Category Archives: Travel

Mountain View Lodge

It was an interesting process trying to find somewhere to stay in Stevens County, Washington. We found a couple spots online that we thought might be OK but our son let us know that they wouldn’t be a good choice. He told us the area to look and we found Mountain View Lodge in Chewelah.

The Lodge has 3 rooms in the lower level with a “great room” on the upper level for guests to use.

This was the outside entry to our room.

Our room, the Selkirk.

This is the great room where continental breakfast was available along with comfortable seating to watch T.V.

Beautiful views from all the windows.

We were the only ones staying at the lodge the 2 nights we were in Eastern Washington. We enjoyed just sitting and catching up with our son Dan.

When we visit again we’ll enjoy coming back to the Mountain View Lodge.

View from our room on the lower level.

Every since we came home we’ve been busy with our company. We’ve enjoyed meals together and an outing to Pike Place Market. Dear has been working on replacing some siding on the house. Our company heads home today. Hope you all have a nice weekend.

Dan’s Digs…

Dan is living with friends on 30 acres. His space in the home is large and comfortable for him.

The property is not in a typical neighborhood for sure. This is the greeting you get as you head up the road to the house.

Mind the dust!

They have all the correct signage to hopefully protect their property.

We took a short tour of the property. It would take quite a long time to investigate all 30 acres.

The rock cropping was so interesting. I don’t know if I’m calling it the right thing but it was interesting to walk along and come upon these areas of rock.

The views were great!

They’ve got their chickens all cooped up and safe so they have fresh eggs.

They have a garden area fenced off to keep the deer and other animals out. These are some of the raspberries growing. They have lettuces, potatoes, and strawberries, too.

Beautiful views every where you look.

Besides the garden they built a greenhouse for the lady of the house.

Until Dan finds his own place this is a great place for him to call home.

O Beautiful…

for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain;

For purple mountains majesties

Above the fruited plain!

America! America!

God shed His grace on thee,

And crown thy good with brotherhood,

From sea to shining sea.

We did not see any seas but the mighty Columbia River that begins in the Canadian Rockies and flows through the state of Washington empties into the Pacific Ocean between Oregon and Washington…

These are some of the views we saw on our road trip to Eastern Washington to visit our son, Dan. We are home now and I wanted to post something from our trip. Our company survived nicely without us. Don’t know what the plans are for today except for what we are having for dinner. Summer has arrived on this side of the mountains, too, so our guests are finally warming up. Hope all is well with you and yours today…

ht: Words to O Beautiful for Spacious Skies: Katharine L. Bates, 1904.

Random Captures…

I’m getting a few posts ready filled with random shots I haven’t shared. Dear’s on vacation and we are doing random things. I’m going to schedule posts through Wednesday. When we get back from a little road trip East to visit our second born I hope to share some new shots…

While we are gone and when we get back we have a house full of guests from Southern California. My niece’s family along with my sister Kathy are road tripping up for the week.

I’m happy to have a house full of people to use as guinea goats guinea pigs for some recipes I wanted to try. That way Dear and I don’t have to eat the whole enchilada ourselves.

Hope your week is starting off well…

That’s All Folks…

These are the last of my Chicago photos that didn’t fit in elsewhere in my posts…

Lincoln at O’Hare airport. Lincoln had no idea we’d be flying in and out of Illinois day in and day out…

I was impressed with the planters and lights in trees around the Michigan Ave. area.

Tallest Church building in the U.S.

Buckingham Fountain

Crown Fountain

This sign is great and it really makes it clear that winter in Chicago is very different from winter in Seattle.

Thankfully our ride back to the airport in our taxi was very pleasant compared to our drive to the hotel from the airport. Word to the wise…you might want to reject a taxi ride specified for you at the airport if the cab is real stinky and old.

Farewell Chicago. Time will tell if we’re back next year for ASCO.

I was very busy on Thursday and up on my feet all day long. My back and feet were complaining by two in the afternoon so I knew it was a pizza delivery day. We have a great pizza spot that delivers pizza with half Greek or Caeser salads that are delicious. Sometimes you just have to know when your body is spent and ready for food to be delivered to you. Today is a relaxing off day for me and I’m really ready for that. Hope you all have a wonderful first weekend of Summer!

Chicago Art Museum

There is so much to see at the Chicago Art Museum. Here are the pieces that caught my interest…

Doris Lee (1905-1983) ~ Thanksgiving, c. 1935, Oil on canvas.

Randolph Rogers (1825-1892) Nydia the blind flower girl of Pompeii

Flower Girl in Holland, 1887. George Hitchcock

The Annunciation ~ George Hitchcock ~ Mary depicted as a Dutch peasant girl in a field of lilies.

The next several pieces are from the artist Monet…

There were many more pieces painted by Monet.

Renoir

Pierre Auguste Renoir , Young Woman Sewing, 1879.

Gustave Caillebotte, Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877.

Degas

“Marc Chagall’s America Windows is one of the most beloved treasures in Chicago’s Art Museum’s vast collection. First debuting at the Art Institute in 1977 and made forever famous less than ten years later by an appearance in the film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the “Chagall Windows,” as they are more popularly known, hold a special place in the hearts of Chicagoans. Following an intensive period of conservation treatment and archival research, the windows returned in 2010 as the stunning centerpiece of a new presentation at the east end of the museum’s Arthur Rubloff building.”

If you are ever in Chicago you shouldn’t miss this great art museum. What I’ve shared is such a small representation of what the museum offers.

We are yearning for sunshine here in the Pacific Northwest.  This weather just makes me want to curl up with a good book. I’m enjoying a new to me murder mystery series by Anne Perry. Today I’m looking forward to meeting up with the gals from my Bible Study Tuesday group for a casual lunch in Lake Forest Park. It will be nice to see them and do a little catch up.

Graceland Cemetery

One of the days I was in Chicago I got real brave and found the city transit bus I needed to get to Graceland Cemetery that is just north of Wrigley Field. I really enjoy old cemeteries with great above ground headstones/monuments.

The bus let me off right at the main gate of the cemetery. Sigh of relief. I was the only visitor at the cemetery but thankfully there were grounds crew there mowing and edging so I wasn’t completely alone. That would have been a little creepy.

This cemetery really is one of the best in the U.S. I’ve been to so far. I had a walking guide that led me to some  noteworthy Chicago people buried here.

This is Peter Schoenhofen’s tomb 1827-1893. He established Schoenhofen’s Brewery. Although a significant amount of the brewery has been lost, the structures that remain of the Schoenhofen Brewery are still the most impressive pre-Prohibition era brewery structures in Chicago. Buildings were first erected in 1862.  The last buildings were built in 1912, and the brewery remained in business until 1924, a casualty of prohibition. Supposedly, members of the Schoenhofen family used a tower to broadcast radio messages to German agents during World War I, prompting federal agents to seize the brewery.

 William Kimball (1828-1904) He was the founder of the Kimball Piano and Organ Company.

Potter Palmer, Architect, 1826-1902. A prominent Chicago social leader, he was the primary developer of State Street, and built the Palmer House Hotel.

Architect. Born Lucius George Fisher Jr. in Beloit, Wisconsin, on November 27, 1843, he was a Chicago paper company magnate and architect. In 1895, he commissioned the Daniel Burnham & Company to build the 20 story, 275 foot tall Fisher Building in the loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. Completed in 1896, the landmark Fisher Building is the oldest 20 story building in Chicago that has not been demolished. Lucius George Fisher Jr. died in Chicago, Illinois, on March 20, 1916.

Dexter Graves (1789-1844) The Graves family was one of Chicago’s earliest settlers, arriving from Ohio in 1831. Note the most appropriate sculpture for the family name. The bronze is by the famous Lorado Taft and is called ‘Eternal Silence.’ He married Olive Kendall in 1818. Dexter was a son of Charles Graves and his first wife Lucy Brown, and was a seventh generation descendant of Thomas Graves who settled in Hartford, CT in 1645. Dexter lived in Norwich, Chenango Co., NY, and in Ashtabula Co., OH. His son Henry Graves was one of the richest men in Chicago.

There are Halloween rumors that the eyes glow on this statue on Halloween night. It’s pretty creepy even without the eyes glowing.

On my way out walking to Wrigley field to catch a Trolley back to downtown I passed another cemetery that was locked up for renovations.

I was happy to meet up with the trolley on schedule for my trip back. This is a very long post with a lot of photos and I didn’t even share all the photos I took. As always I find out after the fact what I missed when I do more research. I might have a chance to get back here since the ASCO conference will be in Chicago the next several years and Dear might have to represent his company again.

From an early age my siblings and I went to funerals and cemeteries. We were never left at home when my parents attended a funeral. It was part of our life to be exposed and not sheltered from death as hard as death is…

On a brighter note…the sun is shining here to day and as I look out my window I do not see any clouds. I’ll have to find something to do out and about to get my fair share of vitamin D. Have a great Father’s Day weekend everyone!

Tiffany Dome

I had read about the wonderful Tiffany glass dome in the Cultural Center in Chicago just across from Millennium Park so I jumped off the trolley to go have a look. I was greeted by a 3-story vaulted lobby with walls of white marble and mosaics.

The dome was restored to Tiffany’s original vision. Now the dome can be seen as it was in 1897, when the building opened as the first Chicago Public Library, and the room now named Preston Bradley Hall was where people picked up the books they had requested. Natural light shines through the glass, changing the subtle colors of the restored glass minute-by-minute. There is much evidence in the buildings interior to point to the fact that this building used to be the first Chicago Public Library.

The cultural center is free and the hours it’s open are very generous. I missed another dome in the building that I read about after the fact.

Today, Wednesday, I’m cashing in a Mother’s Day present from middle son for a massage. I think I’ve needed one since Katie and Andrew’s wedding in March. I booked the full 90 minute tranquility massage. Ahhh….If you don’t hear from me you’ll know that I’m in relaxation mode.

I’m also be linking to Alphabe-Thursday with Miss Jenny for the letter D…dome!

Cruising…

…along the Chicago River.

So many of you recommended this cruise and I found myself on an almost empty boat to make the voyage. We started just east of Michigan Ave.

The tall building on the left is the Trump International Hotel and Tower. It is the tallest structurally all-concrete building in the world.

We went under 21 bridges on the cruise.

This is Marina City, highly innovative when they were completed in the 1960’s by Bertrand Goldberg.

See how the corner of this building really isn’t a corner. This type of construction yields 4 corner offices instead of just 2 bringing in more revenue. Wouldn’t you prefer a corner office? I would if I didn’t have to pay for it.

The brochure says that this is 333 West Wacker Dr. Kohn Pedersen Fox’s Chicago debut and that it is a good example of contextualism, with a curved, shimmering, green-tinted facade flowing in harmony with the river’s hue.

The center building in this photo is now called the Willis Tower. It used to be called the Sears Tower. It was the world’s tallest building for 24 years.

A three-story art deco statue of Ceres, goddess of agriculture (particularly grain), caps the Chicago Board of Trade Building which has been given a National Historic Landmark designation. Here’s the full building way at the end of this street.

Here’s what a full boat looks like. I was happy to be on our boat with only about 10 other people.

The building on the right with 2 parts, one shorter and the other tall is the Boeing Headquarters.

This is the Centennial Fountain on the North bank of the Chicago River. Every hour, for ten minutes, the fountain shoots a massive water arc across the river from a modernist tiered waterfall.

The Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier. It is 140 Ft. high.

This center building is called Aqua. It was designed by and it is the tallest building the the U.S. designed by a woman. It has unique wave like balconies. The next photo is a view of the building looking up at it.

There is still so much to show from Chicago. Tiffany glass dome, the Art Museum, Graceland Cemetery oh my!

We are on our second day of sunshine here in the Seattle area. People are smiling everywhere I go. Yesterday after church we were able to get all our yard work done so now we can enjoy the weather. I’m still taking in everything we heard at our conference on the weekend. One theme that was woven through the talks by the 3 major speakers was the pure undiluted Gospel. So refreshing…