Category Archives: Travel

Josh and Laura ~

Some encouragement from the Bible and John Piper ~

God pledges to Carry Our Burdens ~

Psalm 55:22, “Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.”

The word for “burden” here is lot. What is your lot in life today? What has providence brought you? In the end, this is of the Lord. And He will carry it for you. It is not meant to crush you or carry you away. It is meant to test your trust in God to carry it for you.”

Psalm 16:5, “The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot.”

Psalm 63:8, “My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.”

God Pledges to Carry You – All Your Life

Isaiah 46: 3-4, “Hearken to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am He, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.”

 

It was wonderful to spend an extra day with you this weekend. Blessings on both of you!

ht: Pierced by the Word ~ by John Piper

Show and Tell Friday ~ Pewter

When Dear and I were engaged we were really attracted to pewter items. We collected some pieces while we were in England in 1973 and l974 and then registered for pewter items for wedding gifts.

 

This Pewter Hurricane Lamp was a wedding gift along with this Platter and Bowl. So we’ve been using these gifts for over 32 years.

 

To see more Show and Tell head over to Kelli’s at There’s No Place Like Home.

Photobucket is holding hundreds of my photos hostage and that’s why you don’t see the original photos on this post.

Carpenteria ~ Sunday Drive

After church on Sunday Dear and I took a drive up the coast to the little beach side town of Carpenteria. After we got there we got a great tip on a Mom and Pop run restaurant where we had a wonderful breakfast with thick bacon and bisquits and gravy. If you are ever in Carpenteria we recommend The Worker Bee Cafe. The wife is the waitress and the husband is the cook who we saw come out of the kitchen to make sure he got someone’s order right. We walked along Linden Ave. and browsed through Magpie Antiques, Homestead Antiques, Hollyhock Cottage, and a candy shop called Robitaille’s Fine Candy. We saw some great old houses and the Historic Methodist Church (now Capinteria Valley Baptist) which was built in 1888.

A LOL side note: In order to post these collages with my minimal space on this blog presentation I have to narrow down the photo. When people are in the photos like myself above you get contorted and narrowed also. So my disclaimer is that I’m not that tall, do not have those longer legs, and am not that thin at present 🙂

Carpenteria is home to the largest known Torrey Pine in existence. Torrey Pines naturally occur in just two locations: Santa Rosa Island in the Santa Barbara Channel, and along the coast near La Jolla in San Diego County. Collected in 1888 as a seedling on Santa Rosa Island, Judge Ward planted it on the grounds of his home (Wardholme). This Torrey Pine thrived and reached beyond its 40 to 60ft. height. In 1988 it measured 128 feet tall, 121 feet wide at the crown, and 20 feet in circumference at four feet off the ground. It was an amazing tree to see. We drove over to the Carpenteria Cemetary where majestic towering oaks remain from the ancient oak forest which originally blanketed the Valley. We drove over to the Carpenteria Cemetary before we headed home and saw some great headstones and majestic Oak trees.

This was one of the most interesting headstones we saw. Dr. Samuel Austin Moffett and Mrs. Lucia Fish Moffett were buried on this site. They were moved to the campus of the Presbyterian College and Theological Seminary in Seoul, Korea on April 20, 2006. Dr. Moffett was a pioneer missionary to Korea. He founded and served as the first President of the Seminary from 1903 to 1924.

Thanks for coming along with us to Carpenteria not to be confused with Carpeteria…

Any photos missing from my posts are the result of Photobucket blacking out all my photos that I stored on their site since 2006.

Places to Visit for the First Time or Again ~

I’m Yearning to Travel Someplace Far Away

England ~ Scotland ~ Wales ~ Ireland ~ New England ~Montreal ~ New Zealand ~ The Shire ~ Russia

I’m such a comfort traveler, not the really high adventure type. Even though I’m Russian, Russia would be my last choice because of the comfort issues of traveling there. Where would you want to go?

Ht: Bridget for the collage she made for me a while back…

Weekend Wanderings…

The L. A. Farmers Market

 Farmers Market (no apostrophe!) was created in July 1934.

In July 1934 a contingent of farmers pulled their trucks onto an expanse of empty land at the property known as Gilmore Island at the corner of Third and Fairfax in Los Angeles. They displayed their produce on the tailgates of their vehicles, to their delight, customers quickly arrived and parked their cars on a hastily created dirt parking lot in spaces designated with chalk. They strolled among the trucks purchasing fruit, vegetables and flowers.

The atmosphere was casual, the open air commerce enticing, the goods fresh, and the result remarkable. Farmers Market became an instant institution.

We met our friends from Seattle at the Original Los Angeles Farmers Market for dinner and a stroll. Luke, (one of our former pastors in Seattle), Terri and their two daughters Sophie and Greta are in L.A. for some sight seeing that will include the ultimate first time visit to Disneyland for the girls on Monday and Tuesday!

A very upscale outdoor shopping center, The Grove, has been built right next to the Old Farmers Market. We ended our visit with an elevator ride to the 8th floor of the parking garage at “The Grove” to get an aerial view of this Miracle Mile area of Los Angeles and Hollywood. We were hoping to see the famous Hollywood sign but sad but true it was too “L.A. smoggy hazy” to see it clearly! We were able to see the Griffith Park Observatory.

 View from a trail in Griffith Park from the south, looking north.

On our way home after our visit we were driving through a couple multi-million dollar neighborhoods and were shocked to see this eyesore on one of the street corners. We were amazed and decided to turn back to take some digital shots of this monstrocity. My photos will not give this gaudy display of bad taste justice.

There were over 14 of these statues…

Yikes! This is a beautiful neighborhood of amazingly landscaped and manicured lawns. House after house displays beautiful architecture and upkeep. I can only imagine what the immediate neighbors think. We found out later that there was a lot of TV coverage over this property and a  lawsuit that the neighbors brought to try to get these statues removed. They lost their suit. The bright white wrought iron fence was added after some of the statues were defaced.

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My weekend ended with a 250 mile round-trip out to Nuevo, California for dinner and a church service that my nephews Levi and Caleb were leading worship for (Levi in the red, Caleb in the orange). A nice ending to a busy weekend. Blessings on your week ahead…

Photobucket has blacked out all my photos from their site that I used on my blog since 2007 and I’m working to update my thousands of posts.

Baba and Deda’s with the Girls and Jack

Deda and Baba

Niece Michelle, Daughter Katie, and SIL Kelly

We had a family “girls night out” gathering at my parent’s apartment since Katie is here for a short visit. As usual my mother went “over the top” in preparing a wonderful meal for all of us. We were doubly blessed this time because my SIL’s Kelly and Letty were able to make it.

Sister Vera, SIL Letty, and Sister Kathy

 

We had Apricot Chicken, a Honeydew Spinach Salad with a wonderful mint dressing, a mixed veggie basmati rice, not to mention appetizers. Now for that fabulous cake pictured above, yummy Pistachio Cream Angel Food Cake.

 

The sisters enjoying a laugh. What a blessing to have loving, joyful sisters with peace between us.

Vera, Lana, Kathy and Ellen

Nana Kathy with grandson Jack. “It’s a high mountain goat.” My nieces Debbee and Melissa were there but didn’t get into a photo shoot.

My photos are being held hostage at the Photobucket site as of July 2017.

The Door

John 10:9 (ESV)

“I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.”

James 5:9

Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door.

Rev 3:20

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and eat with him. and he with me.”

Mathew 7:7 (NIV)

“Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks recieves; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”

Safe and Sound In Southern California!

Katie and I arrived safe and sound today. The trip was easier than we expected. Thank you to those of you who were praying that my feet and legs wouldn’t cramp. God answered your prayers! Not one cramp in the 20 hours of driving. Of all the books on cd that we took our #1 favorite was Jeeves and the Song of Songs by P. G. Wodehouse. Funny and very entertaining. We enjoyed one of the Barchester Chronicles and Book 5 of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Today we listened to Meet Me at the Morgue which was an entertaining murder mystery. We wouldn’t recommend The Vicar of Wakefield, for us it was horribly dull!

 

Katie took this at the border of Oregon and California.

 

Katie being creative…

 

There is a story to this mountain range. Yes, what you see is a mountain range. The smallest mountain range in the World! Dear’s Mother Verna is buried in a cemetery with these mountains in the background. Our photo is from I-5 which is the opposite view from the one below.

Yuba City’s Sutter Buttes

Sutter ButtesYuba City’s western horizon is dominated by the Sutter Buttes, renowned for being the “Smallest Mountain Range in the World.”

The range is actually circular with a diameter of 10 miles and covers an area of about 75 square miles. The mountains are the remnants of a volcano that has been dormant for over a million years. South Butte, the highest peak is 2,117 feet above sea level. North Butte is 1,863 feet and West Butte is 1,685 feet above sea level.

Before modern levees and dams were built to contain the rivers, winter storms and spring run-off frequently turned the Sacramento Valley into an inland sea making the Sutter Buttes an island refuge for Indians, settlers and wildlife.

The Buttes have had many names over the years. The Maidu Indians called them “Histum Yani” which translates as, “Middle Mountains of the Valley” or “Spirit Mountain” … depending on the source. According to Maidu legend, after death, the spirits of their people rest in the Buttes.

Gabriel Moraga, a Spaniard trying to locate possible mission sites, was the first European to see the Sutter Buttes in 1806. Another Spaniard, Luis Arguello, led an expedition in 1817 to explore Northern California by water. He called the Buttes “Los Picachos” or the peaks. He also named the Feather River “El Rio de la Plumas”, because he saw many feathers of wild fowl floating on the water.

Other names for the Buttes were “Marysville Buttes”, “Sacramento Buttes”, and “Los Tres Picos.” They were finally named the “Sutter Buttes” in 1949.

Today, most of the Sutter Buttes is private land and not open to the public. However, you can drive through and around the Buttes. It is a beautiful drive any time of the year! Each year, in the spring, over 1,000 cyclists converge to “Bike Around the Buttes” an event sponsored by the Diabetes Society of Yuba Sutter.

If you want to experience the Buttes up close, organized group tour hikes are available. You can also play golf in the Buttes at South Ridge Golf Course, but watch out for the infamous 16th hole!

http://www.syix.com/yubacity/sutterbuttes.html

My photos are being held hostage at the Photobucket site as of July 2017.