Seeing the USA

Last week I gave you my top 25 international travel spots.  I had a blast writing the post, and so today  as March winds down (Hurrah!), I'll do my top 25 domestic (USA) places to visit. Note-these are not in any particular order.

Are you ready?

1- Charleston, South Carolina

2-Falling water-the house by Frank Lloyd Wright in the Pittsburg, PA area
Visit that part of Pennsylvania too.

3-the MOMA in NYC

4-The Biltmore Estate in Ashville NC, and while I am there- might as well see Smokey Mountain National Park.

5-Nashville and then a little trip to Memphis to see Graceland

6-Olympic National Park- We didn't make it there on last summer's trip to the area.

7-Go back to Portland, Oregon to actually sight see the city-we were there last summer on a quick stop on way through to go to Voodoo donuts.
I actually saw this sign!

Next trip, we spend some city time.

8-La Brea Tar Pits and LA
Yes, most people want to go to Los Angeles and see the stars, which I would love also, but I have always wanted to visit these fossil sites, ever since I was a geeky little girl.

9-Drive south or north through the middle of the country and hit those states I haven't been too-North Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Minnesota- somehow I've been west and east but not a lot in between.
 Photo link

10-Travel in the Inside Passage to Alaska from Seattle area or Vancouver

11-Hawaii
Oh which island to visit?  Kauai? Maui? See the volcanoes on the big island?
Map of Hawaii  

12- Drive from Fairbanks over the Arctic Circle to Prudhomme Bay/Deadhorse, Alaska
 Great blog post about the drive!

13-  Drive from Miami out to Key West, Florida over the bridges-the Overseas Highway
Photo credit

14- Complete my visiting of all 58 National Parks (and also hit lots of the monuments and historic sites too)(I've done 20 of the parks and a bunch of monuments too!) Two of my top choices to visit are Teddy Roosevelt Park in North Dakota and also Big Bend in Texas.

 List of all parks



15-Visit all 50 states-I've been to 36 (For some reason I thought it was more than that!)

16-visit Downeast Maine (way over by Atlantic Canada), and Aroostock County, Maine

17-drive route 66

18-visit Austin and San Antonio, Texas

19-Big Sur and Monterey, California

20-Explore Western Massachusetts
I grew up in Central Massachusetts, but mostly we went east- towards Boston.

There are museums to visit (Mass MoCa), homes of some famous authors for example Emily Dickinson, mountains to hike, and Normal Rockwell villages. I've been to Western Massachusetts several times but its an area with a lot of new discoveries left for me.

21-Visit the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut.

I love visiting old homes, if you can't tell.

22-Hudson River Valley

I would never even have known about this place if it hadn't been for an Anthony Bourdain  TV show. Looks so pretty. Not that far off from me either that I should really make an effort to check it out.



23-Oregon Coast
I was lucky enough this past summer (2014) to visit parts of the coast around Astoria, and it was absolutely gorgeous.  I'd love to go and explore a lot more.

24-Visit some local places I have never made it to- like the Edward Gorey House on Cape Cod, the Kennedy Library in Boston, a few hikes in  I have never done...

photo credit

There are so many little local hidden treasures  that I just haven't seen or haven't seen in ages. Always so much fun to discover those. There's so much local beauty and history and  culture and art. Sometimes we focus so much on the far away we forget the nearby.



25-And lastly:

link to image
I'd love any suggestions you could make. You might know a hidden gem.  As with even local places, there are so many places I just don't know about. You know, those discoveries on the adventure that aren't planned. The places you come across when you're not looking for them. The places someone mentions you should check out, and then you are glad you did.

Hope you enjoyed your arm chair trips today.
Thanks for stopping by my blog.

Do I Feel this Way on a Monday?

So I hope everyone had a good weekend. Monday-again-already! Sigh! My weekend just flew right by.

I made a little play time for myself in between other things, and I pulled out my cutsie springy stamps. Getting in a little Easter and spring cheer.

This is a simple not particularly complex piece. But still fun. 

I think. 

This other tag is pretty simple too. Some nights its just fun to stamp and color and not too much else. You know, when you're tired and nothing else is coming into your creative head.

When you muse is all worn out and sleeping.

These little chicks (on both tags) come from an old Cornish Heritage Farm stamp set.

This is when I like using tags to journal on because the canvas is small and workable.

My other creative endeavor  this weekend was trying my hand at making a Monmouth Pudding with apples. I had never even heard of this dessert until recently when I picked up a copy of Paul Hollywood's British Baking.

It was yummy-nice and light after Sunday dinner. I used apples but really wanted to used some canned cherries I had. Only the daughter won't eat cherries, so I went with apples. Nice of me, isn't it? Ha-ha! The base is a custard and the top, over the apples, is meringue.

The good news is that we only have 2 days left of March, and maybe then the weather really will turn more like spring.

Maybe.

Thanks for visiting. Stop back again soon.

My Friday Tags

Hi everyone. Its another Friday already.

Been  a busy  and speedy week here. I've been playing in the studio and also doing some de-cluttering after work each day. We started off really cold this week but are back to cool but more spring like temperatures right now.  I will take those. Anything to get this snow to melt some more.

So here's some tags I've played with during the week. This top one started with a single stamp, this great tea pot and bird by Magenta, which I then decided to turn into a mini painting.

I like it enough I might actually turn it into a full painting. Feels kind of tropical and exotic to me. I like that.

And roughs seas here. I painted the background and then added the birds.

And a little romantic tag. The colors are really a little brighter than the photo shows but not much.

And this last tag is different from the others, not quite me but I have been trying to push myself. Time to try new things to expand my standard techniques.

I had to add the skirt on the cut out. She looks so much more finished. Ha-ha.

I also finally found the right book to hold my tags.  I removed the original pages and painted the outside and inside covers this past week. Now I need to add new  pages so I can adhere my tags.

And thought I'd show you what's left for snow in my backyard.

We've got mud too! 

Eeks!

It has gone down a lot! But with the cold temperatures during March snow didn't disappear as fast as I'd like.

But what can you do about that?

I am linking this to Paint Party Friday. Thanks to Eva and Kristen for hosting. Stop by and check out all the great art posted.

Thanks to you all for stopping by blog. Have a great weekend.

I Want to Be Traveling

I've taken a couple little road trips this year, but with my husband's kidney issues I feel like life has been put on hold right now. I really want to travel, and hopefully when the weather eventually gets better I'll get somewhere.  Its killing me not to be able to plan a summer journey. I am itching and ready to pack my bags and head out someplace far away on this planet.
There are just so many great places to explore and visit on this planet.

So today, some armchair travel dreaming.

My top 25 travel INTERNATIONAL list. 

(Oh yes, the titles are links to the web pages I snagged the photos from.)

1-Newfoundland

2-Sicily

3-Greenland and Iceland

Photo is of Greenland.

4-The Azores

5-Madrid and Spain

6-Portugal

7-Greece and the Greek Islands

8-Morocco

9-Krakow and the rest of Poland

10-Scotland

11-Venice

12-A Biology Tour of England
Eagle Pub

Also I really want to go to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London
And I can't forget Cornwall, Bath, York...etc.

13-Brittany and Normandy area of France
Well anywhere in France

14-Australia
(Yes, that is a weird site to gather a photo from!)

15-Japan

16-Vancouver, BC

17-New Zealand

18-Montreal, Canada

19-Croatia and the Balkans

20-South Africa

21-Estonia and the Baltic States

22-Scandinavia

23-Chili and Argentina

24-Belgium and the Netherlands

25-Some Ancient Sites

Mayan temples, Machu Pichu, Ankor Wat, Stone Hedge...not sticking to one place.
Of course, I not against going just about any place, and there are a lot of places I'd love to go to that didn't get put on this list.
I mean, these are my top choices, but how you put everything into one short list?
I am always discovering new places to go to, so this list seems to change as life goes on.
But this  list was a lot of fun to compose.
Wahoo!

Now I'm excited to do a USA version.

Hope you enjoyed the views as much as I did and
Thanks for stopping by.