Disney 2016 Sneak Peek!

Greetings!

Life has been...chaotic! Busy! Piling up! Making me way behind! Mostly due to the day job. But just a few weeks ago, hubby and I went on vacation. We departed for the Mediterranean for a week.

It was my first trip ever to Europe. Had been looking forward to it for over a year! With only a week and four ports of call, there wasn't time to see everything. We barely touched the surface. I think we left from vacation more exhausted than when we went! lol.

Where did we go? Let me show you.

I took a jillion pictures. It's how I roll. But due to unexpected circumstances and some bad luck, I lost 600+ of them. *cry* Even now, with how busy life has been, I've only been able to upload some.

But don't worry, I won't flood you with them. :) Figured I'd share just a few to wet your appetite. :P

The sunsets out here were amazing!

Some awesome skies too!

Coming into Livorno.

Doesn't it scream Europe? Taken on our way to the boat for the National Park of Cinque Terre.

Seeing this made me homesick for Puerto Rico. The island's architecture and forts were built and influenced by the Spaniards who came there, so I really shouldn't have been surprised. :)

Isn't this gorgeous? One of my few surviving pics of Rome. *sniff*

 All of them are not up on my site yet, but if you want to see more, come on by and check out what's up my gallery so far. :)

I want to go back!!!!

Puerto Rico - Land of Enchantment!

After way too many years, I finally went back to my roots - Puerto Rico!

I'd brought up the idea last year about doing a trip there to visit family and it be three generations of us girls. (My Mom, my daughter, and me!) Since we're all getting older, I figured this might be the last chance for something like this. And I wanted my daughter to learn more about where we all came from.

Puerto Rico is an island in the Caribbean. It's small, only 100 X 50 miles, but chock full of culture and exotic foods and more! Better yet, you don't need a passport to go there. Puerto Rico (meaning Rich Port) is a property of the US - so while it might seem foreign, it's still part of the old US of A!

We spent a little over a week there, staying with my uncle. We drove all over the place. And like usual, I took a ton of pictures! heh heh. I'll share a few with you and also links to the albums in case you want to see more. (Albums have a slideshow feature!)

View from my uncle's porch. So awesome! He lives outside the city of Caguas. 

This is the beach at Luquillo. The colors of the water are gorgeous!

El Morro is an old Spanish fort in San Juan. A huge fort! Lots of history here.

San Juan has a section where all the roads are as they were in the past. Built from the weights carried in the ships as ballast once they came to port to fill up with goods from the island.

El Yunque (The Forest) is a protected rain forest. You will have never seen so much GREEN! :)

Have several more albums - Caguana Indian Ceremonial Park, Camuy Caves, Guajataca, Ponce, and Other.

Hope you get a chance to visit the island someday!

Ghosts + History = Magic

Some years ago, I was in a college class and the subject of THE BIG earthquake in Missouri came up. Most of the class had never heard about it and the instructor herself was not sure of the year, but I knew it. 1812. (Actually, it was December, 1811 through January, 1812 since it was a series of upheavals, but I was close enough.) And why did I know that date? Because of a ghost story I had read during childhood.

Recently, while doing my "research" and immersing myself in the paranormal reality shows on SyFy, Biography, A & E, TLC, and the History Channel, I started taking notes simply because I was learning not only history, but lots of little factoids that tend to stimulate the writer in me. For instance:

- Casket plates were metal plates that were attached the tops of caskets as identifiers during the winter when the ground was too frozen to dig graves. Since the caskets were stored in a community location, the plates were helpful in keeping the remains of loved ones organized. (Some people collect these things- would you???)

- In the 19th century, there was such a thing as a "baby farm", where illegitimate and otherwise unwanted babies and youngsters were placed. As is so often the tragic case with this sort of thing, the babies were sometimes killed and the poison of choice was arsenic, because its symptoms mimic cholera.

-  I now know of at least two man-made lakes, Norfork Lake in Arkansas, and Table Rock Lake in Missouri. Creating Norfork Lake entailed flooding 400 farms, numerous small towns, and also required moving 26 cemeteries. I have been to Table Rock Lake: when the water is still, you can see some of the buildings down at the bottom. Very eerie.

-  Phenobarbitol was used to treat epilepsy in the 1930's and '40's.

- James Thurber lived in a haunted house at one time and wrote about it in his book of short stories, My Life and Hard Times.

I could go on much longer, but I'm sure you all get the idea. It's amazing how much history you can pick up reading and watching ghost stories! When I was a kid, I loved tales of haunted locations, and learned smatterings of history along the way. As an adult, I've also learned to love history. When the two come together - for me, it's positively magic.