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Oregon - Portland Japanese Garden

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Oregon is a beautiful place, full of lush plant life, but they also have a Japanese Garden in Portland. According to their website, the idea for the garden came after WWII, when states across the U.S. were founding their own Japanese Gardens in order to heal between the cultures. There had previously been a zoo in this area, but it had been moved back to its original location, though still in Washington Park, in 1959. With that area cleared again, it was decided that this would be the location of the garden. The garden entryway - Antique Gate In 1961, they brought on Professor Takuma Tono to design the garden. He decided to use five different styles of gardens to represent different times in history. These consist of Strolling Pond Garden, Tea Garden, Natural Garden, Sand and Stone Garden, and Flat Garden. The garden opened in 1967, though it wasn't yet complete, and additional areas and buildings were built throughout the years. There's now a tea room, a gift shop, and severa...
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Whitby Heritage Trail - A City Tour Via Art

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This is the second post in a series about Whitby, to be posted the second Wednesday of each month. One of the fun things we did in Whitby was track down the sculptures from the Heritage Trail that are spread out around the entire main part of the town. The sculptures were created by Emma Stothard , a Whitby resident and sculptor. She's known for steel wire and willow sculptures of animals. There is a big map showing where to find the sculptures, yet we missed one we passed nearby for a couple days. She was so discreetly situated in front of a church to the right of where we were turning left to get to the public area full of shops and restaurants. I think she was closest to the residential area out of all the others. Gansey Knitter She's known as the Gansey Knitter, and is located on Flowergate. One can fall down a rabbit hole researching ganseys, but the short version is that these are specialized jumpers/sweaters fishermen wore. They were tightly knitted with shortened sleeve...
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Whitby, An Introduction

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I fell in love with Whitby the moment our train rumbled under a viaduct and around a curve, exposing the abbey standing watch over the town.  Below the matriarch on the hill, a bustling harbor town was visible. A narrow inlet and two small lighthouses guarded the entrance, and rowing teams made their way in and out. Stepping out of the train station, I couldn't take my eyes off the dark structure above in all its glory. Next to it stood an impressive church, but my eyes were drawn back to the abbey. Even the giant, blue pirate ship couldn't distract me, despite my fascination with pirate themes. I'll be doing a series the second week of each month about the town, including the abbey and a series of sculptures one can hunt for, each with a story of its heritage. I was with a wonderful group of people on a writing retreat around Yorkshire, and Whitby was a one-night stop partway through. We'd taken a historic steam train across lush landscapes full of sheep to get there (...
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Why Travel? A Background

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I was going to jump in with a post about the transportation issues presented in going to different countries than you're used to, but that will be a future post instead. Also, I'm hoping to post at least once per month, but looking at twice per month.  Instead, today I thought I'd post about my history of travel and why I've come to love it so much. My dad was Air Force, which for many kids would have meant a lot of travel and moving, but he left the AF when I was young. I was born in California, which is where my dad was stationed (Travis Air Force Base, near Fairfield), but both of my parents had family in Oregon, so they ultimately moved us back to Salem, Oregon, which was a bit of a mid-point between the two families. Eventually, my dad took a job in Maryland, so we moved there, and then a few years later we almost moved to England. We were packed up and ready to go when he learned that where we were going I would have to be sent to boarding school. He ended up stay...
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UK Trip Favorites - Hydration

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I recently went to England, primarily to Yorkshire to visit Whitby and York, and I had some items that made things much easier on me, so I thought I'd pass them along (but also document them so I can look back at this next time I travel and remember to bring them). (**If you're looking for my Insecure Writer's Support Group post, go to my writing blog HERE **) Hydration One of my big 'tisms (elements of my autism that affect me) is that I can't drink water unless it's ice cold. The warmer the water gets, the more unpleasant flavors I find as I try to choke it down. Courtesy of an acquaintance who'd spoken of her first venture to Germany, I knew in advance ice wasn't as big a thing in at least some European countries the way it is in the U.S., so I needed a solution that would help keep me hydrated.  Some of the things I tried that helped: Soda/flavored drinks/carbonated water:   For whatever reason, I can drink other drinks without them needing to be so ...
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Hi and Welcome!

My primary blog is about writing, but I wanted a place to document my travels, share tips I learn while traveling, and openly discuss things like autism, hypermobility, POTS, fibromyalgia, perimenopause, and other aspects of life I live and learn about. I thought about just sharing these things on the writing blog, but very little will have to do with actual writing, so I decided to keep it separate. I may at times put the same post on both sites if I can't decide which one it belongs on. I love passing along the things I learn and hopefully helping other people who might identify with some of those things or know someone who might. There are too many topics that society frowns on people talking about, and I think that's damaging. At the very least, it's not helping anyone. But beyond that, these things are just a part of my life, and discussing them along with things like vacations and events is just natural. More natural than pretending I don't have these things or th...
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