I’ve been meaning to post for days now, yet I haven’t. Maybe that’s because not much is going on.

I can’t really talk about the weather since it is behaving itself and as I type it’s a balmy 44 degrees (F) out there this morning at not quite 8 o’clock! Not the single digits; not even below freezing! We’ve had a few flurries of snow but no real snow now for well over a week. I think the spell over our winter-enchanted piece of Earth has broken. The snow is slowly melting but it’s still treacherous to walk on. Maybe today it will be warm enough to slush up that icy crust.

Should I talk about my bra fitting a week ago at Intimacy on Madison Avenue in the city? No, you probably don’t want to hear about that.

Or should I tell you about my bird rescues? Bird Rescue #1: a blue jay rescued from the mouth of Bella that didn’t turn out very well, or Bird Rescue #2: a junco that flew into our sliding glass door that did turn out well.

Maybe my topic of conversation should be about our Colorado cabin and #1: the beleaguered Board of Directors of the Homeowners Association and all the problems associated with that mess. Or #2: the neighbor who lives back behind us and can’t access his property until mid-June because of a very deep snow drift that occurs on the road that goes through our property asking if we’d let them cut another road on our property to go around said drift or build huge ugly snow fences on our property that won’t help anyway. No, you probably don’t want to hear about that either. (We said no to both proposals, by the way.)

I suppose I could talk about why I am dusting off the old Rosetta Stone Spanish software and brushing up on my español. PANAMA (and quite possibly Nicaragua {Granada} too) in May. How’s that for an exotic travel destination? Rick has business and I am tagging along. There are other wives going too, so it should be really fun. I am hoping to see a rain forest environment and people say that a visit to the Panama Canal is a must.

Plus, we’ve been thinking about places to retire (six months in the States/six months “somewhere” else) and this is one place that was on our “maybe” list. This will give us a chance to see what it’s like. There is quite a large ex-pat retiree community in both countries.

So, see? Not much!

Sunrise this morning.

This was the sight that greeted me this morning upon opening up the curtains. What a beautiful sunrise! It was drizzling rain and overcast when I took this photo, but what color! We were awakened around 3:00 a.m. by rain drumming on the metal roof. Rain! The first we’ve seen since our arrival. Everything is so dry and parched here that the threat of fire remains very high, so it was nice to have some moisture. The cabin was chilly when we got up so I started a fire in the wood stove. Now it’s nice and toasty in here and the clouds are lifting, the sun is shining and it promises to be a lovely day.

Tuesday was our day to go into Laramie to grocery shop. We got a late start, stopping in to get reacquainted with neighbors Larry and Donna, so we didn’t arrive in Laramie until 11:30. This time we skipped the Safeway and did our shopping at the super Walmart and Albertson’s. Safeway is off our list of places to shop after getting bad chicken twice on Monday. First we did chicken wings for lunch and when I took a bite I knew they were off. We had also bought a whole chicken to make Bob’s Oven Fried Chicken with but when we opened the plastic wrap on it it had a definite off smell. The sell by date had not even been reached yet. Disgusting! We ended up eating a can of chili that has been in the cupboard for a couple of years (date still good!) and topped it with cornmeal and baked it in the oven.

Anyway, I am getting off track. We got home around 2:30, so most of the day was pretty much taken up with running around. It was a relief to get “home” and just chill out.

We had visitors in the afternoon. Cows. They seem to like our new little clearing. About seven of them decided it was a nice place to hang out and eat some grass, so they stayed for hours. Stupid cows. We are in open range country here which means if you don’t want the free ranging cattle on your land you have to fence them out. Otherwise they go where they want to. My mom would have thrilled to see them. Me? Not so much. They leave droppings everywhere which the dogs seem to think are pretty tasty. Here you can see two of them. The black one is hiding behind the tree.

I also have a correction to make. Our bird is not a Prairie Falcon but a Merlin. And a female or young adult at that. The male has also been around but I haven’t been able to take a photo of him. He is gray instead of brown on the back and very beautiful. She was here again yesterday but we haven’t seen her yet today.

Yesterday we decided to go down the road to Egger’s Pond for our morning walk. It can be a hot walk for the dogs, so we like to do it early in the morning before the sun gets too strong. When we got close to the pond, Bella took off on her own and we could hear splashing. Even though we could not see her we knew where she was. I wish we could have seen her go in for the first time because Egger’s Pond is deeper close to the shore than our pond is. She was completely wet so we know she must have been taken by surprise by the depth. I know I am always posting photos of Water Bella, but I can’t resist. She loves it so much!

It’s a nice long walk along the road and by the time we got home she was mostly dry.

This old tree is along the way and is one of my favorite subjects any time of the day.

Another favorite tree only this one is on our property along the road. Every year I take a photo of it because I know there will come a day when it blows over. Just over the past year another beautiful dead tree next to it has succumbed to the wind and is no longer standing. It’s so sad when these old friends fall over.

Yesterday we just took it easy around the cabin after our walk. It turned out to be a very cloudy day with the threat of rain. Finally a day when that strong western sun wasn’t glaring down on us! We finished a jigsaw puzzle that we were putting together which was quite an accomplishment given how hard it was. Time to start another one!

After dinner we took a drive around Sand Creek Park to see if we could spot any wildlife. We saw nothing. No deer. No elk. No moose. We have not heard any coyotes or owls either since we’ve been here. It seems void of wildlife other than cows but I’m sure we are just missing them. Here is the sun going down on the beaver pond with Bull Mountain in the background, followed by the sunset from last night.

And with that I think I’ve come to the end of this blog post. More to come I’m sure!

Two hard days on the road of 10+ hours each day have landed us in one of our favorite hotels on the trek westward that we stumbled across last year: The Rodeway Inn in Grand Island, Nebraska. The trip so far has been uneventful (unless you count Sam throwing up in his crate on Day 1) and basically easy. The most traffic we’ve encountered was in Illinois. Plus, there is only one rest stop, and a really great one for dogs at that, but it was closed. Boo on Illinois!

Lots of trucks, which I hate. Especially when they swerve around in their lane into mine and then you are not really eager to pass them. I’ve thought of a way to entertain myself while Rick drives and that is make a bunch of placards which would basically grade their driving skills and hold it up to show them as we pass. Things like “stop texting!” “you’re doing a great job of driving” “don’t do that again,” etc. You get the idea. They might even get a kick out of it if I’m careful not to tick them off. What do you think? Of course if they are busy texting they won’t be reading my placards! We saw some people in cars reading maps, books and what looked like actually doing work with bunches of paper flying all over the place. What are people thinking do all those things as they hurtle down the interstate at 70 mph?

We were walking the dogs in the dark last night when I thought I saw a cat by the dumpster. I said something to Rick about “watch Bella because there’s a cat over there” when I saw another furry creature come tumbling out of the dumpster. Oops. Not a cat, and neither was the first one. Raccoons! Have you seen that commercial on TV advertising eyeglasses where the woman calls “here kitty kitty, come snuggle with mommy” and she lets a raccoon inside the house instead of “kitty”? That was the first thing that popped into my mind.

We’re about to order in Dominos’ to our room. This time we’ll try and call the Domino’s in Grand Island instead of the one in Kearney like we did last year. oops! Some guys right outside my window with a lake view are going to take advantage of the BBQ facilities lakeside and grill some burgers or hot dogs. The weather is lovely this year instead of the pouring rain like last year.

Anyway, I am rambling because I haven’t slept well for two night now and am very road weary. I’ve read this over but I am so tired I can’t tell if I made any sense or not. So, I am going to close for now and help Rick decide what we need grocery-wise for the next four days or so at the cabin. Please forgive my errors or lack of sense-making!

Next stop: the cabin!

Preparations will reach a frenzied peak today as we get ready to leave tomorrow on our big road trip West.

The dogs have been groomed, so they are clean and smell good. I had them booked in at their groomer for yesterday but she called me on Sunday to say that she was very sick with some kind of flu and couldn’t do them. OH NO! Instead of waiting until Monday to call around to see if I could find someone else to groom them, Rick and I pooled our efforts and bathed and blew-dried them all on Sunday afternoon. Of course they are all shedding like crazy. What a mess. But, it’s done.

The fig tree was supposed to go over to my neighbor’s yesterday around early evening but we had a pretty good thunderstorm, so that got delayed until later today. It needs watering every day so Aileen has agreed to care for it. It will stand in her flower bed and should be pretty happy over there.

The dogs know something is up. They were ready to go on Sunday when we cleaned out the Suburban and put their crates in it. At least Alex knows what is coming I think. They are barky and jumpy and they are driving me nuts. The cats will try to hide in the morning and we’ll have to find them, but we know all of eBay’s hiding places and Sam is just too darned big to hide.

Rick caught the cold bug that I had over the weekend and isn’t feeling the greatest. Nothing horrible, just sinus headache and stuffy head, sore throat. It only lasted 48 hours with me, so hopefully he’ll be feeling pretty good tomorrow. I hope so since he is the main driver!

The pool was closed yesterday. Sad, but it was time. Now we don’t have to worry about running the robot all the time just to get up the acorns that have made their way to the bottom. It has its nice cozy winter cover on which should act more like a trampoline for the acorns ... boing!

Mostly I am feeling ready and organized but I know I will have last minute packing anxiety. Not that clothes are hard to figure out at the cabin—nothing fancy required! And no dressing up to go into town either. After all, it is just Laramie.

I will probably blog from the cabin if anyone is interested ...

Bella and Sam ... watching ... waiting ...

After a morning of climbing the steps, visiting the Basilique and eating a typical Lyonnaise lunch we did even more walking. This time across the Sôane and the Rhône. Our goal was a famous chocolatier, Bernachon, where we used to buy chocolates when we lived there. We found them easily, and in the same location.

Here is a peek in their front window. Which cake do you prefer?

We did not go after pastries or cakes, mind you, but the delectable palet d’ors, a combination of dark chocolate and sweet cream adorned with real gold leaf—the house specialty.

We wanted to buy some as a gift for our friends Danièle and Greg whose house we were going to for dinner the following night, and who just so happened to introduce us to palet d’ors in the first place. And of course a box for ourselves.

Walking back we took a different route and just happened to see the sign to Les Halles. Les Halles! We had forgotten all about this incredible indoor gourmet market! We knew we had to make the side trip. How fortuitous! The building did not look like we remembered, having undergone an extreme makeover a few years ago. It now bore Paul Bocuse’s name as well.

Are you ready to enter? Do you have anything available close by to wipe the drool from your mouth with? Maybe you won’t need it if you don’t like cheese, foie gras, or other delectable goodies.

Sausages.

And the counter that had me salivating with one of my favorite things: foie gras—and so many different ways.

Anyone for foie gras kabobs? Foie gras paired with duck wing meat. Oh. my. god. It’s a good thing I had no way to cook these or one of these would have come home with me. Seriously.

These were just little appetizers. We were now wishing we hadn’t already eaten lunch.

Bresse chickens, sold with the head and feet on so you know that’s what they are. (They have blue feet.) Very pricey and very delicious! (I know these two photos may be too graphic for some of you, but this is the way these birds are sold in markets.)

Pintade (guinea fowl). Very tasty. I miss being able to buy guinea fowl. Their meat is not white, but not dark.

Bread anyone?

And last, but certainly not least because man (or woman) cannot live by bread alone: cheese! They say that France has 365 different varieties of cheese, one cheese for each day of the year but I am convinced there are a lot more than that. Just take a look at a small sampling ...

I’ve either made you hungry or you were completely grossed out by this post (especially if you’re vegetarian)! I know I made myself hungry! I’m ready to go back!

P.S. I really don’t like normal liver all that much. I can eat chicken liver pâté, but not any other kind of cooked liver. Other than foie gras of course. I know it’s not P.C. but I can’t help myself! That’s what living in France did to me!