On The Road Again

Well, this isn't quite accurate. We are not on a road trip this time. We are with a lot of strangers on a cruise to South American. By the time you read this we are probably at sea somewhere.

The past month was not one of my favorites. It was all about unpacking, organizing, and repacking. This takes a lot of time as we need to keep our luggage small and portable but don't want to forget anything. We don't know how long we'll be gone this time, nor do we know exactly where we are going but we have tentative plan to return (somewhere) in February. In addition, I am bringing a lot of random Amazon items for a friend in Argentina including a painting, two posters, a dog umbrella, and a large wooden chicken.

We are starting with a two week cruise. The ports of call include Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, Costa Rica, two stops in Peru and two stops in Chile. If possible I'll probably post some photos on Facebook. I have a camera now. You may know that I packed my old one away last year and couldn't find it so all my photos from the past year have been taken on my iPhone which has some limitations.

Here are a few photos of places we wil visit from our last cruise to South America:

These are some solid gold masks from the Larco Museum in Lima Peru. Imagine how impressive these would be when a chief wore them by firelight.  

A street scene in Lima, Peru.

Lima, Peru

A maoi statue from Easter Island in the archeological museum in La Serena, Chile.

The harbor of La Serena 

La Serena harbor

Valparaiso, Chile is famous for its hundreds of murals. Here I was having a little fun with one. 

A painting that shows the hills and the colorful house of Valparaiso, Chile.

A very green building- that is a garden growing on the side of the building in Santiago, Chile the most modern city in South America.

Santiago, Chile

After a week or so in Chile during Christmas we are heading to Argentina. Our first stop is the state of Mendoza to visit an American friend married to an Argentinian. They live in a large home on a lot of acreage in a small town, We are really looking forward to this unique opportunity to explore a region most travelers don't get to see. As I may have said before, these days major cities are overrun with tourists so it is a delight to go somewhere more remote.

Eventually, we will head down to Buenos Aires for a while. We also plan to visit Uruguay which is just across the river from Buenos Aires. We don't know how long we will spend in these destinations  and don't know what comes after that.
Here are a few photos from Buenos Aires.

The Obelisco (obelisk) of Buenos Aires is the icon of the city. And visible for quite a long distance.
This photo was taken in November when the jaccaranda are in bloom. 

Buenos Aires has a LOT of demonstrations, almost every day. Here is a photo of one from a few years back. 

9 de Julio is the widest street in the world, 7 lanes in each direction. It takes two whole lights to cross it.

Where Are You From?

Almost daily someone asks "Where are you from?" I find this an awkward question partially because my answers are awkward.

I start by saying, "We were formerly from Scottsdale, Arizona." If they want more and they always do, I have a couple of choices. I can say,  "We sold our home last winter and are now homeless people living out of our car." Now this is true but it is a real conversation stopper so I rarely say this.  My other answer has been that "we are political refugees from the United States." This is a conversation starter. Everyone is sympathetic and has plenty to say on this subject. Which is why I sometimes give answer #1 instead. The last thing I want to do is talk politics. Indeed we left home to avoid talking about it. And anyway, since the election last week I feel a little less alienated.

But the question continues. Where are we from and where do we want to be from? We started our travels in Portugal because we had heard good things about it and thought perhaps we would want to live there for a while. However, we found it a nice place to visit but wouldn't want to live there. And, I still think about where should we live every day.

Do you know any single people who are so fussy about what they want and don't want in a date or mate that they find it hard to connect with someone? I think that we are that way about finding a place to settle down. We are so clear about what we are looking for and what we don't want that no place has it all and no place feels like home. And yet eventually we will need to pick a place. The result of the elections made a small difference. Or did it? I see that evil Joe Ariapo was not only pardoned by Trump but ran for US Senate in the primaries in this last election. Arizona offers a great quality of life but I am not willing to put up with crap like that again.

I often meet seniors who have moved recently and they don’t seem as troubled as I about making a bad decision. Recently I met someone building their retirement dream home on 10 acres in a town with no medical services (a doctor visits once a week) and the nearest hospital is an hour away. Am I obsessing or is he naive?

We are about to take a cruise down to South America. Every single person we meet will ask, "Where are you from?" I have about three more weeks to come up with a suitable and sociable answer.

Shopping in my Closet

The past 10 months have been a non-stop opportunity to re-evaluate my relationship to possessions. Of course, we all know it is much easier to get new stuff than get rid of stuff, but I had no idea how hard it was going to be not to accumulate new possessions. I am traveling light and have done a good job not to get new 'stuff'. Three months in Europe and all I bought was one scarf. But now that I am regrouping it is a greater struggle not to get attached to the things from the storage locker.

We arrived back in Arizona a few days ago and are spending a month here before heading to South America for the winter. The first thing we did was visit our storage space. When we sold our home we sold or gave away most of our furniture and possessions, but we are storing some living room furniture, bedroom furniture, and our clothes. 

This is literally everything we own 

Franklin warned me that the storage lockers were packed tight floor to ceiling and I probably would not be able to find my camera. It is sad but true. It is cheaper to buy another camera than hire movers to all this stuff around. But I do want a camera for our next year of travel. The thrill of iPhone photography has worn off and I need more zoom than the phone offers. I like my old camera and have extra batteries and a charger so it makes sense- at least to me- to buy the identical 5 year old camera. 

Even without having access to most of the items we are storing,  I did find some treasures as I went shopping in my closet. First of all, everything is exactly my size and my taste which makes this much better than shopping in a store. I have not ventured yet into the wardrobe boxes that hold most of my clothes, (partially because one is 6 or more feet in the air) nor gotten into my bureau. I just found some misplaced items but each one delights me. Two or three new dancing outfits, a cashmere sweater, a denim jacket, some dancing shoes, a shawl, my bicycle. Every find is a thrill. It is just my taste! I don't see anything I don't love because I gave away everything I didn't love last year. 

When I say misplaced items what I mean is this. Our house sold the first day on the market and we had only 10 days to move out. I had already been selling things online for a year so some of the furniture was already gone but during those last 10 days I gave away three truckloads of furniture. And while I don’t remember it clearly,  at the very end someone must have been just throwing random stuff into boxes. Anyway, I could access a couple of boxes with mismatched stuff which are kind of fun to look through. but make no sense. A bicycle helmet, a sweater, a purse, old letters. Combinations like that. 

Scottsdale looks wonderful to us too. What a beautiful town! Indeed I have fallen in love with it again, particularly after it elected a Democrat senator for the first time since 1988. 

Anyway, the living out of our car portion of our travels is over for a while. We head out soon on a cruise to South America. We're not sure where we are going or how long we'll be gone but plan to continue our usual Portland/Canada/Portland life late next spring. I'll be blogging again, as I usually do when I travel. Talk to you again soon.

Sintra, Portugal, Home to Castles, Palaces, and Madonna

Sintra is a picturesque town and UNESCO site not far from Lisbon, Portugal where we stayed for several weeks last spring. It was home to royalty and deposed royalty from across Europe for several centuries. It is still home to the rich and famous, currently including Madonna.

There are numerous villas, palaces and castles in a variety of architectural styles, from Romantic to Moorish, each more dramatic and fanciful than the next. Here are a few photos. Ok, more than a few. We lived nearby in Cascais for more than a month so we had plenty of time to visit several times.

These three  photos above (and several below) are the Pena Palace, a Moorish fantasy that inspired Ludwig to create Neuschwanstein and Disney to create his Fantasyland Castle.

An overview of Pena Palace. Not my photo

The Amazing Architecture of Barcelona

If I had my life to live over I might have become an architect. I am fascinated by beautiful and interesting buildings.

Barcelona has so many architectural gems that Franklin and I walked around looking up all the time to admire everything from gothic masterpieces and Modernista marvels. (Modernista is the term for Catalan art nouveau style buildings largely from the late 1800s through the 1920).

Without further ado here are some gorgeous buildings and interesting architectural details. I am not going to try to identify them.  Just enjoy the eye candy.