Took this picture on Christmas Day 2022. Self had driven to Mendocino to de-stress. Mostly, she just walks around the Village, gets take-out from Patterson’s, and browses in Gallery Bookshop. The Corner Bakery makes the best tamales! You have to get there early: they might sell out.
Posting for Travel with Intent’s One Word Sunday.
The sign said “Open” but the bakery was closed in honor of Christmas. Whose bikes were those, then?
Thanks to Wind Kisses for hosting this week and for coming up with the awesome prompt, MESSAGES!
Here are a few “message” pictures from self’s archives, all places in California:
For the second year in a row, self spent Christmas in Mendocino. She loves being in the tiny, picturesque village clinging to the headlands off US-1. Her favorite doors/haunts (L to R): Mendocino Chocolate Company on Main (the main store is in Fort Bragg); Corners of the Mouth organic grocery (in a re-purposed church, on Ukiah); a vintage store in downtown Fort Bragg; and the Garden Bakery, in an alley next to the Great Put-On clothing boutique on Albion.
Posting for No Facilities’ Thursday Doors.
Thanks to Journeys with Jonbo for hosting the Cellpic Sunday challenge.
A few days ago, self met a friend for lunch at Mademoiselle Colette, a local patisserie. They offer salads and soup of the day, plus croissants and brioches. Not to mention the most delicious cakes!
Love the little Christmas trees. She just had to take a picture.
Joseph Kanon channeling Ernest Hemingway:
Aaron got up, passing under the low branches of the tree, and headed down the street, the white basilica gleaming on his right. Café Napoli. If this was the right day. His other lifeline. No Panama hat this time. That had been left behind in the rush out of Ortiz’s office. Clothes rumpled after the safe house. A bandage on his forehead. Not a leisurely meal — impossible when you’re this alert, watching everything. Maybe just a glass of wine, something to hold the table, until somebody turned up with an envelope.
— The Accomplice, p. 247
It’s been a hectic two days of hard traveling, but now self is almost to her destination, and she only has to get on the bus to Monaghan tomorrow.
Here’s her latest installment for Life of B’s November Squares Challenge: Walking Squares.
Dublin is warm! And sunny! Perfect walking weather. From her Airbnb on Aungier Road, she walked to the Chester Beatty Museum (in Dublin Castle), which is a jewel of a museum, with the most amazing collection of ancient texts, all compiled by one man, Chester Beatty, who deserves to be a household name. She spent about three hours there (10 a.m. to 1 p.m.) today. The museum has a café/restaurant (called, appropriately, The Silk Road), where you can take a break and eat a wide variety of hot food and/or pastries/salads/cakes/coffee.
The Chester Beatty is a small museum (only 1 % of the permanent collection is on display at any one time) but this is the Holy Grail of book collectors. If you can, take a docent tour. They’re 5:30 p.m. on Wednesdays and 11:30 a.m. on Saturdays. There are also excellent downloadable audio tours (free)
Here she is last night, at the post-rehearsal reception, in one of San Francisco’s premiere Tiki Bars, Pagan Idol on Bush.
It seems only yesterday when she wrote me a note: “Tita, I’m accepting Stanford because of you.”
Posting for Debbie Smyth’s Six-Word Saturday Challenge.
Oooh, self loves this week’s CFFC prompt! She loves taking pictures of people. Thank you, Cee Neuner!
Challenge coming to you via Debbie Smyth’s fantastic blog, Travel with Intent.
Self and the managing editor of Miami University Press, Amy Toland, somehow manage to meet up in London every May/June (with the exception of the lockdown years: 2020 and 2021).
Look at our BIG BIG smiles! And why shouldn’t we be smiling? It was June, and we were standing in front of the London Review Cakeshop in Bloomsbury! YAY for the memories!
I am fascinated by Land’s End. It’s the tip of San Francisco that abuts into the Pacific Ocean. It’s at one end of the Great Highway, past Ocean Beach.
Now, a section of the Great Highway has been blocked off, so I can’t take that iconic drive through the sand dunes any longer. I have to detour through the Outer Richmond before doubling back to the ocean.
The Cliff House is the only remaining landmark. It’s being used temporarily as a museum and art gallery. I heard a restaurant was going to take it over. Good. I’d only been at the old restaurant a handful of times, but I loved that the tables were arranged next to big, plate-glass windows that made me feel as if I were right IN the surf.
Posting this for Jez’s WWE Challenge.
Stay tuned.
Kanlaon 