Our hotel, The Hyatt at the Arch, was across the street from the famous St. Louis Arch, right on the banks of the Mississippi River. We could see a bit of the arch, the river, and The Casino Queen, from our room’s window.

It is possible to ride a small capsule (and I mean small) to the top of the arch and take a look from tiny windows. A warning to claustrophobiacs: just look at other people’s pictures!

The doors to the capsules at the bases of the arch are only about 5 feet tall. You have to step up and crouch at the same time to get in.

Here’s Princess Gail in one of the capsules, which seat five, tightly-squeezed people! She is sitting in the only seat where one can sit up straight.

After a 4 minute ride we arrived safely to the top and were treated to some nice views despite the tiny windows and the rainy weather.

We could see our hotel and the Old Courthouse from one window, and from another we could see Busch Stadium, home of the World Series champions St. Louis Cardinals. On the other side we saw barges on the Mississippi.

We posed for pictures. Princess Gail and Ferd:

Diann and Gail:

Diann and Hal:

After this, we headed to the Anheuser-Busch brewery. Details on the next post!

At Tortilla Flat I noticed a few birds flying. At first I thought a black one with a long tail was a Great-tailed Grackle, which we see all the time in Scottsdale/Tempe/Phoenix. But this one had a prominent show of white in its underwing, a red eye, and a spiky head. It was a Phainopepla! A life bird for us! We had our binoculars with us so we could see details, but unfortunately we did not have our big camera and long lens. Our pix are from a point and shoot.

As we were oohing and aahing, we heard the familiar song and tapping of a woodpecker. But, what!? In the Sonoran Desert!? We looked to the sound and in a far away Saguaro cactus saw another life bird. The Gila Woodpecker! It was doing its thing, making its nest on the side of the cactus, where it will later forage for food. Sorry the pictures are so poor, but we know it’s the bird because it’s the only woodpecker that lives in this part of the country.

And finally, one our way back, we stopped on the side of the road to take a closer look at a large black bird sitting on a post. We figured it was a Common Raven until we saw the white ring around its neck. We took good enough pictures to later identify it as a Chihuahuan Raven, which happened to be in the northernmost part of its range, an unusual find. We may never see it again. Life bird number three in one day!

We did not intend to go birding during this trip, which was all about Kelly and Jason’s wedding. But funny how when you least expect it, you can be so wonderfully surprised!

It was a short but beautiful ride. I hope to drive more of it some day, with an off-road four-wheel drive for the unpaved part of the Apache Trail. And next time, we’ll bring our good camera and lens!

Princess Gail and I just got back from a short little trip to Music City, Nashville, TN. We decided to drive the 7 hours from Winston-Salem to enjoy the Fall colors in the mountains. We were so fortunate this year to have taken four separate car trips into the mountains in the past 3 weeks, and enjoyed all the altitudes from the top of Mt Mitchell to the floor of the Piedmont. I think I saw the best Fall colors of my entire life! You saw some of my memories in my last post.

If watching the Fall foliage wasn’t enough, I also downloaded a fun iPhone app. I was thinking about the old car game we played with the kids during long car trips, counting license plates from as many different states as we could. Well of course there is an app for that! License Plate Game was a lot of fun. I got 21 plates during this trip!

I had to be in Nashville for a work-related meeting, which turned out to be very informative, and held at the beautiful Loews Vanderbilt Hotel.

I knew we were going to be there on a Tuesday, so before we left I had purchased tickets for the Grand Ole Opry. I have been there several times before and I love it! You never know the exact line up of entertainers for this live radio show until the last minute, because you never know who happens to be in town on any given show day. It turned out that Keith Urban, who lives in Nashville with wife Nicole Kidman, decided to play! After that, the show rapidly sold out!

Our favorites of the night were Kip Moore:

Sunny Sweeney:

And of course the headliners, Little Big Town:

And the fabulous Keith Urban!

All in all, it was a short but wonderful little trip to Nashville! Good memories made! And as always, we were grateful to return home, safe and sound.

We found Blowing Rock to be a really pretty, quaint little town. The walkable main street is full of very nice shops (not the cheap touristy stuff) and excellent restaurants. We enjoyed nice meals at The Village Café, Twigg’s, and the Storie Street Grille. My favorite was the Village Café, with an upscale menu, a beautiful, secluded outside patio, and reasonable prices.

We stayed at the Chetola Resort only because we got a Groupon for over a hundred bucks off. Otherwise it would not be worth the price to stay, at least not for me. If I’m in the mountains I want a mountain view, and though the grounds are lovely, there is no mountain view. We saw many little motel-type places right in town that were really done nicely! If we ever go back we’ll stay at one of those.

The town of Blowing Rock has a lot of local activities all summer long. Just stop at the Visitor Center as you come into town and get a list. We weren’t there for the good shopping or eating, though. We love the great outdoors. Right in town, we can suggest the Glen Burney Trail. The rough trail follows a little stream for 1.6 downhill miles, with three waterfalls along the way. It is an excellent spot for birding. Just remember you then have to walk the 1.6 uphill miles! This little Carolina Wren came out from the underbrush to pose for us:

Right outside of town is the town’s namesake, The Blowing Rock. The rock itself is nothing at all to speak of and wouldn’t be worth the price of admission if not for the views. The views are pretty cool. It was a bit overcast, but here is an example. Princess Gail with Grandfather Mountain in the distance.

We spent a morning at Grandfather Mountain. It is one of the highest peaks in the Blue Ridge, and famous for numerous wildlife habitats at the different altitudes as well as some dramatic (and dangerous) weather. We were hoping to spot a Peregrine Falcon but were unlucky. Here are a few pictures at the Mile High Swinging Bridge where winds have been measured at over 100 mph.

Can you tell how she feels about heights and howling winds?

The short span of The Blue Ridge Parkway between Grandfather Mountain and the town of Blowing Rock is full of activity. That includes The Moses Cone Memorial Park, the Julian Price Memorial Park, and the Tanawha Trail. There are numerous scenic overlooks as well. You can spend days just in that tiny bit of the Parkway.

We had fun! Life is good!

Smile!

Gail and I were in San Francisco this past December for a conference. It was a quick trip but we did squeeze in a few touristy stops. Gail really wanted to see Mission Dolores, so we made sure that was one of them. Our weather was foggy and overcast that day, so we didn’t take as many pictures as we usually do. But I’m glad we took a few.

So, back to our movie. Vertigo was shot in 1958, when I was three years old, and only four years before Gail was born. It’s weird to think that the movie is now basically a period piece. I enjoyed seeing how people related to each other back in the late 50′s, the cars, the clothes, all that. It was even fun seeing how different the city of San Francisco looked 50 years ago. The movie itself is Hitchcock wonderful, but it is forgettable by today’s standards. I was a little disappointed that we got the colorized version. I’m certain it would have looked better in black and white.

Our favorite part of the movie, though, was to discover that Mission Dolores played such a big part in it! We had been right there just a few months ago! We walked the same steps that Jimmy Stewart, Kim Novak and Alfred Hitchcock had 53 years ago! That was really cool!

A few pics off the web:

And a few of our own:

I was limited to two cold, overcast days because of my work schedule. Bummer. Gail had the chance to spend an extra, even colder day, 29 degrees at the crack of dawn, which is the typical starting time for these events. But even so, our group spotted 40 different species on each of the two days I was there. This is less than half of the usual. Photography was also less than ideal, though I will share at least a few of my pictures of the Yellow Throated Warbler that was my favorite bird of this trip.

Here is part of our birding group at the New River Gorge, with the famous New River Gorge Bridge in the background:

The New River:

Railroads parallel the edge of the river, dating back to the time of active coal mining that started over 100 years ago. Coal mining has long since been “tapped out” in this area, which is now a protected National River.

The Yellow Throated Warbler:

There was a nice bus tour and then we split from the group for a few hours. We had Gail’s ring checked at Tiffany’s, walked around Rockefeller Center and Times Square, and stopped at St. Patrick’s on Holy Thursday. Then we had a nice dinner at Trattoria Trecolori before meeting back up with our group at the Shuman Theater to see the show “Memphis.”

All in all, an excellent day! I’m grateful.

First is some scenic beauty along the Blue Ridge.  (The countryside is pretty nice, too!)

There was a beautiful postcard scene at every little stop we took!

We got off the parkway and took the hike down to Linville Falls.  It was SO worth it!  Look at these beautiful falls!  Wow!

After that, we headed off to our two day retreat on Gateway Mountain.  I’m glad it was still daylight when we got there because it was an adventure just getting up the mountain in our car!  There aren’t enough superlatives and exclamation points to describe the place we found.  It is the sort of place that lets you feel small amidst an awesome expanse of nature’s beauty!  I woke up early the next morning to enjoy the dawn…

We shared a common adventure, and spent precious moments of quiet solitude…

Gail kept an eagle eye out for the local birds…

It rained later in the afternoon, but cleared long enough for us to marvel at a sunset of eery mystery above the clouds…

And it was over all too quickly!  The fog was thick this morning as we came down from the mountain.  We encountered a flock of wild turkeys!  I love running into crazy, unexpected things like that!  I was smiling and thinking, “See you later, you wild, crazy turkeys!”

Yeah, that’s right.  You go run and hide!  Thanksgiving is right around the corner!

I’m grateful for our excellent little trip!

I’ll post more tomorrow, but right now I’m going to vegetate. Later!