Take off your rainbow shades...

Switching continents for today's A-Z challenge post...

time to touch base with the good ole' US of A.

S is for Sedona

or Scottsdale...take your pick.

In a sense I think choosing a topic for the letter S was almost harder than some of the tricky letters still to come. Those tricky letters don't give you too many options but with the letter S the possibilities are endless.

I met hubs and some of his work colleagues/friends out in Scottsdale Arizona one December for a few days of R and R following a sales meeting. Hubs says every day is R and R when you're me, but I digress. I love the landscape out west so we're talking Arizona today.

Did anybody out there get my post title?

If you were born after 1980 forget it.

Unless of course you are one of my children and you've grown up knowing all the words to the music of the 1970's. The song has nothing to do with the state but is actually about a hippie girl named Arizona. As my daughter pointed out, it doesn't matter what the song is about because I only sing the chorus.

I've been out west before...in fact, both of my parents were from 'out west', not Arizona but nearby states, and I lived in one of those states as a toddler. We made a few trips west when I was growing up too, to visit grandparents and cousins and I love the big sky and the mountains and the red rock.

Arizona in December was nice because it was warm during the day and cool in the evenings.

I do talk excessively about the weather, don't I?

This trip was eleven years ago yet here I am recalling the temperature.

Great weather can mean the difference between a great trip and a not so great trip ya know!

We were staying in Scottsdale but spent a day in Sedona and I thought it was beautiful.

On the way to Sedona we made a stop at Montezuma's Castle which is perched right into the side of a cliff. This amazing five story stone cliff dwelling at one time had about 20 rooms and as many as 50 people living inside. It was carved right into the limestone on a high cliff and you needed a series of ladders to reach it.

Just look at the color of that sky.

I read later that visitors used to be able to actually climb up there but that ended in 1950 due to extensive damage. Thank goodness because hubs, aka the mountain goat, would have been all over that. The 'castle' and area around it were declared a US National Monument back in the early 1900's and it is definitely worth a stop if you're in the area.

Once we got to Sedona we had a wonderful lunch at a restaurant called L'Auberge. L'Auberge is a luxury hotel in the desert and is a place I'd love to return to spend a weekend in one of their cabins on the creek. The setting is gorgeous.

We wandered around town and later took a jeep tour so we could get a closer look at some of the amazing rock formations.

The color is not like anything you see on the East Coast.

Most of them had names based on what they resemble and we might have had fun coming up with names of our own.

How would you like to go to church here?

This is the Chapel of the Holy Cross, a Catholic church that rises two hundred feet high in the red rocks. I don't think any regular services are held here but, the view...I am all about the view.

And the weather, but especially the view.

Would you look at that blue sky?

Another fun thing we did while in Arizona was a trail ride.

Hubs is always disappointed if they don't let him canter.

Once on a holiday in St. Lucia (see, there's another S) they let you run your horse across the beach if you wanted. They did not have to ask him twice.

Arizona looks nothing like St. Lucia.

I love all the cactus.

fyi-we do not have cactus growing in NJ.

They like it dry don't they?

Our guide was an adorable little cowgirl who warned us to keep an eye out for snakes...might make the horses skittish.

Okay.

If you live out west do you ever stop noticing the sky?

We trekked up Camelback Mountain while we were in Scottsdale.

It was warm and we were not really dressed appropriately because I had a fleece on when we started out and was broiling by the time we made it back down.

It's actually a pretty good climb.

Do you see the teeny tiny blue speck in the middle of the bottom of the mountain?

That's a person.

She changed her mind about going any higher.

Changing your mind isn't an option when you're with the hubs.

Most of my A-Z posts have been focused on Europe because that's where we've spent most of our life and travel time in recent years. The more you travel the more you realize just how much there is to see in this world and how little you'll manage to get to in your lifetime.

Travel broadens your view of the world and of your own back yard. It connects you to people you'd probably never connect with in the course of an ordinary day. It makes you think. It makes you appreciative of the place you call home while simultaneously making you long for the places you've never been.

America is a beautiful country and its geography is so diverse from coast to coast. Each part of this great land offers something different in the way of food, language, custom, and natural beauty.

And I would like to see it all.

Roma!

I see why they call the A-Z blog challenge a challenge. It's because it's challenging. I've used a lot of words this month and while normally my blog is about nothing and everything all at the same time this month it has essentially been about one thing-travel.

If you read here you know what I consider my real happy place and its not Disney. Sorry Disney! I love Disney but Italy is my true happy place and I don't think the A-Z challenge would be complete without including her in at least one post.

R is for Roma

I try to keep these posts about a single visit, mostly for my own benefit. This way, all the photos from a particular trip are together in one spot.

We first visited Rome during our February school break back in 2005. We stayed in a little hotel within walking distance from the Vatican and we ate fabulous meals and saw incredible sights.

We spent one day wandering around the ruins of the Forum, visiting the Victor Emmanuel monument, and of course the Colosseum.

The Colosseum is staggering. We had not intended to get in on a tour but as we approached we saw a very long queue and an English speaking tour was just leaving so we opted to bypass the line and join the tour.

It was short and sweet and interesting and then you were left to explore on your own which is our preferred method of 'sightseeing'.

Some pretty gruesome stuff happened in this place.

The area around the Coliseum is full of wonderful things to see and explore. I hadn't heard much about the Victor Emmanuel monument before our trip but it is absolutely stunning-

...and you get a great view of the Piazza Venetia from the top steps-

As you wander thru the Forum and really all over this lovely city one thing seems apparent.

Everyone and their brother must have carried around chisels back in the day.

The amount of carved 'stuff' is unbelievable and someone in our group may have uttered the phrase 'Look! It's ruined!" once or a hundred times as we explored Rome.

They also might have cracked themselves up every.single.time.

Is this the smallest car ever?

One afternoon we walked up to the top of the circular Castel Sant 'Angelo. I didn't have a good photo of the exterior but found a free shot online so you can see what I mean by 'circular'...

We walked around and around and around. Through the years Sant 'Angelo has been an imperial tomb, a papal citadel, and a medieval prison. It was also windy but the views of the Vatican were not too shabby-

There are gorgeous fountains and squares and churches all around this city.

We wandered into the Pantheon which was built as a temple to the gods of Rome in 126 AD.

The Romans were gifted when it came to architecture and design...think about the tools they had to work with, or rather didn't have...

Of course no trip to Rome would be complete without a trip to the Vatican. We spent most of a day exploring the Vatican and the Vatican museums.

We had booked a tour ahead of time and I highly highly recommend that if you're visiting Rome. I do believe the queue to get inside the Sistine Chapel is the longest queue I've seen anywhere in my travels. We skipped right on by with our tour guide.

This picture was not taken on our February trip. The Sistine chapel is packed with people and I found it a little bit hard to see things the way I like to see things. Hubs had a private tour of the museum on another trip to Rome and their little group was the only game in town. I know...sometimes it stinks to be him. They were allowed inside after hours and could look to their hearts content. He was able to take some fabulous photos without all the crowds around.

St. Peter's is just beautiful.

The Swiss guard are there for protection...

If you read here you know how I feel about beautiful old churches and you know when I talk about them I always remind you that you need to read Pillars of the Earth and then you need to go see some up close and personal.

The statues on top of St. Peter's are of the twelve disciples...

and there are so many beautiful things to see in the Vatican museum-

Are you following this post because I know it's rambling. It's hard to capture the city of Rome in a, ahem, 'short' blog post.

We hung out on the Spanish steps one afternoon...

We needed to recover from the nearby shopping.

The high end stores are here and the prices make you swoon.

As does the merchandise.

Such great style in this city.

There is so much to see and do in Rome and I haven't even begun to talk about the food and the wine and the people that I love so much. We did visit the famous fountain Trevi...

...tossing coins into the fountain is supposed to guarantee you'll return to Rome one day.

We can surely hope.

At Home in the Wednesday Hodgepodge-Vol 23

Welcome to another edition of the Wednesday Hodgepodge.

We're just rolling right along aren't we?

If you've stopped in today from the A-Z challenge you'll find the letter of the day in question #8. Feel free to join the Hodgepodge too...today or any Wednesday.

1. What are your plans for Easter day/weekend?

The weekend will begin for me on Thursday evening when we collect daughters1 and 2 from the airport. We will kick off the weekend with dinner eaten all together. Daughter2 has made her usual request for chicken divan so more than likely that's what will be on the menu Thursday night. If the rain stays away we'll do something outdoors Friday and Saturday but if the predicted rain arrives we'll hang out and watch movies, play pool and maybe go see Soul Surfer which is on my list.

Sunday we'll go to church and then have a big lunch...baked ham (per daughter2's request) with pineapple stuffing, deviled eggs, and roasted asparagus, followed by something yummy for dessert. Both my girls love to cook and bake so we'll spend some time together in the kitchen for sure.

I still put together Easter baskets for my girls because I enjoy that and I look forward to setting those at their places at the kitchen table just as I have done every Easter for the past twenty three years. On Sunday evening we'll take daughter1 to the train so she can get to her brand new city to begin her brand new job bright and early Monday morning. Daughter2 will go back to uni Monday afternoon. I am so looking forward to having both chicks in the nest for a nice long weekend.

2. Besides Jesus, what one person from the Bible would you most like to meet and why?

Just one? I'm not sure I can pick just one. I'm going with one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament...hey, it's my question, right?

Daniel and Peter.

3. What is one modern day convenience you didn't have as a child that was easy to live without?

Well, in a sense they were all easy to live without because isn't it true that you don't know what you don't know? My first thought is the cell phone. Phones were a whole 'nother animal when I was growing up. No caller id, no call waiting, no mobile devices, no texting, no internet on the phone and for that matter no internet period. The phone in our kitchen had a long chord that was always getting tangled up and I remember stretching that chord around the corner into the next room to talk to my friends.

When my hubs started his first job he was a sales rep and would have to stop at pay phones throughout the day to make calls. He eventually got a mobile phone and it was huge. It came in a suitcase. I'm thankful for cell phones now but I think they've added to our sense of impatience about everything. Before cell phones we weren't available 24/7. If you called someone and they weren't home the phone just rang and rang and you'd say, oh well, I'll try again later. Unless it was a matter of life and death you would not track them down and interrupt whatever it was they were doing. If they were on the line talking to someone else you got a busy signal. You kept calling back until the line was free. I can appreciate the convenience of a cell phone but growing up my mom never sat across from my dad in a restaurant or on vacation while he talked on the phone. Just sayin'

Well now, it seems that turned into a little rant. Sorry.

4. Are you more right brained or left brained? If you're not sure what that means there is an interesting little quiz here.

According to the quiz I'm 59% left brain and 41% right brained. I am pretty much in the middle. Does this mean I'm using both sides of my brain to their fullest or that I'm not using either side of my brain to capacity? Hmmm. I will say this-based on my answers I don't understand why they're saying numerical formulas and technological explanations are my favored form of expression. I would say the opposite is true. I tried a quiz on another site with questions very different from the first and I still came up with left brain dominance. Maybe technology is my friend after all.

5. What is one thing you intended to do today but didn't?

Go to the gym (Tuesday)...car troubles. Silly silly car troubles. And people coming and people going and trucks blocking and the dog restless...did I tell you we've begun work on a patio? We've begun work on a patio.

6. Cadbury Creme Eggs or Reeses Peanut Butter?

I love them both but if I must choose I'm going with Reeses. Daughter2 is a big fan of the Cadbury Creme Eggs and I saw this cute recipe online and think it would be fun to try when she's home.

7. Who was your favorite cartoon character when you were a child?

Quick Draw McGraw and his deputy Baba Looey. Quick Draw was a horse dressed as a sheriff and his sidekick Baba Looey was a Mexican burro who spoke English with a Mexican accent. Probably very un-pc now but it was innocent entertainment in the 1960's.

I loved all the Looney Toons characters too and my favorite was Foghorn Leghorn. My husband might possibly do a most excellent impression. Scooby Doo, Astro Boy, and The Jetsons were other favorites. And here it is the future and we're not flying around in our own personal spaceships are we? How disappointing.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

Once again I'm using this space as my A-Z blog challenge post. We are nearing the end of the alphabet and I'm looking forward to getting back to blogging about everyday life. I am happy though, to have so many of our travels now documented and saved to my blog.

Several people said they were curious as to what I'd blog about for some of the 'tricky' letters. I guess Q qualifies as a tricky letter but for me this one is easy.

Q is for Quilon

In the UK it is common for houses to have names and Quilon was ours. The house had a number too but you could address a letter to me at 'Quilon' and as long as you had the post code (zip code) written correctly the letter would reach me.

I loved this house.It oozed charm from the moment you stepped thru the front door. The front door that incidentally had no handle. Oh if you live in the UK you know what I mean. Even the 'sidewalk' was pretty.

The front room had gorgeous wood on the walls which I'd love to replicate here somewhere.

This was the view from the eating area in our kitchen...

I loved to get up in the morning and open up the French doors and admire the garden. I guess I have blabbed often enough about how much I loved my garden. That lawn was made for croquet don't you think?

You are not alone in that thought.

Every Thursday night for four years we had Young Life kids and leaders in our house.

They loved the garden too and many a game of futbol, football, frisbee, and tag were played on this lawn. The only thing they ever broke was a ceramic planter sitting inside my kitchen window. Yes, inside. A football may have been thrown just a little bit too enthusiastically.

And only twice did someone fall in the pond.

Lavender.

How can you not love a lavender garden?

The dining room was sunny and faced the front of the house.

We used our dining room a lot.

I love a pretty dining room.

The bedrooms were tiny and between the four of them there was only one legitimate closet. We used armoires and we lived with a lot less clothes. It's possible. My girls complained every so often about the wallpaper and the chintz but they loved this house every bit as much as the hubs and I did.

We had a big laundry room which was unusual and a big pantry, also unusual. We spent most of our time in the sitting room which had a cozy fireplace that was almost always roaring, sometimes even as late as July, and pretty French doors facing out into the garden.

I told you I loved this garden, didn't I?

When we moved to the UK we became renters. I hadn't been a renter since 1986 and I wondered if the house would feel like my own. The owners were a wonderful family with two daughters identical in age to our daughters.

They were transferred to another part of England but they loved this house and they wanted their tenants to love it too.

And we did.

'A house is a home when it shelters the body and comforts the soul.'

Phillip Moffitt