random reflections

SNAP: Blue

We arrived on Longboat Key on Sunday. It's been sunny and warm every day---exactly why we come in March when the temperatures are still chilly and there's still snow on the ground at home. There are lots of pretty colors here, but blue seems to be predominant.

Upper left: the view from our condo window. I love to sit in the chair by this window and read.

Upper right: one of the umbrellas at the pool.

Lower left: a row of chairs at the pool.

Lower right: the steps into the pool.

So far, it's been an ideal vacation:  a little sun, lots of steps (I'm aiming for an average of 10,000 a day), lots of reading (have finished When Breath Becomes Air---highly recommended, and am enjoying My Brilliant Friend), and good meals and conversation with our friends. We're here with another couple from our church (our daughters were baptized on the same day), and last night we met two other couples from church who are vacationing here as well for dinner and viewing the sunset. I'm linking up with Helena and off to check out the rest of the SNAP photos for this week.

 

Travel Journal

A year ago, I splurged on a Midori Travel Journal. My first venture out with it was to the Canadian Rockies, and now that I've posted the Project Life pages for that trip, I thought I'd share the travel journal.

The cover is leather, and gets more worn-looking (and lovely) over time. I bought the pen clip and uses some stickers to put my initials on the front. They've held up very well, but can be easily replaced if they start to get ragged looking. One of the things I like the most about the Midori are all the choices you have for inserts. I've always been a big fan of graph paper so that's what I chose. I also had a watercolor paper booklet behind it, but I've not gotten to the point where I'm sketching while traveling often enough to make good use of it.

I used an old camera charm from my stash for the title page. I wasn't sure if it would interfere with writing in the journal, but it didn't. I put a dash after the July date, but filled up enough of the first book, that I started a new book for 2016.

The first couple of pages were devoted to the itinerary. Since we had to book our hotels way in advance, the itinerary didn't change much.

One of the things I love about this journal is I finally committed to putting in some memorabilia along with a recap of our day. I also bought an Instax Smartphone printer. I was wishing for one so I could include photos in the journal, and Matt kindly gave me a gift certificate to Amazon for my birthday which made it affordable. Here I combined a business card as well as a photo from the Three Sisters cafe.

Here I added another photo, and cut out the portion of the trail guide for our hike around the three lakes at Many Glacier.

Thanks to Melissa, we knew to get ice cream at Cows in Banff. I didn't take a photo so I drew a sketch instead. I added a piece of Washi tape to the bottom for a little color.

Another sketch (of my backpack) for our longest day of hiking in Yoho National Park, and two of my favorite photos from the day.

I included a portion of a business card from my favorite shop in Jasper. I bought several gifts there as well as a scarf and necklace for myself. The prices were amazingly low for such nice products. On the second page, I cut out a portion of the flyer about the Glacier Adventure tour.

I wrote all the journaling for our trip from Jasper back to Calgary and totally forgot to add the bookmark from the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton, so I adhered it to the margin with some score-tape which worked out great.

The other add-on I purchased was this zipper envelope which held some items I thought I might use as well as the business cards and other memorabilia that ended up in the journal.

This year we don't have any "big" trips planned, but there are trips to Florida and Chicago for sure, and several other weekend trips this summer. I think just one of the graph books will be enough to cover the year, but another advantage of the Midori is I can always add another books. I love that the format is small enough to fit in either a purse or my tote bag, and I find it pretty easy to sit down each night and get the day's events recorded.

Project Life: July 2015 (Part 3)

As usual, we did a lot of advance planning before we took off on this trip. Somehow we totally missed the write-up of Sunshine Meadows in our guide books. Luckily, I picked up a brochure at the ranger's desk in Banff that proclaimed Sunshine Meadows as the #1 Hike in Canada. We would put it at #2 for a hike, and our afternoon there would be rated #3 after the Plain of Six Glaciers and our day in Yoho National Park.

To reach Sunshine Meadows, you must take a bus up to the ski lodge. We figured that once you were up there, it would be a pleasant stroll through the meadows. Not so much. It was pleasant, but it was no stroll! There were several steep inclines, and the hike around the three lakes was much more extensive than we expected. Not only are the views stunning, but the wildflowers were amazing. No photo came even close to capturing how beautiful it was. I cut a piece of the map apart and used it in the spread. The hike actually passes through parts of both Alberta and British Columbia.

The photos on the left-hand side of the next page are of Moraine Lake, and on the right of the first hike we took as we drove up the Icefields Parkway from Lake Louise to Jasper.

The journaling says that we aren't typically "WOW" people, but that was the operative word as we drove the 145 miles from Lake Louise to Jasper.

Our Glacier Adventure Tour was one of the most touristy things we did on the trip, but one of the most fun thanks to Ness, our amazing and hilarious driver.

We spent four days in Jasper, one of them was actually the day of the Glacier Adventure since we drove back down the Icefields Parkway the next morning to catch the first tour.

I'm not sure how we found our accommodations at Pyramid Lake, but it was a stunning setting about five miles out of town. The hike through the Valley of Five Lakes wasn't on our list until a ranger at the Icefields Centre told us about it. We ended up hiking with a young couple from Edmonton, and had a really great morning despite the gloomy skies.

Really, my only disappointment on the whole trip was not getting to see Maligne Lake. We drove out there twice, and it was foggy and rainy both times. The weather in Jasper was truly fickle. At one point, it was raining in front of us, but when you looked in the rear view mirror, it was sunny behind us! After hiking the Moose Lake trail in the rain the last day of our time in the parks, we gave up and decided to head west on Route 16. We knew we were headed east to Edmonton on our way back to Calgary so we thought we take a drive in the other direction. Little did we know that we'd end up in Robson National Park with a good view of the tallest mountain in Canada.

I didn't have enough photos of our day in Edmonton or the last day in Calgary before heading back to Chicago, so I ended July right here. By the time we left Chicago, we were into August, and those pages will have to wait until we get home from the current trip! I don't think I'll have anywhere near this many photos from a trip in the near future. It was an amazing three weeks. We hiked nearly 75 miles, and saw nearly everything we hoped to see, but we'd be happy to return if the opportunity presented itself.

SNAP & The Winter Scavenger Hunt

Tracy and I had a Groupon that was about to expire for a new-to-us restaurant last week. I'd heard great things about it, and we were not disappointed. It's a small place, but the service and the food were both exceptional. On one wall were three pieces of cutlery, and I immediately thought of the Winter Scavenger Hunt even though I'd already taken a photo of our cutlery at home. Then I spotted another photo of cutlery---a graphic design on the window as you came into the restaurant, and realized I had (with one more photo from another favorite restaurant) my four photos for SNAP.

If you look carefully at the bottom left photo, you can see Tracy looking at me as I take the photo, and the cutlery on the wall inside as well. The only way I could get our cutlery in the template was to put it in sideways, but fortunately the soup spoon is at least right-side up. The top right photo is the graphic design for a great restaurant a few blocks from us called Orb---they specialize in meatballs. 

So here are the last of the scavenger hunt items. I'm still hoping for a better photo of a robin, but I've found the required items for the hunt.

11-Your favorite pudding. This was made easier once I was assured "pudding" was synonymous with dessert. I splurged and purchased my favorite cake to take to friends- chocolate raspberry ganache.

12 A fancy button. Here are three I cut off a favorite dress once it went out of style. I have several of each, and hope someday to find some way to use them.

14 Afternoon tea. I usually have my tea in a mug, but for this occasion (a photograph) I used one of the fancy tea cups I inherited from my great aunt.

21 Your own handwriting. I'm keeping a gratitude journal this year and so here are a couple of pages from it. I'm trying to find a quote each week to "illustrate" as well.

And a page from my daily journal. Keeping a daily journal is critical for me especially when I'm so far behind in my Project Life pages.

So that's it for the Winter Scavenger Hunt. My other finds are here, here, and here. I know I'll still be looking in case I find some more good candidates. Linking up with Helena for SNAP, and with Joy and Eileen for the Winter Scavenger Hunt.

 

Project Life: July 2015 (Part 2)

Originally we didn't plan to visit the southeastern corner of Glacier called Two Medicine. But when I read about it in the guide book as we were driving to Missoula, we changed our minds and spent a morning and early afternoon hiking in Two Medicine. We were glad we did, and the drive from Two Medicine to Waterton National Park in Alberta was nearly as beautiful as the Going to the Sun road.

We had hoped to do a lot of hiking in Waterton, but the weather wasn't very cooperative. We did get to take the cruise from Waterton to Goat Haunt and it was just beautiful. The view of the lake is from the Prince of Wales Hotel which sits up on a cliff overlooking Waterton. We had a lovely dinner there. There's also a photo of the cut line which I knew nothing about, but explained in this post.

The number one item on our bucket list was a hike to the Plain of Six Glaciers in Lake Louise. It got a two-page spread.

A good friend of mine told me not to miss a chance to visit Yoho National Park and Emerald Lake. It was great advice, and our day in Yoho was our second best day of the trip. Emerald Lake is even more beautiful than Lake Louise, and we went from there to Takkawa Falls which we were told was the second highest falls in Canada. When I did a bit of research, however, it ranks 45th in British Columbia. It's beautiful, nonetheless, and we hiked from there to Laughing Falls. All in all, we hiked nearly 11 miles that day and by the time we got to the Truffle Pig for dinner we were ready for a great meal.

I have to admit to being really excited to actually see loons on this trip. When we travel to the Adirondacks, I sometimes hear loons, but I'd never seen any. On this trip we saw them on several lakes, but I finally got a photo on Emerald Lake. The last two photos on this page are just the first two from another wonderful afternoon at Sunshine Meadows. More about that, next time.