Category: travel.

not all those who wander are lost – JRR Tolkien.

making travel plans.

Published on by Quandie18 Comments

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve written about travel here on the blog.

In fact, I even skipped right over a trip that my sister and I made to Orlando a few weeks back.

We had a great time, the weather was nearly perfect except for some very foggy mornings.

If you’re familiar with the Magic Kingdom, that was the view of the castle from the top of the Swiss Family Treehouse.  See it back there in the mist?  It was pretty thick.

But it typically burned off by mid-morning and then it was sunny and quite warm.

We absolutely love our Disney trips, but I recognize that most of you aren’t going to be even slightly interested in the details so I’ll spare you.

Except I do want to ask any of my gardening friends out there, do you know what this tree is?

Here, let me show you a close up of the flower …

Isn’t that gorgeous?  I saw it in Epcot, but I have no idea what this tree (shrub?) is.  I’m fairly sure we don’t have it in Minnesota 😉

Anyway, as you know, I am currently off in Nevada visiting my mom.  Once again, I probably won’t have much of interest to report from this trip either.  I just plan to soak up some warm sunshine and spend time with my mom.  My sister and I will be back again to visit her in April, so maybe we’ll do a few more interesting things on that trip.

But I do have a couple of trips planned for 2025 that might be of more interest to you.

First up, Mr. Q and I are heading to the Brandywine Valley in May.  I am super excited for this one because we’re going to visit both Longwood Gardens …

and Chanticleer.

I suspect we’ll miss most of the spring bulbs, but hopefully early May will still be a good time to see both of these amazing gardens.

We also plant to visit the Nemours Estate, the duPont family’s  47,000-square-foot mansion and their French-inspired formal gardens.

Now, you’re probably starting to think ‘poor Mr. Q, what does he get to enjoy on this trip?’

Well, not to worry, we are also going to visit the Brandywine Battlefield, as well as the Brandywine River Museum of Art.

Mr. Q has wanted to see their collection of Andrew Wyeth paintings for a few years now.

After exploring the Brandywine Valley, we are going to pick up our nephew who lives in Philly and then the three of us are driving to Gettysburg to check out that battlefield as well.

So I’m hoping we’ve created a nice balance of family time, battlefields, spectacular houses and gardens.

We also have a trip planned for the fall.  We’ll be taking an Azamara cruise in Canada.

We’ll be sailing round trip from Montreal and stopping in Quebec City, Gaspe, Charlottetown, Sydney, St. Pierre, Cap Aux Meules and Trois Rivieres.

We will be on the Azamara Quest which only holds around 710 passengers, so it’s a smaller ship which we tend to prefer over the big mega ships.  Best of all, we’re going to get a European sort of feel in Quebec, the French speaking province of Canada, while only requiring a 2 1/2 hour flight from Minneapolis to Montreal.

And actually, St. Pierre is still a French territory (who knew?) so technically we are going to France too.  Their currency is the Euro rather than the Canadian dollar, and they have their own time zone that is 30 minutes ahead of Newfoundland.  Weird, right?

I’m especially looking forward to the stop in Quebec City.  I’ve found a self-guided walking tour of the 15 prettiest streets that I’m hoping to check out.

And once again, Mr. Q will not be left out.  He’s looking forward to a trip to the Fortress of Louisbourg in Nova Scotia.

For now though, I’m just going to be content to enjoy a quiet visit with my mom this week and hopefully when I return home next week winter will be winding down.  Fingers crossed.

If any of you have tips on what we should be sure to see on any of our upcoming trips be sure to leave a comment and let us know.

a tropical morning walk.

Published on by Quandie4 Comments

Good morning from the garden.  Well, sort of.

This morning I thought I would share a few of the tropical flowers I came across while in Puerto Vallarta a week ago, like this one …

Is that a Bird of Paradise?  I believe it is, but I’m used to seeing the variety that has a purple and orange flower, and this one is red and orange instead.

As I mentioned last week, my sister was invited along on the trip to Mexico that we took with my neighbor nnK’s family this year.  It was nice having her along because she is more of a morning person.  We got up early every morning and took a walk around the neighborhood before everyone else got up for breakfast.

We saw lots of lovely flowers during our walks, like this pretty pink one.

I’m pretty sure that’s a bougainvillea, but I’d never seen one in that color before.

I’m used to the white ones, or the typical bright magenta colored ones.

I think if I was planning my own tropical garden I’d go for the more subtle pale pink variety.

I saw a few hibiscus, which I think of a classic tropical flower.

When I first started gardening in Minnesota, it was hard to find hibiscus hardy enough for our climate.  I did a little research online while writing this post and discovered that a hibiscus hardy to zone 5 was developed in the 1950’s, and a grower in Japan started hybridizing other hardy hibiscus in the 70’s and 80’s.  These days you can find lots of options for hibiscus that are hardy to zone 4, including the Summerific line from Proven Winners.

Personally I find them too tropical looking for my cottage style garden, so I’ve never been tempted to grow them.

I wouldn’t classify all of the plants I saw in Mexico as tropical, for example there were these gorgeous blue hydrangeas.

I’m fairly sure that those plants are just temporarily tucked into that flower bed though.  They were probably forced to bloom in a greenhouse, and when the blooms are done, they’ll pull them out and put something else in that spot.

I saw quite a few flowers that I didn’t recognize at all, like this pretty little one.

The flower has an orchid-like appearance, but it’s growing on a vine.  Aside from a variety of orchid that grows on a vine and has yellow flowers, I couldn’t find any info online about any other vining orchids.  Maybe you know what this flower is?  If so, leave me a comment.

I also had no idea what this next flower was, but that combination of red and white petals really caught my eye.

So I did a bit of googling and I think it’s a Bleeding Heart Vine, or Clerodendrum thomsoniae.  It’s only hardy to zone 9, so it won’t be making its way into my garden any time soon.

I also saw some old favorites of mine at our resort including the Blue Sky Vine, or Thunbergia grandiflora.

And this year they also had a white version, Thunbergia grandiflora ‘Alba’.

They also had a few water lilies that were lovely.

Water lily?  or maybe these are Lotus?  I’m not really sure.

We did spot one other rare sight on our morning walk in Puerto Vallarta that you don’t find here in Minnesota anymore.

A pay phone!  I haven’t seen one of these in ages.

Now that I’m back in Minnesota, I won’t be spotting pay phones or tropical flowers on my morning walks … or much color of any kind really.

Unless you count the vivid green of the moss on this stump.

Or the occasional bright red berry.

But that’s ok.  We have a different kind of beauty here in the winter, not as flamboyant, but lovely in a more subtle sort of way.

And I’m OK with that.  How about you?

a tropical holiday.

Published on by Quandie6 Comments

First up before I get into today’s post, congratulations to the winner of my blogiversary giveaway, Linda Moore.  I drew Linda’s name using a random number generator (if you’re reading Linda, be sure to check your inbox for an email from me).

I have to admit, taking a tropical vacation just before Christmas can feel a bit discombobulating.  As you know, I did the bulk of my Christmas decorating before I left for Mexico, and lucky thing because now I’ve been lulled into thinking it’s still summer.

This was my third year at Velas Vallarta, a resort quite near the airport in Puerto Vallarta.

I’m extremely lucky in that my neighbor nnK’s family invites me along on their annual family holiday, and this year they invited my sister too!

As much as Velas goes all out to decorate for the holiday, it just doesn’t feel Christmas-like to me.

They fill their grounds with the most lovely poinsettias.

And they also have a very impressive Christmas tree in the lobby.

This year we were there for the Christmas tree lighting ceremony too.  They serve hot chocolate and cookies and have a performer singing Christmas carols.  I will admit that for that one evening I was reminded that Christmas was coming.

But honestly, when the bulk of your day is spent like this …

you very quickly forget all about the hustle and bustle of the holiday season.  You also quickly forget about the winter weather!

If you are looking for a nice resort in Puerto Vallarta, I can 100% recommend this one.

The grounds are absolutely immaculate.

The beach is lovely.

I like that it’s located deep in Banderas Bay, so rather than an endless horizon out to sea, you look across the bay at a lovely view of mountains.

The pools are incredible, and gigantic.

I’ll also note that they allow you to use flotation devices.  Maybe resorts ban them from their pools, but not Velas.  We bring our own floaties, you know, the kind with a drink holder …

and we float with a cocktail and/or a good book.

The rooms are very clean and spacious, and there is a large balcony.  The staff is excellent, very friendly and accommodating.

The breakfast buffet is fantastic.  They have a large selection of fruit, juices, eggs, bacon, sausages, etc.  They also have a custom omelette bar where they will make one with whatever you want inside.  They also have waffle/pancake/french toast chef and I visited her almost every morning.

Eating a delicious waffle and washing it down with a mimosa while sitting in a lovely open air restaurant right on the beach was heavenly.  Unfortunately it wasn’t until the last day that I figured out I could get a passion fruit mimosa, but the ones made with plain old orange juice were quite good too.

We ordered lunch by the pool nearly every day, and our poolside waiter Eric was happy to deliver whatever we wanted; hamburgers, pizza, sandwiches, nachos, salads, and more.

There are two restaurants at Velas, the more casual beachfront option where we had breakfast and a little fancier option that doesn’t have the view.  We had dinner in both, and we also ordered dinner from room service a couple of times and dined on our own balcony.

I mentioned that Velas Vallarta isn’t far from the airport, and you can see and hear planes taking off from poolside.  It really is hardly noticeable after a day or so.  It’s also in walking distance from the marina.

My sister and I walked down there a few mornings before breakfast.  I’ll share more about that in another post, so be sure to stay tuned!

And on that note, I have to go get re-acclimated to winter … the projected high of only 4° on Thursday should help, and maybe do just a little bit more Christmas decorating.  As much as I loved soaking up the sun for a week, it’s also good to be back!

the clark county museum.

Published on by Quandie2 Comments

My sister and I struggled a bit to come up with things to do while visiting my mom earlier this month.  Usually we like to do a bit of hiking at either Red Rock Canyon, The Valley of Fire or the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.  But with temps over 100° every day, hiking was not really an option.

In addition, we’ve pretty much done most of the other touristy things in the Las Vegas area like visiting the strip or the Hoover Dam.  We’ve toured the Ethel M factory, and we’ve been to the bird viewing preserve. We’ve seen quite a few Cirque du Soleil and other shows over the years too.

But strangely enough, we’d never bothered to check out the Clark County Museum despite that fact that it is literally 1.3 miles from my mom’s townhouse.

We’ve driven past it countless times, but it just doesn’t really look like much from Boulder Highway.

However, this time around I googled the museum to look up the hours and found that their website describes the museum as “a 30-acre site that features a modern exhibit hall with a timeline exhibit about southern Nevada from pre-historic to modern times and a collection of restored historic buildings that depict daily life from different decades in Las Vegas, Boulder City and Henderson.”

Wait a minute.  What?!  A collection of restored historic buildings?  If that isn’t right up my alley I don’t know what is.  I first fell in love with open air museums in Denmark, Sweden and Norway.  Since then I’ve been to others in the U.K. (the Beamish) and the Netherlands (Zaanse Schans).  We even have a couple of smaller ones right here in the Twin Cities (the Gammelgården Museum in Scandia and The Landing in Shakopee).

An open air museum is basically a museum that collects and displays historic buildings that usually have been moved from their original location for preservation.

Had I realized that the Clark County Museum was mostly an open air museum, I’m sure I would have visited much sooner.

And had I known that there was so much to explore I definitely would have worn better walking shoes that day!

The museum is broken down into several different sections.  There is a desert garden area, which frankly wasn’t looking so good.  That is not a criticism.  My garden isn’t looking so good at this time of year either, and we didn’t just break a record for 100 days over 100° in a year.  I may have to go back and check out the garden area in the spring.

There is also ghost town.

I’ve never actually been to an authentic ghost town, but my sister has been to several and she said this reproduction felt very authentic with its ramshackle buildings …

a cemetery …

and old cast off vehicles.

There is also a railroad exhibit with a depot building and some train cars.

However, that area was being re-painted and thus was closed while we were there.

My favorite area by far though was the Heritage Street of Historic Homes.

It was so interesting to see these historic homes and imagine what it was like to live in them, in the Las Vegas area, back before they had things like air conditioning!

The first home we toured was the Beckley House.

This craftsman style bungalow was built in 1912 on Fourth Street in Las Vegas at a cost of $2,500.  It’s interesting to me that this house looks like it could be anywhere in the U.S. with its green lawn and shade trees.  You don’t see much of this style of architecture or landscaping in the Las Vegas area anymore.

All of the houses were fully furnished to represent a particular time period and when you entered there was music playing from that decade which was a nice touch.

The next house on the street, the Goumond House, was a Tudor Revival style house built in 1931.

It was restored to represent the 1950’s, which I found to be quite fun.

I especially got a kick out of the mint green bathroom.

It’s complete with not only a mint green tub, sink and toilet, but even the toilet paper was authentic vintage mint green t.p.  Do any of you remember back when t.p. came in colors other than white?  Check out this article from Talking Crap if you’re wondering whatever happened to colored toilet paper.

My sister and I had to chuckle at the mannequins in the living room, especially the gal with a cigarette in her hand giving an authentic 1950’s vibe.

Am I the only one now picturing the atomic bomb test scene from the Indiana Jones movie?  You know, the one where Indy stumbles into a fake town full of mannequins performing everyday tasks only to realize they are about to blow it up with an atomic bomb.

This doesn’t feel too far from reality seeing as they did test nuclear bombs 65 miles north of Las Vegas from 1951 to 1992 (is this why we only drink bottled water when visiting my mom?)

I also enjoyed the Babcock & Wilcox house that was built in 1933 in Boulder City to house workers during the construction of the Hoover Dam.

That screen porch on the front could be used as a sleeping porch in the summer.

This house has a marvelously mint green bathroom as well.

Although the house is small and rather basic, it does have a pleasant kitchen/laundry room for the wife to slave away in while her husband was off building the dam.

You’ll also find a little section of Heritage Street devoted to “mobile America” with its motor court cabin.

and travel trailer.

These made me think about the road trip that my grandparents took my mom on in 1953 (I shared the story of that trip here).  They traveled through Las Vegas on that trip and in her scrapbook my grandmother noted that it was “mostly gambling places & motels”.

They stayed at the Monterey Lodge Motel in a double cabin for $8 per night.

I don’t really know why I find the history of this area so interesting.  I suppose I’m a bit fascinated by the idea of a city that sprouted up in the middle of the desert going from a population of 22 people in 1900 (for comparison, the population of Minneapolis in 1900 was just over 200,000) to a current metro area population of nearly 3 million.  It’s interesting to learn about the things that drew people to the area, first a railroad stop, then the building of a dam, then military facilities and finally legalized gambling.

These days I suspect most people don’t bother with a car when visiting Las Vegas, and unfortunately the Clark County Museum is not easy to get to without a car.  It’s about 30 minutes away from the strip, and I don’t know if there are any public transportation options available.  But the next time you’re in Las Vegas, consider renting a car for a day or two.  Check out the museum on your way to see the Hoover Dam and learn about the history of the area.

I’m curious, have any of you been to this museum?  Leave a comment and let me know.

it was HOT.

Published on by QuandieLeave a comment

I’m back from two weeks out west visiting my mom and taking a side trip to Disneyland in California.

I can sum this trip up in one word … HOT.

They were experiencing above normal temps for the entire two weeks we were there.  The high was 99° or higher until our final day at my mom’s.  The hottest day was 106°.  Anaheim (a.k.a. Disneyland) temps were also well above normal in the upper 80’s to mid-90’s while we were there.  We were not expecting this kind of heat in October!

There were three distinct segments to this vacation.  For the first three days my sister, niece and I were at my mom’s.  These were the hottest three days, including that 106° day.  And for some crazy reason, we chose to head to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area for a picnic lunch one of those days.

Normally we would have done some hiking, but obviously it was too hot for that.  So we enjoyed the scenic drive and made a very quick pitstop at a sheltered picnic area to eat our sandwiches.  We certainly had a lovely view while we ate, but we definitely didn’t linger.

The rest of those days were spent in the pool at my mom’s townhouse complex.

Usually when I visit my mom I head over to her local Goodwill which is only a block away from her place.  This trip was no exception, however the only thing I purchased there were the pool noodles you see floating in the photo above.

You know, 106° isn’t so bad when you’re floating in the pool with a Lemon Drop martini.

My niece, sister and I headed off to Disneyland next.  I didn’t take many photos there, but I will share a couple that I took on one of my favorite attractions, the Storybook Land Canal Boats.

This particular attraction is one that they have in Disneyland (California), but not in Disney World (Florida).  So when I’m in Disneyland I make it a priority.

It’s also one of the original Disneyland attractions from 1955.  According to Wikipedia, Walt Disney was inspired to create this ride by a visit to Madurodam in the Netherlands.

Some of you may remember that I visited Madurodam last year, and I loved it!

The Disneyland attraction is a boat ride through Storybook Land with scenes from popular Disney movies like Pinocchio, Snow White and Alice in Wonderland in miniature along the banks of the canal.

You know I love miniatures of any kind, so obviously this is right up my alley.

I try to get a good look at the landscaping to get ideas for my own fairy garden.  It includes lots of miniature bonsai sort of trees that are kept small through pruning.

I definitely need to up my pruning game next year!

We had a great time in Disneyland just goofing off and having fun.

And enjoying a lemon and blue raspberry frozen concoction that turned our tongues green!

My niece had to return home to go back to work after Disneyland, but my sister (far right above) and I (middle) went back to our mom’s house for another week.

Unfortunately, mom’s townhome association doesn’t feel it’s worthwhile to keep the pool open for “the winter”, so the pool was closed at that point despite daytimes highs that were still over 100°.  Go figure.

We had to find other ways to keep ourselves occupied for this third segment of our vacation, so I opted to paint my mom’s headboard.

Now, I have to say, this is a case where the acorn did indeed fall really far from the tree.  My mom and I have very different taste when it comes to decorating.

You know how there those bloggers out there who say things like “I grew up visiting thrift shops with my mom”, or “my mom took me to flea markets as a kid”, well … that’s not me.  My mom prefers matched sets of furniture purchased new.  So I was a little surprised that she wanted me to paint her headboard.

She wanted ‘green’, but not dark green, and not mint green, and not lime green.  So I ended up choosing one of Dixie Belle’s Cottage Collection colors called Weeping Willow.

I didn’t want to get in trouble with the TSA people, so I had ordered a brand new unopened 16 oz. paint and a small 4 oz clear wax to pack in my suitcase.

Now remember, my mom’s taste is quite unlike my own.  Keeping that in mind, here is her headboard.

This is actually one half of the headboard that went with the king-sized bed she had when she lived in a much larger house.  She downsized everything when she turned 80, including her bed.  She still uses the matching dresser and nightstand, but she didn’t want those painted.

After cleaning the headboard, I applied two coats of the Weeping Willow.  As you can imagine, paint dries really quickly when it’s 85° (in the early morning) with about 10% humidity, so it was quick work to paint it.  However, I had to wait until the following morning to apply a coat of clear wax because the day was already heating up by the time I finished painting.  Dixie Belle recommends applying their wax when the temp is no higher than 85°.

Mom was very happy with how it turned out.

In addition to painting the headboard, my sister and I also visited the Clark County Museum, which is less than a mile away from my mom’s place.  I’m going to save that story for another post, so be sure to stay tuned for that one.

It was a bit disorienting to come back home to 50° and blustery!  Although this is typical October weather for us.  The low tonight is supposed to be below freezing, so it’s time to move my painting projects indoors, and start buttoning up the garden for winter.  I’ve got some fun mini projects to share later this week, and it’s also time to get cracking on some holiday items.  So be sure to stay tuned!

a road trip test run.

Published on by Quandie3 Comments

I’m sure I’ve mentioned it here before, but I’m not a huge fan of the road trip.  In this case the acorn did indeed fall far from the tree.  My mom loved a good road trip, and she packed us kids into whatever vehicle we had at the time (ranging from a car, to a conversion van, to a motor home) and drove us across country nearly every summer.

I loved those trips!  Especially the ones in the van or motor home where I could sprawl out in the back with a good book while my mom did all the driving.

Here’s the time we got a flat tire on the road in 1980.

That’s my mom in the white pants, my bff in the short shorts, and my mom’s bff in pink.  LOL, just look at all of those perms!  Curly hair was all the rage in 1980.  My brother is changing the tire.

On that particular trip we went from Florida to California, stopping in New Orleans and Las Vegas along the way.

But these days I definitely don’t love being in a car that long, and I really don’t love being the driver.

However, now that Mr. Q and I are both retired, we’ve been thinking about the potential for future road trips.  After all, we can take as much time as we want to get somewhere.

We just haven’t quite managed to talk ourselves into it yet.  But, recently the parent of one of Mr. Q’s friends passed away and the memorial service was being held in La Crosse, Wisconsin which is about a 2.5 hour drive straight down the Great River Road from us.  So we decided to turn it into an overnight getaway, and sort of a road trip test run.

We got really lucky with the weather.  We had two gorgeous sunny days in the 70’s, which made it perfect for driving my VW bug convertible with the top down (and lots of sunscreen on).  The route from St. Paul to Lake City is rather bucolic, mostly farmland and a handful of small river towns like Hastings and Red Wing.  From Lake City to La Crosse the scenery is gorgeous.  The road runs right between the river on one side, and towering bluffs on the other.

We decided to splurge on a special place to stay since we’d only be there for one night.  So after a bit of googling, I found Hatchery.

This is a small boutique hotel in the historic fish hatchery building right next to the Mississippi.  It is listed on the National Register of Historic places and is located in Riverside Park.

After a two-year historic preservation project, the six room hotel was opened about 9 months ago.

As you may have guessed, having only six rooms, Hatchery does not have a front desk.  Instead it operates a bit like an Vrbo or Airbnb.  They texted us a code for the outside door, and another code for our room door.  Also, as expected in an historic building, there is no elevator and all of the rooms are on the 2nd floor.

But it was easy enough to let ourselves in and make our way upstairs, where even the hallway is pretty cool.

I love that wallpaper.

All of the rooms have a different look to them, and are themed with a historical fairytale character commissioned from a French artist.  We chose the Jean de La Fontaine room.

According to wikipedia, Jean de La Fontaine wrote fables, many of which featured a cunning fox.

Our room was gorgeous.

I loved the exposed brick walls paired with walls painted in a deep bluish green.

The king sized bed was super comfy.

Each room comes equipped with a record player and records.

Although I have to confess that we did not fire it up.

The bathroom was beautiful too.

I love that marble sink!

There was a steam option for the shower, but again, we didn’t use that.  The regular shower was quite nice though.

As I mentioned at the beginning, Hatchery is located right in Riverside Park.  All of our windows looked out onto the park.

And as the name implies, this park is situated right on the Mississippi River.

Hatchery also has a lovely cocktail lounge with beautiful views of the river.  I didn’t manage to take any photos of the lounge myself, so I’m borrowing this one from the internet.

Our room came with a couple of free cocktails, so Mr. Q and I headed down there in the evening.  He tried the Espresso Martini, and I believe the drink I order was called a White Cosmo … maybe?  Well, whatever it was called, it was delicious.

We followed that up with a sunset stroll along the river.

In the morning we headed to The Breakfast Club in downtown La Crosse (easy walking distance from the hotel) where I enjoyed some chicken and waffle kabobs.

Those waffles were amazing, but there was way too much food food for me and sadly much of it went to waste.  I didn’t think it would survive the drive home in a takeaway box.

There was also a lovely surprise around the back side of our hotel, but I’ll share more about that in this coming Sunday’s garden post.  So be sure to stay tuned!

In the meantime, if any of you local readers are looking for a romantic overnight getaway, I highly recommend a scenic drive along the Great River Road to La Crosse and then staying the night at Hatchery.

As for our road trip test run, we’re still not sure we’re ready to tackle a longer road trip.  We may have to consider purchasing a more comfortable vehicle for longer forays.  The VW bug convertible is fun, but I don’t think I’d want to do a much longer drive in it.  For now we may just have to stick to flying!

the rijksmuseum.

Published on by Quandie6 Comments

I was doing a little computer maintenance the other day, backing up photos and whatnot, and I realized that I never shared my visit to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam here on the blog.

So, I decided better late than never, right?  I also have additional motivation to share it with you because this visit inspired the project that I’m going to share later this week.

If you’re new here you may not know that I visited the Netherlands and Norway last September.  On one of our days in Amsterdam we headed to the Rijksmuseum.

The Rijksmuseum is the national museum of the Netherlands and is visited by over 1 million people each year.  It was founded in 1798, but the current building that houses it opened in 1885.  A ten year renovation was completed in 2013 to the tune of € 375 million (holy cow!).

Much like the Mona Lisa at the Louvre, the Rijksmuseum has a very famous painting behind glass called The Night Watch by Rembrandt.  However, at over 14′ wide, this one isn’t quite as small as the Mona Lisa.

It seems to be the main draw and the area around it can get very crowded, so we visited it right at opening time.

Personally I was more interested in seeing the Vermeer’s (which are pretty small) including The Milkmaid which was painted in 1658.

My favorite of the Vermeer paintings at the Rijksmuseum ended up being The Little Street.

My photo doesn’t really do it justice.  But it appealed to me because looking at it I felt like I could step right into 1650’s Delft (the town depicted).

As much as I enjoyed the various paintings and other artworks in the Rijksmuseum, my main goal was to see the poppenhuizen, or dollhouses.

Dollhouses in this period were typically cabinets that opened to reveal the miniature rooms.  The didn’t necessarily have the miniature exterior features of a house.  They also weren’t toys, but were a hobby of the very wealthy.

In the case of the dollhouse shown above, the cost of creating it was equivalent to the cost of buildng a full-sized canal house at the time.  The owner, Petronella Oortman,  custom ordered each piece to be made out of authentic materials and precisely to scale.  She hired basket weavers to make the baskets, and had linen woven to hang from the drying rack in the attic room shown below.

The china displayed in the kitchen was custom made for Petronella by the East Indies Company.

And isn’t the mural in this room gorgeous?

If you are as fascinated by miniatures as I am, you may also like to see this piece …

It’s an apothecary cabinet filled with miniature bottles and delft pots.

And they are all filled with samples of various medical ingredients, etc.

Isn’t that fantastic?  Check out this link to see a better photo and to listen to a fragment from the Rijksmuseum audio tour about this piece.

Also, if you are a miniatures enthusiast, you’ll definitely enjoy my post about our visit to Madurodam.

One could spend years trying to see everything in the Rijksmuseum and I’d love to go back someday to see more of it.  Before we headed out I did make a quick pit stop in the gift shop where I picked up some miniature souvenirs to take with me.  They partially inspired the project I’m going to share with you on Friday, so be sure to stay tuned!

kitchen wax and other things.

Published on by Quandie17 Comments

And once again, I’m back from my travels.  In case you weren’t paying attention to my last post, I went off to visit my mom in Henderson, NV for a week.

My mom will be turning 84 later this year, so I like to take every opportunity to spend some time with her these days.  In fact, I’m going back again in April with my sister.

For this trip I was flying solo though.  It is incredibly easy for me to get to my mom’s, despite it being 1,680 miles away.  There are plenty of flights to choose from between Minneapolis and Las Vegas, and the flight takes about 3 hours.  I live fairly close to the airport on my end, and my mom lives even closer to the airport on her end.  In addition, I find that both the Minneapolis airport and the Las Vegas airport tend to operate quite smoothly.  The same can not be said for Puerto Vallarta …

That place was a zoo!

And of course, now that I am retired I can go visit my mom anytime.

Aside from dining out a couple of times, and doing a little shopping and errand running, we mostly just spent some quality time hanging out.

I thought I’d share a few updates on projects out at mom’s that I’ve shared with you guys in the past, starting with her front door.  If you’ve been following me for long, you may remember that I painted her front door back in February 2022.

I used Dixie Belle’s Midnight Green Silk paint from their Desert Collection, which seemed appropriate since she lives in the Mojave Desert.

Two years later, the door still looks as good as the day I painted it.

It was a little dirty, but wiping it down with a damp rag quickly took care of that.  Considering that this door is subjected to the blinding Nevada sunshine on a daily basis, I am pretty impressed with how well this paint has held up.

Speaking of holding up, check out that pot of cyclamen.  I planted that back in October of last year, and my mom basically does nothing more than water it now and then.

It has been outside all winter, and despite the occasional night below freezing it still looks fantastic and is blooming away.  Here in Minnesota we basically treat cyclamen as a blooming houseplant.  I rarely get a 2nd flush of blooms out of them.  My mom says this one has been blooming steadily all winter.

I can’t say the same for the gardenia that I planted for Mom back in April of last year.  Here’s how it looked when I planted it.

It has grown quite a bit, but unfortunately it has never bloomed again.

I suspect that it might just be too hot on my mom’s patio for this plant to thrive.  If any of you have any tips on getting a gardenia to bloom, be sure to leave a comment.

In March of 2021, my sister and I gave my mom’s patio a makeover.

We purchased that cute little bistro set at Lowe’s for $248, and it too has held up beautifully for three years.  Unfortunately this set is no longer available at Lowe’s or I would certainly recommend it.

This little enclosed courtyard is perfect for enjoying a cool late February morning with some library books and a cup of coffee.

One of the things I did out at mom’s was to clean out some closets, as well as her laundry area in the garage.  I had to laugh when I came across her Jubilee kitchen wax.

I’m fairly sure that my mom has not waxed a floor since I was in grade school.  But for some reason the Jubilee wax has made every move from Illinois to Minnesota to Florida to North Carolina to Kentucky to Nevada (yes, my parents moved a bit).  And she even packed it when she moved out of her big four bedroom, three bath house to her current townhouse.

There’s no way my mom’s going to be down on her hands and knees waxing a floor these days, but for some reason she just keeps hanging onto that wax.  And now, somehow I just can’t bring myself to toss the Jubilee either.  How silly is that?

I did take some time to stop into the Goodwill that is just around the corner from my mom’s place.

Unfortunately there wasn’t a single item that could be considered ‘fabulous’.  It was quite disappointing (garage sale season can not arrive soon enough!).

How about you?  Are you ready for garage sale season?  Leave a comment and let me know!

one last port of call.

Published on by Quandie10 Comments

I do have one last port of call to share from our cruise around Norway back in September, and it was everyone’s collective favorite so I had to be sure to include it.

Mr. Q and I had been to Flåm, Norway once before, and that time we opted to walk from the port up to the 1670’s church that is about 1.5 miles up into the valley.  We had a beautiful sunny day for a walk on that trip.

But this time around my sister really wanted to take a ride on the scenic Flåm Railway.

I had done a little bit of research for our first trip to Flåm, so I knew that the ship’s shore excursions that included the train were ridiculously overpriced.  I also knew that the train station was literally right there next to where the ship would dock, so it would be super easy to do on our own.  I also knew that you could easily buy the train tickets online, or so I thought.

What I didn’t know was that you’d better buy those tickets way ahead of time before they sell out.  We went online about a month before our trip only to find that there were no tickets available for the time slot we needed (clearly the cruise ships buy up big blocks of tickets).  So then we decided we’d better book the ship’s shore excursion despite its inflated price tag because, as my sister put it, this was ‘the one thing’ she most wanted to do in the entire trip!

So we signed into the Holland America website and went to book the excursion for the train, and … as you may have already guessed … it was also sold out!  At least the basic version with just the train journey was sold out.  There was one last excursion available that included the train, but also lunch at a hotel, followed by some free time in Voss and then a bus trip return to the ship.  The price tag?  A whopping $329 per person.  Yikes!

But … as I said … it was ‘the one thing’ my sister really wanted to do.  So we all signed up for it.

So, was it worth it?  Absolutely not.  Would I do it again?  Absolutely not.  Was it still one of the best things we did on the entire cruise?  Yes, it was.  Let me explain.

The train ride was pretty much a bust.  It was pouring rain, the windows were foggy, and really only those people lucky enough to have a window seat could really see anything.

My sister managed to get a few blurry photos through the window.

And we all got out at the mid-way point to see the Kjosfoss waterfall, but it was definitely a case of hopping off the train, fighting the crowd to get a quick photo, and then getting back on the train before you got totally drenched.

I was impressed that the forest spirit, or Huldra, was still up there singing and dancing despite the rain.  See her in the red dress on the right side of the water, about 2/3 of the way up?

We changed trains at Myrdal Station and continued on to Voss, Norway where we were all herded into a hotel for our lunch.  The lunch was served buffet style in a room that closely resembled a high school gymnasium.  There had to be at least 200 people there, if not more.  The line of people waiting to get food stretched all the way around the perimeter of the room.  I don’t think the food was all meant to be cold, but it certainly was.

Since the lunch process took so much time, our ‘free time’ to explore Voss was cut pretty short.  It would have been cool to take the gondola in Voss up to Mount Hangur, but we didn’t have time for that.

We did enjoy some pretty views of Vangs Lake though, where we took a quick group selfie.

Next we boarded a bus for the return trip to the port.

This part of the trip was described as follows by our cruise line, Holland America, “Brace yourself for the serpentine bends of the Stalheimskleivane — the steepest road in Norway — skirting the Sivle and the Stalheim Waterfalls.”

However, we didn’t actually take that route.  Apparently that serpentine road has been permanently closed to vehicles since 2021, so that was a bit of false advertising on the part of Holland America.  My sister did snap a photo of the road as we passed by on the train earlier in the day …

I’m sure there were many people on this excursion that were really disappointed about this, but not me.  I’ll admit, I was relieved.  I was really dreading heading down that road in a big tour bus, it looks terrifying to me.

Instead, the return trip by bus ended up being my favorite part of the entire day.  The bus was quite comfortable with huge windows, and the views along the way were outstanding, even if we weren’t on a serpentine road.

There were small waterfalls absolutely everywhere, I suppose because of all the rain.

We also stopped off at one of the larger waterfalls, the Tvindefossen, where we had just enough time to take a few photos and possibly purchase a souvenir or a snack.

Our route followed the Nærøy river and we caught glimpses of it here and there.

We also made a 2nd stop at Gudvangen, which was really lovely.

We actually even started to see a little blue sky at this point.

We arrived back at the port just in time to do a little bit of shopping before the ship sailed.

After reading this description of our shore excursion in Flåm, you must be thinking that it had to have been my least favorite port on our cruise.  But this area of Norway is just so beautiful that I absolutely loved it despite the bad weather, and the bad shore excursion.

If we could do it over again, we would rent a car in Flåm and drive that route along the river on our own.  We could stop somewhere for a really nice lunch, and make photo stops whenever we wanted to.  All for a fraction of the over $1,200 we paid for 4 people to take that excursion!  Well, live and learn.  If we ever find ourselves in Flåm again we’ll know better!

and I’m back.

Published on by Quandie9 Comments

First up, congrats to Gretchen!  I drew her name using a random number generator to win my 10th blogiversary giveaway.

In other news, I’m back from a very relaxing week in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

If you were following me last year around this time, you’ll know that last year my neighbor nnK’s parents invited me along on their family vacation to Mexico.  They had been finding it more and more challenging to navigate the airports at either end on their own, so I went along to help tote their luggage and so forth.

It ended up working out really well last year, and I guess they didn’t find my company too tedious, because they invited me back again this year!

We had a lovely time, mainly just hanging out at the pool, sipping cocktails and reading.  I also enjoyed my coffee out on the beach in the early hours.

I have to tell you guys, the grounds at Velas Vallarta are immaculate.  There were groundskeepers out every day pruning, mowing, blowing, and raking.

They also cleaned up the beach and ran some kind of roller over the sand.

It was pristine first thing in the morning.

In general, the level of service at this resort is spectacular.  We were enjoying the all-inclusive package, and I have to say the poolside waiters delivered drinks all day long.  They also delivered lunch to your poolside table.  I can recommend the chicken taquitos and guacamole.

I had a good indication of how things were going to go our first night at dinner.  I ordered a glass of Tempranillo (wine) and they brought me the entire bottle.

While it seems like so many places have really cut back on their housekeeping services since Covid (including even DisneyWorld resorts where they are still only cleaning your room every other day), Velas staff is not only cleaning your room every day, they also come back in the evening for a turn down service and to replenish towels and drinks in the fridge (also included) if needed.

The number of people I spoke to at the resort who come back year after year after year speaks volumes.  This place is a gem.

All of that being said, I have to admit that spending a week in a tropical paradise does not exactly put you in the Christmas mood (despite their lovely addition of poinsettias to the gardens).

I’m struggling to get back on the holiday decor band wagon, although the snow that we got the night before last helped some.

So I’m going to fire up the Christmas music, pull out some paint and a new Christmas stencil I ordered before I left for Mexico and see if I can get back in the groove.

So be sure to stay tuned!