alexandriacardinals

May 8

[Just home from Europe the night before.  Battling jet lag, it was a beautiful day to see Josie at the winery.]

May 10

[The last Central Lakes Concert Association concert of the year with Salut Salon.  OK, this wasn’t a performance from that night, but they did perform this one!  🙂  ]

May 13

[The Super’s lilacs]

[We weren’t even home for five days when we were off again on an all-day drive to Indiana for the grandson’s graduation from Purdue.]

[And a couple of “bones” for our fellow CCLers!]

[With I-65 traffic around Purdue.]

May 14

[Noblesville, home to Tom’s grandparents Fran and Ed and previous home to Tom, Jami, and Danny.  Here Fran takes us on a tour of the local museum, ex the county jail!]

[It seemed logical to me that these Booths would be related to the great New Yorker cartoonist, George Booth, but could find no such connection?]

[“Lucky” was the creator of the Hell Drivers in the 30’s – his mantle was subsequently picked up by the likes of Joey Chitwood.]

[I warned them of the risk of shoplifting in the exotic section of Victoria’s Secret!]

[The bail bondsman and our tour guide was a very knowledgeable student about to become a sophomore for IUPUI.]

[The original graffiti still on the cell walls.  The jail was closed in 1977, late enough to have the KISS logo represented. . . ]

[You’ll never take me alive, copper!  (Oh, I guess you already did?)]

[A very bad guy and a KKK (not Kappa Kappa Kappa in this instance) grand dragon.]

[And Manson was here – perhaps in this cell?]

[Noblesville town center]

[New artist studios and first visit by Fran, the local.]

[Destined to be my future FB profile picture.]

[Back outside with a neat wall mural on the other side of the street.]

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.  ~ Anonymous

Up Next:  I’m lost?

May 16

[Indiana, that is!  After Noblesville, it was time to visit the Super’s sister, Rita.  We were shocked, shocked as we drove up to her place to find a new house on the neighboring lot that had been vacant since Reetz moved into her classic square log home in 1972!  An 88-year old widower bought the lot and built a too modern house for this artist community. Oh, poopie butt!]

[When I say artist community, I mean artist community.  For a town of 1,000, it has a ginormous art gallery – let’s take a visit with The Biddies.]

[It had just featured our old friend and Rita’s long-time neighbor, Bill Zimmerman.  Bill died in November 2011 – hard to believe it was that long ago.  His wife Judy still lives down the street and dropped by for a visit our first night here.]

[Reetz begins a stroll around . . . ]

[And we didn’t know “Crazy Dave” had it in him?]

[And here Reetz is looking over the works of another artist friend from the area, David Dale.]

[I guess this is self-explanatory?]

[And now the Super on a walkabout.]

[And this is the Zimmerman studio collection.  Reetz has three of his originals.]

[The place is huge (or is it “yuge”?)!]

[The Biddies with Zimmerman bears.]

[And back outside where the facility fits the areas nature theme.]

[Then it was decided we needed some wine after our art tour.  And yes, the front door was hit by a guy in his car!]

[A photo from at least 6  years ago – Reetz with the Dales on her right and the Zimmermans on her left.]

[And the Super and I enjoy three Zimmerman owl prints at home.  Bill also did the duck mobile.  🙂  ]

My absolute favorite meal in Nashville is sweet-potato pancakes at Pancake Pantry.  ~ Taylor Swift

Up Next:  One would think Europe?

May 15

Occasionally one has to break the bindings of blogging a long vacation to keep pace with current events.  Such as when your only grandchild graduates from college . . .

[It began with an all day drive to Indiana with our son-in-law Danny at the wheel.  We spent the night in Noblesville with grandson Tom’s other grandparents, Fran and Ed.  Tom grew up in and graduated from Noblesville High School, with Fran and Ed just a block away.  Early Sunday morning, all the grandparents were up for an hour and a half drive to his graduation ceremonies at Purdue . . . ]

[After posing the grandmas with the campus bell tower, all bolted to the armory for relief. Then back in line at the Elliott Hall of Music for the 9:30 commencement for Management and Polytechnic Institute (Tom’s) graduates, one of six commencement programs (likely normal for a large university).]

[The Super bolted to the head of the pack for good seating – this was at 8:00 am.]

[Others followed  . . . ]

[The empty stage was lovely for an hour and a half . . . ]

[Selfies and crowd shots to kill time.]

[Activity, music . . . ]

[Then the parade of the graduates.]

[First came Tom’s girlfriend, Celia, then Tom, then Celia getting her diploma.]

[Then Tom got his . . . so to speak.]

[After an hour and a half . . . ]

[Then hugs and selfies with mom!]

[His group . . . don’t ask me to explain it! But Celia Duffala and Tom Gaither are on the board!]

[Then Tom took us around to show us his “major.”]

[Thanks, Grandpa!]

[Posing with Booker, a roommate and classmate; and then with mom and dad.]

[With his department head, whose description of Tom should net him a 7-figure job within short order!  😉 ]

[A moment with Grandpa Ed, Tom’s daily mentor from the beginning.]

[OK, what we do here is so high tech that if I told y0u, I’d have to steal your dog!]

[Nevertheless, Ed moves in.]

[And we do really cool stuff here, here, and here . . . ]

[Celia, Tom, and Booker point to their names on the Wall of Fame!]

[And lotsa family photos on campus.]

[Trying to get his stuck hair out of his gown, a situation with which I’m not familiar.]

[Celia with sis Nina.]

[With Celia’s folks, Peggy, Hector, Brian and Peggy.]

[Let’s go to lunch.  That’s Mackey Arena in the background.]

[Good-bye, Purdue.]

[PRESENTS!?!?]

[22 years ago!  Seems like yesterday . . . but it was 22 years ago.  Where does the time go (some think behind a pole barn in Chokio)?  I don’t recall if this was the day where Tom actually ended up babysitting me, but I’m perfectly willing for him to take care of me now. I’m old . . . and he’s young.  Congratulations, Tom.  You’ve grown to become a outstanding young man – we’re very proud of you!]

I’m here to tell you about the place I live in now: The real world. There’s no dress rehearsal, no take-home tests, no rough drafts. If you unconstitutionally wiretap people’s phones, you’ll be taken down. If you shoot someone in the face with a shotgun, you’ll reap the consequences. If you illegally invade a sovereign nation to secure oil interests and assuage a personal vendetta, you’ll be re-elected.  ~  Seth MacFarlane

Up Next:  Not Europe again . . . yet.

Editor’s note:  This missive has been in the queue for over week.  Life happens.

April 19

Did you know Budapest spelled backwards is tsepadub?  Tsepadub is an herb first planted in the Danube River valley by Hungarian peasants in 1956.  It was never popular, however, so that was the one and only year it was ever planted.  The peasants subsequently emigrated to the U.S. where they all obtained employment in Secaucus summer stock.

Our first full day in Budapest.  So what do we do?  Leave town!  The Etniers would not be joining us until later in the day, so in the morning . .

[We decided to leave town?  With Pam and Tom, we left our lodgings in the morning after first documenting the sights on the Buda side of the river.  We walked along the river noting such statuary as above, and below . . . ]

[Until we got to Chain Bridge.  This would be our first trek across as last year we covered the Buda side by bus.]

[Crossing the bridge, looking downstream toward Liberty and Elisabeth Bridge.]

[That’s our Marriott jutting out the furthest on the left side.]

[Buda Castle with the funicular going up the hill on the right.  Last year the funicular was not in service when we were here.]

[Looking upstream to the Parliament Building.]

[And we’ve completed our river crossing at the funicular.]

[Parliament from the Buda side.]

[Chain Bridge as we continue our stroll upstream.]

[I’m going to guess a church?]

[Extraordinary building, a neo-gothic structure just over a 100 years old and the 3rd largest parliament in the world.]

[A lovely morning for a walk along the river – Chain Bridge and our hotel retreating behind us.]

[I’m guessing another church?]

[We thought this was our destination . . . we were wrong!]

[Aha, it was underground.  We were looking for the train depot as we going to take a little trip to Szentendre.]

[It was about a 40 minutes train ride to go 11 miles, as I recall?]

[And this was our destination in Szentendre . . . ]

The Open- Air Ethnographic Museum (or Skanzen) is located a little outside the city, it has the largest ethnographic collection in Hungary with 312 buildings in 8 sections. Folk monuments are transported here from all over the country, for preservation. Demonstrations of folk handicrafts are held at the weekends and “calendar dates” of Hungarian folk culture are celebrated.  (From budapest.gotohungary.com)

[It was a beautiful day . . . so why not go to an outdoor museum?  It was so big I couldn’t scan the entire map!]

[The Super and Pam decided to play hide and seek with the local ruminants.]

[Nice view across the Hungarian plain.]

[St. Christopher, lest you aren’t familiar with the Hungarian language.]

[Some sort of colorful vegetation occupied by rather large, mostly black, bees!]

[Ah, here’s a map of the entire place.  We were here for several hours – long enough for me to get a sunburn.]

[Thatched roof, anyone?  That bad boy looked to be at least a foot thick.  I don’t envy the re-thatcher his job!]

[Buildings and homes of the age . . . ]

[Some of the hosts spoke excellent English; others not so good.  But their English always trumped our Hungarian!]

[The live ruminants!  They continually roam the place as organic lawnmowers.]

[If we take the next fork in the road . . . ]

[We’ll find the windmill!]

[MY HEART BE STILL!!]

[Where we were, in the grand scheme of things.]

[We’ll delve into these more in Amsterdam – amazing instruments of science and engineering!]

[Hey, a winery!]

[And just walking the village.]

[Two-horse power.]

[The Cadillac of its era.]

[Destined to be my Facebook profile picture.]

[Very important place . . . ]

[Universally, the most important sign you will ever run across!]

[OK, let’s check on that windmill.]

[But we were looking for the water mill . . . where is it?  Down the steps of the arena . . .]

[Found it!  And just in time.  It only runs for a few minutes a few times a day.]

[Now there were indications of a place to quench one’s thirst around here, way over on the northeast side, in section I.]

[I think the Super has a bead on it!]

[Found it!  Just in the nick of time.]

[Local, and quite good!]

[Now this is a wine cellar!]

[Trying to find our way back.]

[This one says left; but the other says right?]

[I think we’ve found the right trail.]

[We oughta be able to hop the oxen cart at the next intersection!]

[Hey, kids, what time is it?  The gift shop called our cab driver, who came and drove us back  to the train station.]

[And with these tickets . . . ]

[We were on the rails back to Budapest.  I think they had a good time.]

[Adios, Szentendre!]

[Going back into the city, Olympic sportsmen on the sides of apartment buildings.]

[Remember this guy from the morning?]

[Brush up your Shakespeare!  John and Helen have arrived!]

[So, out on the town all now six of us went.  The Budapest Spring Festival was taking place when we were here last year – same time of year, so not surprisingly we caught it again.]

[I may never climb Mt. Everest, I may never jump from an airplane, I may never go up more than 3 steps on a ladder, but by hoot and by golly I stuck with my pledge to try the “rooster testicle stew” this year! The wind chill was substantial on this Spring Festival night in Budapest . . . and the next morning I awoke with a half dozen eggs in my bed? (P.s., I didn’t finish the stew – something about the consistency of tofu.)]

[The others, not pledged to the rooster testicle stew, shopped for alternatives.]

[Fine dining at winter wind chill temps!]

[We scuttled back to the hotel where the lobby pastry stand underwent severe scrutiny!]

It’s beautiful here. They said that of course, that Budapest is beautiful. But it is in fact almost ludicrously beautiful.  ~  Anthony Bourdain

Up Next:  This will go on forever and ever . . .