A Full-time Life

Category: Family

New Pine Creek memories

This is a mostly a repeat memory post with some added thoughts and all new pictures. On our summer camping trip in June we drove through New Pine Creek, the tiny (not-quite-a) town that straddles the Oregon-California border. We lived in that out-of-the-way place for two years very early in our life together.

Goose Lake State Park, Oregon

That was in the early 1960s. Back then, Goose Lake wasn't yet a State Park but it was a 20+ mile long shallow Lake. Now it is a large field of grass. Not a drop of water.

We'd last driven through this area twelve years ago during a cross-country RV trip. I posted then about the memories the town evoked, but because even that visit was so long ago, I thought the post was worth a repeat. (Thoughts I added this time are in bold.)

MEMORIES IN A TUMBLE-DOWN TOWN

We've been married just about forever (I wrote that twelve years ago and we're still here!) and sometime back at the dawning of civilization*, we lived for a couple of years in New Pine Creek. We went to see it last week when we were in Southeast Oregon. It's a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of place that straddles the Oregon-California border on Highway 395.

(Definitely not the prettiest entry-way into California)

This little farm community is twenty miles south of Lakeview Oregon and 50 miles north of Alturas California, with nothing much else in between. It's the outback of the outback. Back then (*it really was 1959 through 1961), we thought we were so lucky to get to move there. Bill had just graduated from a two-year program at a Teacher's College in Lewiston Idaho (across the Snake River from our home town of Clarkston Washington). He got a position as teacher/principal (and janitor) at New Pine Creek Elementary, a one-room school on the California side of the border. California! It paid more than Idaho, where most of his fellow graduates went. I think he made about $4,500 that year.

We had a one-year old son and a baby on the way. (Our daughter was born in Lakeview in February 1960. The Dr. and hospital were 20 miles away from home.) This is the house where we lived — as you can see, it is about a foot from the highway. The house actually looks better now than it did then; we didn't have siding or a fence. (Ugh, it's a junk shop now — so this time, it looked even worse than it did in 1960.) It snowed a lot in the Winters we were there. The snowplow would come past several times a day and plow the snow into drifts that blocked the house in. Those winter days were long!

This is the old school building where Bill taught. Someone was living in it last time we were here, but It looked completely abandoned now — the school closed years ago. It was about the length of two blocks straight up the highway from our house. It is funny to realize that the eighth-graders Bill taught were actually only six or seven years younger than he was then.

It was a very small village even when we lived there. But there were a couple of grocery stores, a good butcher, a barbershop, a service station right next door owned by the sweet couple who were our landlords, and a Grange Hall that had an active social schedule. Now the buildings all look like something straight out of a ghost story. (Even worse this time.) Junk shops are the last dying gasps of a small town.

After our two years there, we moved back to Eastern Washington. Living there again, we had two more sons, bought our first house, worked a bunch of various jobs between us, and, eventually, Bill went back to college and completed his degrees. It remains my fond hope that someday I will get around to scanning some old pictures and writing some memory posts about those years! In 1971, we moved to Lane County, Oregon — the opposite side of the State of Oregon from NPC, in every possible definition.

Random Roadside pictures as we drove around Oregon's outback in 2021

(altered with Picasa to look like a 1960s scrapbook page.)

We've long since lost track of the people we knew during the short time we lived in New Pine Creek. But we'll always remember our two years there — we did a lot of growing up and had a lot of fun too. (Looking back from over half a century later my mind is boggled thinking about how young we were then .) I wonder if there will be anything left of the town if we ever drive through again. (So obviously we did drive through again and found the town in even worse condition. I don't think we'll do that again! But we treasure our memories and are thankful that we've survived all the ensuing years in slightly better shape ourselves.

LINKING to the following sharing opportunities: Thank you to the hosts.

MOSAIC MONDAY; THROUGH MY LENS; TRAVEL PHOTO SOUVENIRS; OUR WORLD ON TUESDAY; TUESDAY TREASURES; MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; SIGNS SIGNS; THANKFUL THURSDAY; and SKYWATCH FRIDAY

August 15, 2021
A COVID-YEAR ANNIVERSARY

The eleventh of April marks an anniversary of sorts for us. One year ago on this date we arrived at home after an earlier-than-planned trip back to Oregon from Florida. (Due to Covid, Oregon felt like a safer place to be.) While Oregon is our home, both officially and in our hearts, we have been fortunate to call the Florida Canal Cottage our snowbird-season home for the past dozen years.

April 2020

So it's been a long time since we have lived in one place for an entire twelve month period. A year ago, we arrived home to see Spring flowers we haven't seen blooming for years. The first picture I took when we arrived was of the tulip garden under our daughter's and son-in-law's black walnut tree. We parked our travel trailer on their property, said a quick and masked hello (hard not to hug) and went home to our Oregon apartment to self-isolate for the prescribed two weeks.

May, June, July

Watching the seasons change has been one of the year's simple pleasures. Because we wouldn't be traveling this year, it was a good one for a "tree watch" — observing the same tree every month (even if the year started in April and ended in March). It's been interesting to notice seasonal changes in many of the different trees we see on walks and drives, but I chose the Black Walnut both because it was the first picture I took on our return and because it is such a magnificent tree.

August

It has been twenty-four years since we've spent a whole year in one place. Before we bought the Canal Cottage in Florida, we were full-time RV travelers for almost another twelve years. Here is a link to our page that tells a little about our full-time life. I just now looked at that page myself for the first time in years — it needs to be updated. Our Canal Cottage looks much better in real life now — we have extensively remodeled and improved it. And also, for some odd reason, Bill and I look many years younger in the picture on that page.

September, October, and early November

We have spent at least part of the Summer/Fall seasons in Oregon during all of those two dozen years. And before that of course it is here where we owned our home and raised our family. (I sometimes refer to those years as our previous life.) So the walnut tree's Fall changes are more familiar to us. Not as dramatic as in some other Autumn foliage here, but obvious .

Late November

From late Spring through most of the Fall, we enjoyed socially-distanced family visits under the walnut tree. I didn't take many pictures during those gatherings. But our great-grandson gave us this photo op that was way too good to miss.

December and January

Social distancing was more difficult when the weather turned too chilly to sit outside. And of course it was during these months when we would normally have left for sunny climates. Our memories (from that former life, before we retired) were of chilly, rainy, gray days every day all day for months. But this year we had some blue sky days and most weeks we were able to get outdoors at least once. (It is possible our memories are faulty — maybe in our former life we were at work during the pleasant winter days — maybe it was only on the weekends when it rained all day.)

February 2021

So we made it through the winter. Although it certainly wasn't as warm and sunny as we'd gotten used to lately, we knew all the time that we had made the right decision for us when we hurried home in the previous March.

March 2021

It has truly been a joy to be here for the arrival of Spring — we had almost forgotten how lovely the season is here in Oregon. Though we know challenges remain, we are grateful to have made it through this Covid Year safely and more pleasantly than we had thought possible a year ago. We continue try to remember to treasure every day of every month – no matter where we call home.

LINKING this week to the following sharing opportunities with thanks to the hosts:

MOSAIC MONDAY; NATURE NOTES;  THROUGH MY LENS; OUR WORLD ON TUESDAY; MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; THANKFUL THURSDAY;  SKYWATCH FRIDAY; and FRIDAY BLISS;

April 11, 2021
A QUIET WEEK

Quiet and uneventful this week, yes, but given all the alternatives these days, that is nothing to complain about.

Especially when skies are mostly blue and even the winter trees look golden in the sun (and it is December in Oregon after all.)

Christmasy colors in nature . The three center pictures are from our Coast trip, the rest from a blue sky walk around our home neighborhood early last week.

The Willamette River – my usual neighborhood walk destination.

On the way to the river path. The Canada Geese on the left look like they're in a zoo, but it is a private yard. Side view of the same geese from the river path which borders one side of this house. The sign on the right, that I wish I hadn't cut off, says "private property, keep out". The geese can't read. The flock of mallards were in the back-channel that is behind our apartment complex.

There were a couple of rainy days mid week. On Saturday, the sky was blue and so we drove out to the farm.

Tree watch, December 12.

The sky stayed blue, but a cold blue. I took a very brisk nature walk.

Mushrooms ranging from little button sized to gigantic ones (that is my definitely-not-tiny-foot for perspective.

Before my fingers froze, I was able to snap a few winter birds around the property. (Must find winter hats and gloves. We haven't needed them for years.) That's our daughter's and son-in-law's cat and dog. She's waiting for the door to magically open, even though there is a cat-door on the other side of the house.

Grateful for blue sky — even a little bit of it this time of year.

LINKING THIS WEEK to the following sharing opportunities. Thank you to the hosts:

MOSAIC MONDAY; NATURE NOTES;  THROUGH MY LENS; OUR WORLD ON TUESDAY; MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; THANKFUL THURSDAY;  SKYWATCH FRIDAY; FRIDAY BLISS; and SATURDAY CRITTERS;

December 13, 2020
THE LEAVES ARE LEAVING

Want to buy a post office? Yep, the Lorane post office building, the second smallest we've ever seen, can be yours for only $99,000. We saw the "for sale" sign and looked it up when we got home. The ad said the "iconic building" is leased to the USPO for the next four years — so there's a guaranteed source of income.

The post-office sighting was on one of our recent "covid drives" out in the country, All of the rest of the pictures are from last week, even closer to home.

Saturday, November 7

To be perfectly honest, the picture above is from a week ago yesterday. That's the Black Walnut Tree at our D and SIL's that I've been watching since April. We spent part of that Saturday out at the farm visiting and admiring the Fall colors, a lot of which appeared in last week's post. It was perfectly beautiful blue-sky Autumn weather.

But the next day it turned cool and windy.

On Monday, Cyndi texted that it was "snowing leaves" at their house. She included a quick movie from her phone but sadly I can't figure out how to embed a video so it's a screen shot.

Friday, November 13

And this is my picture of the same tree from our latest visit a couple of days ago. What a difference a week makes.

Cyndi also texted this picture. How lucky that they had some help with the raking! That is their grandson (our great), who was visiting them for the day. You can tell from my latest picture above that there are a lot more leaves to come down. Enough to keep this little guy busy the next time he spends the day with his grandparents.

I didn't help with the raking when we visited on Friday. But I did collect some of the last of the Autumn color from the back pasture. I'm grateful to enjoy the beauty and have none of the work. Sometimes growing older is not a bad thing at all!

While we were there, the sky kept changing from gray to blue. So Cyndi and I kept moving our lawn chairs around from sunny spots to dry ones as we visited. Beautiful Autumn color is just about gone, but I hope this rainbow is an omen of a manageable winter and brighter things to come in non-weather related matters. (Rainbow shot through the car window the same day, as we drove home.)

LINKING this week to the following sharing opportunities. Thank you to all of the hosts.

MOSAIC MONDAY; NATURE NOTES;  THROUGH MY LENS; OUR WORLD ON TUESDAY; TUESDAY TREASURES; THANKFUL THURSDAY; SIGNS SIGNS; SKYWATCH FRIDAY; and FRIDAY BLISS;



November 15, 2020
SUNDAY SMILES

A collection of smiles — all pictures from last week here in the Willamette Valley.

Happy Halloween ….

Don't Forget to Wear Your Mask

(I'm not lion)

Is this a good buy? Have you ever bought a pound of wine?

(Still trying to figure out exactly how much wine that is. My math skills are poor, but I have the soul of a proof-reader.)

Hot Lips

Funny name for a beautiful plant

Just Hanging on By a Thread

(There's a metaphor in there somewhere.)

And some genuine smiles from out at the country place last week. That's our oldest great-grandson with the new family puppy (a very big puppy). And beautiful blue skies and October sunshine. Thankful for every beautiful Autumn day.

LINKING this week to these sharing opportunities, with thanks to the hosts:

MOSAIC MONDAY; NATURE NOTES;  THROUGH MY LENS; OUR WORLD ON TUESDAY; MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; SIGNS SIGNS; THANKFUL THURSDAY; SKYWATCH FRIDAY ; FRIDAY BLISS; and SATURDAY CRITTERS

October 25, 2020
LOOPY ?

Actually, this post is really about walking the loop trails near our Eugene home. It's one way of not going loopy during the time of Covid 19.

We live on a Loop Street — the above flowers are from yards on that half circle. This loop, all on city sidewalks, is about a two-mile walk. Last week, the photo-ops were all about the lilies.

Sidewalk artists have been at work.

About a quarter of the way around the big loop there's a path to one of the trails along the Willamette River Banks. On another day last week I walked this trail to the Owosso Bridge. Then I looped through a different path back into our neighborhood for a slightly longer walk.



I see songbirds and butterflies along the river often, but only the ducks cooperate for pictures. Partly this is because I'm still not comfortable stopping for very long. People I see are almost all wearing masks and careful about distancing, but somehow it feels like staying still in one place would be risky. I didn't used to be so paranoid … in fact, I quite miss chatting with perfect strangers. But I don't want to invite that now. Times have changed, at least for now.

There's another loop walk that starts behind our apartment community. It is a straight, shady paved path that ends directly at the river. On the other side, this path is bordered by overgrown blackberry bushes and weeds … dozens of squirrels and songbirds make their home in those tangles. Beyond that a busy highway is visible (and audible). Plans are for a noise barrier wall to be built eventually. I suppose I'd be glad for such a wall if our home bordered the path (we are on the other side of the complex) but right now I hope it takes a while for the plans to be completed. At the river, I walk as far along the trail as I feel like going before looping back through a neighborhood path.

These young chalk artists had the right idea.

And then of course one of my favorite loop walks isn't in our neighborhood at all – the one around our son-in-law's and daughter's backyard:

Suddenly Blueberries!

In one week, their blueberries went from not ripe to Ready! Right! Now! Apples are ripening and tiny green grapes are just starting to peep out among the leaves.

Grateful to be able to walk outside — in the city or the country.

And grateful for the Zoom family reunion we had yesterday — all of our "kids" (including the ones who joined the family as grown-ups!) some of our grands, one great-grandson, four dogs, and one cat — all together right here on our IPAD screens. Good to know that great-grandparents can still learn new tricks and so much fun to see everybody all at once. Thanks to our youngest who set it all up and to everyone who arranged their schedules.

LINKING this week to the following: Thank you to the hosts.

MOSAIC MONDAY; NATURE NOTES;  THROUGH MY LENS; OUR WORLD ON TUESDAY; SIGNS SIGNS;  MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; THANKFUL THURSDAY;  SKYWATCH FRIDAY; FRIDAY BLISS; and SATURDAY CRITTERS

July 12, 2020
TWO GREAT WALKS IN ONE WEEK!

We certainly don't take simple things for granted these days! Nature walks have always been a pleasure, but now just getting outside and away from home seems like a small miracle.

We took advantage of a couple pleasant days last week. Wednesday (or maybe Tuesday — they all kind of blend together) Bill and I drove to Hendricks Park — a City Park that is famous (at least here in Eugene) for its Rhododendron Gardens. The Park is in the City's South Hills. The picture below is looking down on the University of Oregon campus from a viewpoint in the park.

I played around a little with this picture because it was the kind of day where the hills and the sky all kind of blended together. And I wanted to highlight the way our City is surrounded by hills. I couldn't stop taking pictures of the beautiful flowers in the park — here are a couple of them:

April and May are the best months for these showy flowers. It was special to visit the Park during the peak season. (We haven't been home this early in years and couldn't remember when we last visited the Rhododendron Gardens.)

Most people in this area who garden have at least one Rhodie bush in their yard. But the Park has varieties I don't ever remember seeing — and it's beautiful to see so many of them in one place.

There is also a Native Plant Garden and I have pictures from there as well as more Rhododendrons for another post. But today I also want to remember last week's second "expedition" outside of our own neighborhood:

The close-up of pink Dogwood blossoms above and the rest of today's post are from a walk out in the country. Since we'd been self-isolating for three weeks (plus the time in the car/trailer on the way back to Oregon), our daughter said she thought it would be safe for me to go with her for a walk in the country. I wore a mask (as both Bill and I did on our walk in the park earlier in the week). And on this walk, my daughter and I practiced acceptable social distancing.

I stayed outside in their yard and snapped pictures while I waited for Cyndi to get ready to go on our walk. This is another view of their black walnut tree which, on this blog anyway, is becoming as famous as Eugene's rhododendrons.

More flowers from their yard — wisteria, white tulips, the same Dogwood tree (which is actually in the neighbor's yard at the end of the driveway, but close enough to be in theirs for picture purposes.) I think the wild growing bleeding heart and the wild iris are from later in the walk.

We walked to Kirk Pond on Fern Ridge Lake and on the paths through the wild area. Lots of Spring wildflowers …

— and when we got to the Lake I spotted Grebes, Canada Geese (not shown), and this pair of Redhead Ducks. The lower center picture is Cyndi with Parker going into what looks like a longer tunnel than it is.

It felt more natural to maintain acceptable distance while walking than it did when we talked to the kids from a distance back when we parked the trailer. And it was even easier to maintain that distance toward the end of this five-mile walk. I was lagging further behind than absolutely necessary by that time.

The last part of the walk was along the top of Fern Ridge Dam and then back to their house (and the car to go home to mine). We used to spend summers on Fern Ridge Lake but it has been a while since I took a "Dam Walk". As always I enjoyed it.

I'm so grateful that both these Parks are open — and that the few other people we saw were also being careful. And of course I'm always thankful for beautiful Spring days.

#

Thank you to the hosts of the following sharing opportunities, where I'm linking this week:

MOSAIC MONDAY; ALL SEASONS; MACRO MONDAY ;   NATURE NOTES; THROUGH MY LENS; OUR WORLD ON TUESDAY; SAY CHEESE;  MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; THANKFUL THURSDAY;  SKYWATCH FRIDAY; FRIDAY BLISS; and SATURDAY CRITTERS

May 3, 2020
KEEPING IN TOUCH …

… in the time of Corona Virus

The first day of Spring in this hemisphere happened last week — but it was kind of overshadowed by all that other news. I hope everybody was able to go outside for at least a breath of fresh air.

We are using technology to keep in touch during the isolation — but for us that really isn't all that different than ever, since we are so far away from family. Just that it is even more important these days.

The Blue Jay pictures above are mine — taken near home (the Florida one) on the first day of Spring. The rest of the pictures were texted to me from further away — also on the first day of Spring. I'm grateful that all of our families are well and able to go outside and breath some fresh air.

The first two below are from Oregon:

A Rhododendron blossom from our daughter and son-in-law's yard.

(in Oregon)

We didn't venture far from home last week. Nature parks and beaches (and restaurants) are closed here. We kept busy — working on the Canal Cottage project and spending some time assessing our various traveling options in light of the current situation. (Traveling back to our home in Oregon — nothing more exotic than that needless to say.)

Cyndi and Jeff's beautiful Black Walnut Tree and the Spring garden under it

The next picture came from our son in Colorado. Their back yard (taken on, may I remind you, the first day of spring). It's definitely an outlier among the blue skies and spring flowers:

Colorado people are strong and healthy and happy in all kinds of weather though (aren't they?) – and anyway, by now, it's highly possible that the snow has melted and the sun is shining.

My sister sent the next picture from a walk in the park near her Seattle home. Our oldest son who lives in that corner of Washington State also texted that he spent the weekend working in their yard.



Perfect Spring Days in the Pacific Northwest! (except for the you-know-what). As the old song said "The bluest skies you've ever seen are in Seattle" – it should have added "when it's not raining." (That is also true for our corner of Oregon .)

(from Oregon)

Don't forget to keep in touch with those you love.

And go outside to play as often and as long as you can.

Thank you to our family for essentially writing this post. It would have been a boring blog with just one picture of a Blue Jay.

Linking to the following: Thank you hosts!!!!

MOSAIC MONDAY; ALL SEASONS; THROUGH MY LENS; OUR WORLD ON TUESDAY; TRAVEL PHOTO SOUVENIRS; SAY CHEESE;  MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; WILD BIRD Wednesday; THANKFUL THURSDAY;  SKYWATCH FRIDAY; FRIDAY BLISS; SATURDAY CRITTERS; and RATHER B' BIRDING

March 22, 2020
MY VIRTUAL WALLET SNAPSHOTS

Some proud great-grandmother’s bragging about a most important part of our Oregon season!

I would normally spread family get-together posts over the months we're here, but this year I was determined to document our early summer trip while I still remembered a little of what we learned. Of course, I could never forget family, even without pictures. But it is so much fun to have them!

This picture taken by their mother — our granddaughter

These three — our oldest great-grandsons — live in Eugene now.

Luckily for us!

Random snapshots from Thanksgiving.

With an almost 10-month old, there was no lack of Thanksgiving Day entertainment.

Top left: The boys' Aunt (expecting our fifth great-grands0n this winter!); and their Dad (our grandson-in-law). Top right: Our daughter — The proud Grandma.

Lower left: Grandpa (our son-in-law) giving the baby's mom a break (that's our granddaughter!). Lower right: Our son-in-law and our oldest grandson (sadly with his back turned) doing kitchen duty– he is the father-to-be.

I wish I were better about taking people pictures. At least it would have been nice to have gotten each family unit together .. or even better a group shot! But at least this is better than when we visited the other branches of our family — I didn't even get a single picture of people on any of those visits*** — too busy catching up to remember that I owned a camera.

Same baby — a month earlier

He usually sees us at his own home or even oftener at his grandparents — and didn't quite know what to make of visiting the GGs at our apartment home. Especially when Great-Grandpa entertained him by putting on a matching stocking cap.

Big brother — in September

This one is in middle-school now — and big enough to help his grandma and grandpa with Saturday yard work at their home out in the country.

Same baby — way back in August

We were celebrating big zero August birthdays — Great Grandpa turned 80 and the middle great-grandson turned 10!

*** Here is an update with pictures added later — this is our oldest grandson and his wife — and their puppy — and even better our great-grandson who is expected in April. I took these on the Sunday after Thanksgiving when we all went back to our daughter and son-in-law's for leftovers!

It is a joy to watch the family grow and change (it's certainly more immediately obvious when the person doing the growing is under the age of one-year.) We are grateful to be a part of our great-grandchildrens' lives.

LINKING this week to the following:

MOSAIC MONDAY; ALL SEASONS; THROUGH MY LENS; OUR WORLD ON TUESDAY; SAY CHEESE;  MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; THANKFUL THURSDAY; and FRIDAY BLISS.

Thank you to the hosts.

December 1, 2019
VIENNA (part 2)

We met Jacob and Maya after breakfast on the second day that the river boat was docked in Vienna. Our fellow Viking passengers were preparing to board the usual tour buses for their day's events, but we were excited to meet our grandchildren for more of our own special time on this second day in the City. (Vienna Part One is here).

Statue of Empress Maria Theresa in front of Natural History Museum

We visited Maria Theresien Platz. A monument to the Empress is the center point of the huge plaza which includes two almost identical buildings that house the Vienna Museum of Natural History and the Art Museum. There are also four fountains, other sculptures, and lovely landscaping. Our 'guides' told us that at Christmas the whole plaza is transformed into a world-famous Christmas Market — it sounded amazing!

The Empress Maria Theresa governed Austria from 1740 to 1780. What I remembered was that she was the last of the Hapsburg line of rulers of the Austrian empire, that she led major educational reforms, and that she was the ruler in actuality rather than (as would have been expected at the time) ceding complete rule to her husband Francis,who was a royal in his own right from another line …. And I remembered that she had 16 children! I went to Wiki to check my memory, which was not wrong (but certainly not complete) — she definitely deserves to be commemorated. Here is the link to the wikipedia page.

This World Heritage monument is huge! The entire monument is over 60 feet in height; her statue alone is 19 feet. At the corners are statues of four of her Generals on horseback and carvings of other notables are around the bottom of the monument.

The upper left and lower right pictures in the collage are two of the corners of the Museum of Natural History. They were meant to represent the continents as they were imagined at the time … the one on the top left is America.



We got around the City underground — on the subway/tube ….. our private guides were experts on the system (and the language!) We had fun pretending like we were locals rather than tourists on a bus. This picture is where we're exiting the Schonbrunn Station to return to the City Center.

These pictures are of the grounds at the Schonbrunn Palace. ( (There is a picture of the Palace on the previous post.) It was hard to get pictures of the buildings without a lot of people — we were in Vienna on Ascension Thursday, a Holiday for schools and many businesses were closed. We certainly weren't the only ones who were enjoying this beautiful place.

The center photo is (the top of ) The Gloriette which was built in 1775 during the reign of the same Empress Maria Theresa and Joseph. It was meant as a place for the royals and visitors to take in the views. Now it is open to the public .. the Gloriette Cafe is housed on the lower level.

Many elaborate sculptures and garden buildings grace the grounds of the Schonbrunn, which was once the summer residence of the Hapsburg royalty. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Even with our private guides and a one-on-one tour, our one evening plus one full day gave us time for only an overview of the wonders of Vienna. But we loved every moment of it — and we learned so much. What great memories!

We are grateful to have had such a special time with our grandchildren in this beautiful city. At the end of our day, Jacob and Maya went to board a train to Slovakia, where they would visit her family before flying to Finland (where they now live). We headed back to the Skirnir in time for its departure to the next port of call — Melk, Austria.

Linking to the following:

ALL SEASONS; MOSAIC MONDAY; OUR WORLD on Tuesday; TRAVEL PHOTO SOUVENIRS; TUESDAY TREASURES ; SAY CHEESE; MY CORNER OF THE WORLD; THANKFUL THURSDAY;   FRIDAY BLISS; and SKYWATCH FRIDAY.

Thank you to all of the hosts.

July 26, 2019