Following Route 66 while driving across the Texas panhandle was nothing to write home about.  No offense meant to any Texans out there, but whoa… there’s just nothing out there and it’s just how we saw it.  Until we found the infamous Cadillac Ranch.

Does age really matter?  Is it in fact just a number?  Today, Abi put both feet into his 6th decade of life.  Happy Birthday babe.  When I was a kid, teenager, adolescent, I thought 60’s!  OMG!  That is SO old!  Isn’t it interesting though – now that Abi has arrived (with me following a few years behind) I’m looking at 60 and thinking, eh.  It’s just a number, right?

I’m a sucker for a classic Disney movie and in my book Hayley Mills did them best.  Hayley brought me such classics as The Parent Trap, PollyAnna (for which she won the 1960 Academy Juvenile Award in 1960), The Chalk Garden, Summer Magic and the list goes on… but my favorite has to be The Moon-Spinners, (the 5th out of 6 Disney movies in which she starred) which is when Hayley introduced me to Greece and to windmills.

Leaving Oklahoma City we easily picked up Route 66 and followed it for quite awhile.  We happened upon, of all places, the Fort at El Reno which is on the Chisholm Trail and then we found ourselves in Clinton, Oklahoma.  Both unexpected stops, but both were well-appreciated.

When we drove Route 66 in 2008 we had a basic game plan, but some of the most memorable times on our trip were the unplanned side trips and stops at places we didn’t realize would even fall into our path – such as finding the national memorial in Oklahoma City, or Abraham Lincoln’s home in Springfield, Illinois.

While visiting Rocky Ridge Farm – home of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her husband, Almanzo – we met two moms and their young daughters who were on their own special road trip; following the travels of the Ingalls family. When we told them we were following Route 66 and would be passing through a corner of Kansas, they eagerly encouraged us to take a side trip to Independence, KS to visit the Ingalls homestead.  And that’s just what we did.

On our way to Galena, Kansas we said good-bye to Missouri and crossed the state border into Kansas, I jotted a note in my little traveling spiral notebook that read, “Phew… Kansas!”

This post is shared in collaboration with One Road at a Time ~

Ways to Enjoy the Arctic

The Arctic is a vast polar region situated at the most northernmost part of the planet. It is made up of a whole host of countries including Canada, Russia, Greenland, Finland and Iceland, along with the Arctic Ocean itself.  Because of its unique ecosystem, spare indigenous population and distinctive wildlife, traveling to the Arctic is appealing to the more adventurous holidaymakers out there.

I was scrolling through Facebook a few days ago and came across this photo and honestly, my mouth started watering.  I just knew I had to get the recipe up on the blog for all of you!  I emailed the owner of the Hispanic Kitchen website and with his permission, here you go.  Unfortunately, I cannot indulge because I am allergic to shellfish, so please give them a try and let us all know how good they really are!

I’m not exactly sure when I became obsessed fascinated with the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder, but I’ve had a relationship (in my head) with her for as long as I can remember.