In July I did a post on advertising and showed how cleaver it was that a library used huge library books on the building to draw attention and here is another wonderful right to the point advertisement .............

 

La Brigitte eyewear in Paris

 

Borrowed from "Daily Photo"

I armed myself

So what did I do yesterday?


Had lunch with a friend that included clam chowder

 and hush puppies.....

 

 

and on my way home.......

I armed myself....

and I even added the vaccination for shingles.

It is worth a sore arm.

The Empire State Building is a 102-story skyscraper located in New York City. It has a roof height of 1,250 feet, and with its antenna spire included, it stands a total of 1,454 ft high. Wikipedia

It would take 11 Empire State buildings, stacked one on top of the other, to measure the Gulf of Mexico at it deepest point.

 Isn't it amazing that we think we know so much when we  have such a limited view...............................................

Refreshment

I recently hosted a luncheon and decided to offer a simple cranberry spritzer as a drink choice....

It was a hit and here is all it takes:

1/2 cranberry juice

  1/2 lemon/lime soda

Stir and ENJOY

Movie Review

Hubby and I use to go to the movies every Friday but our dining schedule got moved around and since a large popcorn also accompanies the movies we couldn't do both but recently we made some changes and found our Thursday could be a movie date sooooooooooooo we went to see Hope Springs.

What can I say except that I loved it and so did hubby to my surprise. Not necessary to have marital problems to gleam from this movie and the acting is superb!

Cont.

The Springs hotel included full access to the hot springs or you could pay just to use them but pictures were free:)

 Young and old were enjoying themselves (I would have joined them but my swimsuit days are long gone).

 Amazing isn't it?

 The river rolling on down stream.

Check out this hot air balloon in this big open blue sky, no smog here.

and everywhere were flowers...

 all watered by afternoon rains.

Hubby didn't do well in the competition and was having trouble breathing in the high altitude so we headed on home a little earlier than planned and took a different route.

 Check this out....

a revolving post office box wagon wheel. Yep, just drive up and give it a spin and get your mail.

 Is that cleaver or what.....Hubby turned around and went back so I could get these pictures and right after we saw these we saw a wild turkey just mossing along. First time I have ever seen one in the wild like that but of course turning around to take his picture was useless because he was long gone. So fun to see new and different things.

Wished I had check this area out more because we went right by the Purple Adobe Lavender Farm and I would have loved to have visited it and brought home some dried lavender.

Had casually found a hotel at Rio Rancho on the computer before we left home that looked interesting but didn't follow through with the details but thanks to my iphone and google we found it and spent the next night at the Inn At Rio Rancho. The rooms were not fancy but clean and had a some nice little touches...

but what made the place was the grounds.... beautiful. They were having a wedding and we got to see the couple kiss to seal the deal:)

 

Love the bark on this tree.....

The adjoining restaurant had some cleaver lights....

and the Toro Tequila Bar had over 75 varieties of Tequila plus their own brand Aha Toro. My Hubby is a Tequila man and he  gave it a try and gave it a thumbs up. The food was good as well.

I snapped these grand men guarding the entrance as we checked out..

We drove on in to Payson, Arizona and spent the night there before heading home to record temps of 112....

Good bye cool.



We found the cool.......

Hubby wanted to head to Pagosa Springs, Colo. for a competition and so off we went.

Our first stop was for breakfast at our favorite casino Cliff Castle which I have written about several times and I snapped a picture of our table....

This was a woven piece that has been laid on the table and then sealed over to become permanent.. It was a quick stop and hubby left with $100 more in his pocket so a win, win all the way around this time.

We had to cross the Indian reservation and although some of it is very beautiful much of it is such a desolate land, I can't imagine anyone living on it like we told the Indians to....

The scenery changed back and forth from the dry land to the painted rocks...

To these  strange rocks

to castles in the sky.....

I had downloaded a few books on my little nano that I hoped hubby would like...the first, Call of the Canyon by Zane Grey. This was definitely written in another era and some of the words frequently used gave us a start. Like for example....."She firmly ejaculated her misgivings about the situation" Though written a century ago it also glimpsed the prophetic warning that ( Americans might become," Socialist " with one group of citizens who have no regard for honor, moral and social discipline, or personal responsibility, expecting the other portion of the citizenry who manifests these very attributes in differing degrees of success, to willingly or confiscatorally give up their fruits of labor for the purpose of providing sustinence unto otherwise able body and minded leeches. Let us therefore change course and honor the honorable and pick up the able if they be willing, and always by the grace given us truly care and draw up those who truly are found to be unable to do for themselves, though they would, if but could they).
It was also filled with such detail that I found it difficult to believe a man actually wrote it:) Oh well, It keep us entertained as we drove the many hours to our first night stay at the Sky Ute casino. Here the room was exceptional but the pillows were more like mountains to try overcome and their dinning facility left a lot to be desired. This trip proved that I don't always hit the jackpot for our nightly stays.



It got greener the closer we got and road construction afforded this shot.






We found the cool.....

Pagosa Springs is a little town in a valley of huge mountains with the San Juan River flowing through the heart of town and their famous hot springs connecting at just the right places. The hot springs has many minerals one of which is sulfur which you can definitely smell.

As I have mentioned before Hubby and I like to stay at a hotel where there is a restaurant and bar and in this town there was only one place, Oak Ridge Lodge. It was only rated a 3 star so I knew it wasn't going to be great but this was more like a has been motel 6 .....We were not very happy with our choice but quickly found out that the "town" was filled up with the competition, bike riding event, large wedding, and the fair all going on this week-end and the only place with an opening was the most beautiful hotel in town....

 The Springs at $300.00 per night.

We decided we would just live with the tattered curtains

worn out carpet

and not so clean places but in the end we were glad we stayed because the restaurant/bar was great and we spent our evenings sitting out on the deck....

 The bar and bartender were pretty lenient and this was the only warning we ran into. The menu was not fancy but the food was pretty good and in fact the ribs and turkey were smoked on the premises and mmmmmmm good. It included a continental breakfast and left a lot to be desired so we ate at a local place on the way to the fairground and you definitely knew you were in the mountains with the critters...check out these mounts...

and I loved these two who were challenging each other....

A afternoon downpoour was great music for a nap..

To be cont.

I flew the coop to beat the heat for a few days....hopefully it will be cool where I am heading to.