18-wheeler was in the wrong lane at Ragbrai. I don't question it, I just go along for the ride. The Mom's friend got a balloon and an extra cup of caramel shake out of it so we were all good. By the way how many of you use three syllables to say caramel and how many only use two? Even in my head I hear three but then I mispronounce February too.

Anyway, lunch was after taking the Sabrina cat to the Vet. She is pretty sick and we are hoping the antibiotics (which HRH says I mispronounce too) and steroids will make her well and comfortable in that order. We'll know more in two weeks. Hold a good thought for us ok? So after the vet, and lunch, and some miscellaneous shopping I was pretty tanked and headed to bed at 8:30.

CaDiva woke me up at 9:30 this AM to say she was going to the new HyVee...a Whole Foods and Super HyVee store with a Starbucks, this woman is in shopping cart heaven. But before she got back The Mom, her friend and her friend's friend called to say they were coming over to dig up some of our hostas. Turns out she also dug up some of our violets. Only we don't have violets...we are going to find out how creeping charlie does in Texas, I guess.

Shortly after they left, I started helping a friend work on a document for work and she left about a half hour ago. So I'm not going to blog tonight. I have to take the trash to the curb and CaDiva still needs to clear the decks for the carpet cleaner tomorrow.

Another busy week ahead but my plans are to tell you about the one time we didn't get lost in Washington DC.

Look, we can park over there ======>

I have known many a Marine in my life and one of the most often repeated statements (besides "There is no such thing as an Ex-Marine.) is "Marines don't get lost, Ma'am. I'm just temporarily disoriented." Well, HRH and I were disoriented several times on this trip.  One of my favorites was an attempt to go to the National Aerospace Museum. We had been driving around and around looking for parking.

Two things to remember, this was 1978 and there were actually places to park on the street in Washington, DC and we were from Des Moines, Ia...we didn't know there was any place but the Iowa State fairgrounds in August where you couldn't find parking.  So when I pointed to a street running very near the museum on which I saw no parked cars we whipped that big red Mercury Cougar on a two-wheeled right hand turn right onto I395.  Yeah, well I guess you don't see a lot of cars parked on the interstate. But I didn't know that then.

We drove on the Interstate until we crossed a body of water which turned out to be the Potomac and tried to find our way back from what turned out to be Virginia. Then I noticed a familiar sight - the Iwo Jima Memorial. I recognized it from inside our Family Bible. No, I don't know why we had bible with a picture of the flag raising. I'm certain there was a very sensible reason. But remember they also never told me the Priest was speaking a different language.

Well, HRH somehow managed to get us turned back and close enough to the park so that we could see the only image more iconic than the holographic picture of Jesus hanging over my Grandfather's chair. At least in my 20 years of experience. As I recall we parked in an apartment building parking lot and crossed something slightly busier than a side street, but I don't think it was the actual interstate.

I walked round and round the bronze edifice. It was not just impressive by size and familiarity...it was the hands. This was the first time I was moved by three dimensional art.Ok, so my experience at that time was the giant naked angel on a tricycle in Merle Hay Plaza. But still they touched me and I will always remember my reaction. I have been back several times but nothing will ever supplant that gut reaction.

Since we were in Arlington we went to see the National Cemetery. I saw the eternal flame, Robert Kennedy's simple wooden cross, Audie Murphy's grave and the changing of the guard. Unlike the Memorial, these scenes didn't move me as much then as they did in later years. The last time I was in Arlington I watched the changing of the guard (the infantry man actually admonished the viewers to observe silence as this was a cemetery) but my tears had stopped by that time.

I can't tell you when the tears started, but it was somewhere between the Crew of the Challenger and the Crew of Flight 93 when I joined the ranks of adults who can grieve for their nation openly and unashamed.

Yeah, I think I'll go back again.

Lemonade and Sight-seeing

Between the 67 inches of snow in January/February and Hurricane Amelia in late July/August of 78, Washington DC and the surrounding area was just plain HOT and HUMID. That is when it wasn't raining. HRH and I got there several days before the march so we could go sight seeing. Whenever we could find a parking space we got inside any museum we could for the cool air and sights we never imagined seeing.

I think my top five sights were:

5) The Hope Diamond - not only is it SOOO worth the risk, it ruined my ability to wear necklaces. I mean who could fall for that little tri-colored bunch of gold leaves on a tiny chain after you have seen the Hope Diamond.


4) The first ladies inauguration ball gowns. As I remember we walked into a large room and behind a glass wall there was one gown after another. Of course I adored Jackie Kennedy's just because of the age I was born into. But Mary Lincoln's was so tiny and yet full at the same time.

3) Any of the outdoor monuments. The Lincoln Memorial, Iwo Jima Monument (I'll tell you how we found that one) and the Washington Monument (and that one has a story too.) Hey, I know I said it was hot but come one...they are everywhere. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting some sort of memorial out there. And I have to say, if I had that kind of talent, I would built things that big and in bronze or stone or something  eternal too.

2) Seeing the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. It was so near the bicentennial, that may have had something to do with it. But, I mean, DANG...These two were how we got started. Way to go America.

1) The Senate. This may not be as major now as it was then, but when we toured the Capitol building you got to go either to the House or the Senate. Now everyone had seen the House during the state of the union addresses. But there were laws that prohibited photographs of the Senate. So the only way you could see it then was to tour it. And we got the Senate side. I was so impressed by that. 

The major find however, was outdoor vendors who sold pint containers of ice cold lemonade. We drank them at one whole entire dollar a piece - hey, this was 1978 after all. Gas was $0.59 a gallon. As hot and humid as it was, all we could do was find inside museums and drink, drink, drink. We were halfway back to Iowa before we needed to pee. We sweated out every ounce of that sweet-tart-sticky-nectar from yellow waxed paper pint containers. 

Besides cartons of lemonade was a phenomenal discovery. One, who ever thought of selling lemonade in anything other than a dixie cup? And nothing was sold in a pint. I mean now, sure your soft drinks and such come in up to 54 oz cups. But back in '78 you could get a glass bottle of Pepsi, Tab or RC in 16 ounce but you wouldn't want to walk around DC with a glass bottle of pop.

And this was a pint ... I mean a whole PINT. The only wax carton things you got back then was a 1/2 pint of school milk or a quart of milk if you didn't have it delivered at home. The concept of buying a pint carton of anything you could walk around drinking was just so way cool.

But again it is late and I have to get to bed. But I'll tell you more tomorrow. We'll flip a coin, visiting Iwo Jima only because we thought there was parking around that corner or finding our way to the Washington Monument without getting lost only to discover we left the camera at the hotel.

Good times.

Washington DC 1978

HRH and I didn't just turn around one day in our forties and say, "Why don't we go someplace?" We rode a train to Texas in 1965 and a bus back to Iowa in 1969. The return trip to Texas was via plane. But, we returned to Iowa in January 1971 in a Ford Maverick with the Mom, two brothers and a drugged cat named Florence.

After that, there was one drive up to Racine, Wisconsin to visit Grandpa's relatives but my strongest memory of that one was being offered a chamber pot in the event I needed a bathroom in the middle of the night. I only mention that because after a night in a tent, I think a lot about that chamber pot now.

But our first trip as "adults" was to March on Washington DC. Adults is used loosely here, in that I was 20 and HRH was almost 19 but we had no other grown-ups traveling. I talked her into coming with me to march in favor of extending the deadline to ratify the ERA. We stayed in a motel (Days Inn if I remember right), rented a fire engine red Mercury Cougar, dressed for dinner, discovered pint cartons of lemonade, and saw everything you could see in four days.

The adventures started with finding a way to rent a car in the name of one sister who had a credit card (me) and the other one had a driver's license (HRH). Then we had to find our way around Washington where there are four of every road; NW, SW, NE, and SE. Now this is important to remember because later I'll explain that I am spatially impaired. HRH was surprised I didn't know North from South but I also didn't know Left from Right. Apparently that is a fact you should share with the driver if you are going to be the navigator.

Over the next few days I will tell you about our favorite museums, getting lost and ending up at the Iwo Jima Monument, losing the aforementioned Mercury Cougar, and standing among 100,000 other people exercising their right of assembly and expression.

But now it is late and I have a killer day tomorrow.

Double Tree Presidential Suite in San Jose

So in October of 2009 I started this blog to discuss when I travel and where I stay and eat. Today I got an e-mail from the Double Tree in San Jose to say they missed me.  I fired off a text to HRH and her first response was "Cookies".

We stayed at the Double Tree in San Jose on the way home. The plan was to get back to San Jose the day before our flight out. That way we could return the car, get a good night's sleep and have the hotel shuttle take us to the airport. I don't know if I told you we had to fly out of San Jose because trading in your airline miles isn't as simple as it sounds and you really need to book your flight a lot earlier than you think you would.

Anyway, we had saved 4 nights lodging by using hotel points and so we decided to splurge on the last day. Now by splurging you have to remember we hadn't stayed in Motel 8 on this trip. We were in Hilton properties with more than one room and often a balcony. But we booked the presidential suite at the Double Tree, and as HRH pointed out, they did have cookies.

We checked in at the hotel before returning the car. Remember this was a girl trip and the amount of luggage was perfectly reasonable for three women traveling in California for ten days. However, it was more than we wanted to load back into the shuttle at the car rental place. We walked into the suite with our cookies only to discover that HRH could be convinced hotel rooms were more just a place to fall asleep in between fun stuff to do.

She meandered slowly through the dining room into the living room and into the bath before exploring the balcony and bedroom. She suggested that CaDiva and I return the car as she stretched out on the couch in front of the movie screen sized television. We didn't need to worry, she assured us, she would keep the room safe. I haven't seen that possessive gleam in her eye since we rented the Lincoln Towncar to move CaDiva to Iowa back in 2004.  In case I haven't told you, this was when HRH climbed in, stretched out in the backseat, and declared. "HRH LAND!"

Well, she just now annexed the couch and I think maybe the cookies.

CaDiva and I went off to return the car while HRH swam laps in the bathtub. (I still can't watch Pretty Woman without envisioning HRH wearing her Ipod singing to herself while she soaked in that huge-ass tub.)

The only point at which she looked even more satisfied was as we ate a room service meal which included something she called stuffed hash browns. During the meal she waived our attempts at dinner conversation off with a mumbled, "Don't talk to me." All this and we never even made it to the balcony or the swimming pool. 

Even though it was several hours from the nearest In-n-Out Burger and right next to the airport, I would stay at this hotel any day.