Tag: travel

Beautiful Alberta Canada

I had my first look at Alberta Canada and it will not be my last. My daughter had to get her daughter back to school in Turner Valley, Alberta Canada after she was a bridesmaid in her sister’s wedding. Because my daughter was driving up one day and back the next after having spent a harried week getting ready for and doing the wedding, I offered to ride along so she didn’t have to drive back alone.

We left Cove, Or at 6 AM on Sunday morning. We arrived at Turner Valley at 8 PM. We only made a few stops along with way for gas, rest areas, and food. For the most part we moved right along to get my granddaughter back by 8 PM. After helping her get her stuff into her room and saying goodbye we continued up to Calgary where my son-in-law had reserved a hotel room for us.

By the time we got there, we were tired, but a funny thing, my sister-in-law and her husband who are riding their Harleys up to Alaska were also spending the night in Calgary and it was a hotel only a block away from where we ended up. So we met them for dessert at a Denny’s that was in between our hotels.

Monday morning we slept in until 6:30. Grabbed breakfast at the hotel and headed to Banff. My daughter wanted to see it. And I had heard a lot about it and wanted to see it as well.

I had crossed the Rocky Mountains in the U.S. but I have to say the Canadian Rockies are majestic and beautiful! I couldn’t stop pointing out the odd peaks, the trees, the sheer height and mass of the mountains.

On our way up to the granddaughter’s school I spotted a moose in a marsh, then we had oodles of elk a ways off the road and some right next to the road. One that almost walked out onto the road in front of us. But all those times, I was so in awe, I forgot to take photos. So the next day I had my phone ready to take photos of wildlife and we didn’t see any except for two small bull elk in the street of Banff.

Because we didn’t have a set time to get home on Monday, we did stop a few times to take in the scenery.

In Banff we got out and took a photo of the Fairmont Hotel. It is just WOW! It’s large, regal, and the setting of the mountain behind it just makes it all the more remarkable.

After Banff we headed south and came across Numa Falls. It was amazing to see the glacier blue water falling, splashing and rushing down the falls.

I took a photo of the icy blue river we drove alongside.

And then we came to a spot where the highway literally goes through a crack in the rocky mountains. The crack was made by time and water.

A waterfall splashes down over rocks and through a deep crevice.

The trip was beautiful and awe-inspiring. We arrived back home by 9 PM Monday night. I want to go again but spend time getting to see some of the things that we just read the signs. Perhaps once hubby retires we can do some sightseeing.

I’ll leave you with this video I took from the car.

My Very Excellent Vacation

Windmill in Ouderkerk

Whoops! I had planned to keep going with a post every two weeks while on vacation. That didn’t happen! To be truthful I was exhausted at the end of each day and while I did keep a journal of what we did each day, I didn’t get into all the details of the places we saw. That will happen here over the next couple of months as I share my Bucket list Vacation with you.

To start, my oldest daughter, Angie, and the 16-year-old daughter, Rietta, of my other daughter went with me. We had to be bright-eyed at 4:30 am the day we left to be on time for the departure of our flight. Which meant spending the night in Boise and taking a hotel shuttle to the airport. I wondered how the trip would go when the hotel shuttle didn’t wait for us because the phone in our hotel didn’t work when they tried to call to say the shuttle was early. The flight to Dallas was uneventful as was the 8 1/2 hour flight from Dallas to Amsterdam, losing one night’s sleep..

Brick streets in Ouderkerk

We were met at the Amsterdam airport by my husband’s cousin, Janneke. She took us to Ouderkerk on the bus. She felt we wouldn’t be stuck in traffic by taking the bus, since we arrived in Amsterdam at 8 am on the 12th having left on the 11th in the U.S. Her mother met us at Janneke’s house with apple pie and we had tea. After the treat, we settled in and took a walk around Ouderkerk. We walked past a windmill being repaired, century old buildings in the town, and bought bread at the bakery.

Back at the house we had bread and homemade tomato soup before going on a car ride around the local area. The roads around Ouderkerk are narrow one-lane roads. When you meet another vehicle the one that has a wider edge on their side pulls over to the let the other vehicle pass. These roads were nerve wracking to me, because I felt many drove too fast for that type of situation.

Back at our cousin’s house we took a nap, visited, had dinner, and visited some more before going to bed.

The second day we went to Zaanse Schans, a small older town with many old windmills. The windmills were built to grind barley, rice, paper, wood, edible oils, mustard, tobacco, hemp, and many other things including the powders to make colors. We walked through several of the windmills to see how they worked and even stood up on top near the blades of one.

The three travelers on the top of a windmill.

After touring the windmills, or molen as they are called in Dutch, we wandered through the shops. Angie enjoyed the Catharina Hoeve building where the Henri Willig cheese company showed how cheese was made using cow, sheep, and goat milk.

They had tasting areas of all the cheeses that could be purchased.

This was Angie’s favorite thing!

Angie in her happy place.

Yes, we bought cheese while we were there. We also went to the wooden shoe factory, and the oldest first market of Albert Heinig.

Me saying “Cheese!”

From there we sauntered through shops and wonderful old houses and gardens. It was a good day and good start to your visit.

Because it was a tourist place, there were plenty of photo opportunities.

Angie and Janneke
Angie and I in front of a heart made of wooden shoes.

Flying By

Summer that is! Wow! It’s almost the end of July. I can’t believe this month is almost over.

I spent most of this month with my butt in the chair writing the next Spotted Pony Casino Mystery. I wanted it to be published right before I go on a vacation in September. It is written, polished and off to my critique partners and beta-readers. I am proud of myself for writing over 70,000 words in 25 days.

My cover designer has the cover made.

Now to get the back cover blurb written and some memes made to promote the pre-order and the release of the book. That’s what the rest of this month and all of next month will be about. Setting up all my blog posts and promotions through my vacation. I don’t want to worry about having to get things out on a schedule when I’m enjoying traveling with my oldest daughter and granddaughter. I’ll have more about the trip in future posts.

I made time this month for two fun things. The first one was learning how to make Tule baskets from a Paiute woman. My daughter and I took a class from Beverly Beers. It was fun and taught me a bit about the culture and that I need to really practice if I want to make tight baskets. Here are some photos of the process.

We started with ten pieces of tule that had been soaked. You squeeze out the water and kind of flatten them in the process.

The next step was crossing five pieces over the other five and weaving them together to make the bottom of the basket.

When the bottom was woven, then a longer piece of tule was bend in two and then used as the weaver to go around the basket. I struggled with twisting the pieces correctly in between the uptight pieces. Beverly took mine out at one point and made me start over.

My finished product. We were told we could soak them and then put them around a can or jar to let them dry to the that shape if we wanted a perfectly round basket.

This is what it looked like after it dried and I added the tule rose I made (with help from my daughter) and the dried seeds that were on the end of one of the tules.

The other fun thing was attending the Tamkaliks Powwow in Wallowa Oregon. I enjoy the ceremonies, the dancing, and visiting with the vendors. I found a young woman who was selling healing teas and balms from the Umatilla tribe who gave me her email so I can ask her questions to hopefully give my Spotted Pony Casino books more color and influence of the culture.

Here is a youtube video I took of the horse procession at the powwow. It is my favorite part of the event.

Have you ever attended a powwow? I enjoy the singing and drumming as much as the colorful regalia and dancing.

My Happy Place, The Oregon Coast

I’m spending a week at the Oregon Coast to finish writing a book. Why do you say do I need to go to the coast to write? Because at home I have too many distractions. Like, feeding animals, doing laundry, making meals, cleaning house, and many more things that take my attention away from the fact I have a book to finish.

Here on the coast, I write and I walk on the beach to get fresh air and energize my brain. I always manage to write a lot when I’m here. If I can finish the book before it’s time to leave, I can start figuring out the next book.

Here are some of the fun things I’ve seen while on my walks.

This was the scene we had the first night as we sat outside at a restaurant. The first day at the coast was beautiful. The warmest we’ve had and the prettiest sunset.

This is a starfish I found on one of my walks. I thought “wow this is so unusual” and then another day there were six starfish on the beach. I threw them back into the water. I don’t know if they were still alive or not. There weren’t any rocks around for them to have been clinging to so I wasn’t sure if they had died and were being carried around on the waves or what.

As aways with a walk on the beach there are seagulls flying and fighting over the crabs and other sea creatures that the birds eat.

I like to take photos that encompass more than the main object in the photo. This is a mussel shell. The iridescent colors didn’t show up in the photo as much as they did in person but I liked the scope of the photo.

I liked the lines made in the water by the incoming and outgoing waves that crossed at this point on the beach.

This is my favorite sight at the beach. It was a trail made by a crustacean heading back to the water. At first, I thought someone had pushed a rock through the sand, but I saw the little almost zipper like markings in the middle of the track and picked the critter up to see where his head was buried in the sand and see his body poking out of the shell. So I set him back down and took a photo.

The beach is one of my favorite places to go to reenergize and get a book finished. I can’t wait until next month when hubby and I come back over to celebrate our 45th anniversary!

And don’t forget my latest release, The Pinch is set on the Oregon Coast in a different coastal town.

Book 5
Spotted Pony Casino Mysteries
Dela Alvaro, head of security for the Spotted Pony Casino, is asked to do a security check of a casino on the Oregon Coast. She no sooner starts her rounds at the casino and a child is kidnapped. The parents are a dubious couple. Special Agent Quinn Pierce of the FBI has been out to get the father for some time.

One of Dela’s best friends from the Army appears and they catch up, only to find her friend strangled the next morning after having divulged to Dela she may have photos of the kidnapping.

As Dela struggles with the violent death of yet another best friend, her lover, Tribal Officer Heath Seaver, arrives and the two begin untangling the lies, bribes, and murders.

In the end, as Heath carries the child to safety, Dela must face a cunning killer alone.

Purchase link: https://books2read.com/u/38Y787

ebook $4.99 – Print $14.99 – Audio $14.99

Aloha!

After 40 years, I finally talked my hubby into going with me to Hawaii! I will have to say the flight over wore us both out! We left Boise, ID at 3 pm CST and arrived in Kauai at 10 pm then drove another hour to where we are staying. It was only 26 miles but the highest they allow you to drive is 50 mph and most of the time it is 40 and 35. Needless to say it was 2 pm our time.

Day one, even though we had little sleep we woke at our regular time. Because we had come is so late, we didn’t stop at a store for groceries. We set out heading north and eventually found a restaurant open in Hanalei. It was a fun little spot with two women cooking and serving. The guava juice was delicious! And my breakfast quesadilla with white rice was tasty.

We drove on north to Haena Beach that has a cave that looks as if it has either been a lava tube or worn in through time from the ocean. There wasn’t a sign to tell us which. I put my feet in the water and walked a bit on the beach. So far, I’m thinking I like my Oregon beaches better. But you can’t beat the beautiful blue water and sunshine!

Cave.
Haena Beach

On the way back we stopped at a grocery store and stocked up for breakfast and a light dinner the rest of the week. And lots of water and drinks. While it is so moist here you feel sticky all the time, we noticed we aren’t drinking enough.

After putting the groceries away we decided to go check out Kilauea Lighthouse that isn’t far from where we are staying. It was interesting but a bit disappointing that we didn’t get to go in it. It has some great history about saving a ship and helping out during WWI. It is also a bird refuge for the Red-footed Boobie and NeNe and well as other water birds.

We stopped a small little restaurt called The Bistro in Kilauea. It was only serving bar fare until 5:30 but what they had on that menu was fine. I had the best ribs and crunchy, tasty coleslaw I’ve ever had. Hubby had a pulled pork sandwich and said it was delicious. So far the food has not let us down. 😉

The Bistro
Wailua Falls

After ten hours sleep. Yes! We were asleep early because of the lack of sleep the night before. We roused early again, walked to the cliff edge and watched the sun lighten up our part of the island. After that we ate breakfast and headed out to see Wailua Falls. The twin falls made popular because they were used on the opening of Fantasy Island TV show. I was a bit disappointed as I had read you could walk to the falls. There were signs that said no trespassing, no trail.

After that, I wanted to go to the Kauai Museum. It told the history of the island. I found the information about Bird Catchers interesting. Because red and yellow bird feathers were favored for the royal families clothing men could make good money bringing in the colored feathers.

Cape decorated with bird feathers

After the museum, I suggested we go see another Falls that it said we could hike to. We went to the other Falls, saw cars lined up but we couldn’t see the falls or any signs that said there was a trail, only no trespassing signs. So we back tracked and went to the Kona Coffee Plantation. It was fun to see and my husband loved seeing how coffee was grown.

Coffee Harvester

After the plantation we stopped in Koloa and had lunch at an Italian Restaurant. After eating we walked the street and I found an art gallery. I went in and asked the woman working there about ideas I had for a Shandra book and how to connect her to the art world in Kauai. She was helpful and with some more digging on the internet, I should have some good info to get the book figured out. Then we drove to Poipu Beach. There were lots of fancy houses for sale on one street. We wondered about that. Then headed back toward where we are staying.

Tomorrow the plan is to get up early and drive the Wiamea Road. I’ll let you know about that in another post.

What Month Is It? by Paty Jager

Wallowa Mountains- where I grew up and where Gabriel Hawke series is set.

Wow! Just Wow!

I started the month watching two of my granddaughter’s while our daughter and her husband went on a much needed vacation. As their parents were leaving it started snowing and by the time it stopped we were under two feet of snow.

One of the several times my granddaughter removed snow from the patio.

The oldest and I dug paths for small dogs to potty and so I could hopefully turn around and get out the uphill driveway. There wasn’t any school for four days, then Friday I had to transport the girls around to school and events. We hunkered down over the weekend and they had school on Tuesday and I was able to come home on Wednesday when their parents returned.

I arrived home to laundry, cleaning up after a husband and three dogs, and packing for a two stop book signing trip. I was home a day and a half and headed back out on the road for the signings.

I was able to spend several hours with my dad who is in a senior living facility before my first event in the county where I grew up and where I’ve set my Gabriel Hawke series.

After a good night’s sleep there, I set off to Clarkston, WA for my signing from noon to three on Saturday. I had a beautiful drive with sunshine and snowy hills.

Rattlesnake grade: the only way in or out of the county to the north.

I met up with my brother and his wife, to see where they live now and learn more about his new job. After a night and morning with them, I headed to Pendleton, OR. I wanted to go to the Tamástslikt Cultural Center, but while everything in the Casino/motel where I stayed, that is next door, said it opened at 9 am, I arrived and found it wouldn’t open until 10. I’d already sat around for two hours waiting for 9 o’clock to roll around and decided to just head for home.

I had great roads on the drive home and stopped off at Ontario, Oregon to do some grocery shopping before arriving home around 3 pm. And that’s when I realized nearly half of March had gone by while I was watching granddaughters and traveling for book signings. My hubby was on the phone to his mother wishing her a happy birthday. I said, “It’s the twelfth already?”

I came home to sunshine and thoughts of riding my new horse, but now…it is snowing again. Not sure when winter will decided it’s over and spring can lighten everyone’s moods.

I hope you are having a safe winter and jump into spring with both feet when it finally arrives.