Retire In Style Blog Too

Architecture, Cunea Winery Stag Hollow vista. Stag Hollow owner, Mark Huff Stag Hollow Vista This part of the world is very, very green. The views from a high point in the valley will take your breath away. Verdant fields, blooming clover and grape vines line every road. The wine tasting tours are only surpassed by what you might find in the Sonoma/Napa Valley area in California...and then not by much. Bed and breakfasts with romantic names like Brookside Inn on Abbey Road ‎ are readily available. It is the perfect escape from the realities of this world. Map of Bed and Breakfasts located near Carlton, Oregon We have just passed the Memorial Day holiday and it is gorgeous, sunny and warm. The temperatures have been in the 70's since last Thursday. Rose Festival has just started in Portland and visitors from around the state and nation will come to this area for a beautiful holiday. It can rain but this area is beautiful because of the rain. I want you to late a look at th...

Food while traveling can be a problem for many older people. Grown accustomed to home cooking consisting of meat and potatoes they find that exotic spices and textures just don't go down even when they try. It really is too bad that they can't do the food thing! But for those of you that enjoy a new taste, don't mind an exotic spice once in a while and love to travel, I am telling you that there is a world of wonderful food for the taking. Even in the United States, various regions have a distinct food preference. For example, the southwest is influenced greatly by it's closeness to Mexico. But even there you will find Sonoran style food, Texmex food and that food made in the pueblos in New Mexico. That is where I found the food I truly loved. I can't even tell you what it was about it but WOW is it good. In New Mexico red and green chili peppers are found on almost every dish. You have a choice, or if you are adventurous, you can choose the Christmas variet...

The Poppies Are in Bloom...a reminder! Posted using ShareThis

Okay, I will say it one more time... GET UP OFF THAT CHAIR AND GO GET SOME EXERCISE!!!! My goodness, I should not have to tell you more than once!!! How old are you anyway? You're acting like you are 115+! Don' t do that! There are so many places we can go to get moving. Yoga, gyms, local hospital wellness centers. Pick yourself up and move. Curves is my torture of choice...I go out the door in clothes off the closet floor, wrinkled and maybe a little dirty. My shoes are suppose to be clean so I take the pair I am going to workout in and wear another pair there. My shoes are clean always. =). I don't think about it...I just get up and go! For me this is the only plan that works. If I think about exercise or what I need to do on any given day, I will not go! If I do that very often someone needs to yell at me...GET UP OF THAT COUCH AND GO EXERCISE! Curves has helped me in ways I cannot even explain. I stand up straighter. Getting into and out of chairs is eas...

Condo in Orenco Station Oregon Condo I want to sell my home here in Oregon. I want to buy a smaller one here. I want to move my main home to Arizona . My husband wants to come along. He is 71 and I am 67. We have been trying to make this move for a year...tick tock goes the days of our lives. But I am thinking if we don't do this for three years, how old will we be? The answer always comes back... we will be the same age as we would be if we did do it. I know our life is finite but I am not living it with the idea that it will be over soon. I, along with my husband, am living life  until we cannot do it anymore. How about you? Senior Lifestyle can be all about how you shape your life. While we want to embrace our age with glee, we need to find a way to feel that every paint job can be updated in a few years...there is plenty of time. We need to hang on to the "ongoing" parts of our beings and never, never finish with our growth as humans. I want to die ...

Alph Inventions Link Do you score some good stuff when you travel? Do you just drop into a shop that looks cool from the outside and do some aisle surfing? Do you look for great bargains or are you the kind of person that is will to spend a fortune for a memory piece of art? Whatever your style may be, travel holds opportunities for your shopping habit. While my husband and I were traveling home I had the chance to visit a couple of shops that caught my fancy. The first was a shop names Salsa in Wickenburg, AZ. Located in a block that featured a saddle shop, the store was a mixture of old and new items. Gently used clothing hung near a pile of fabric roll ends. That was where I found my first treasure. I had looked for years for the perfect bark cloth...at antique stored, fabric store, and on and on. When I stepped into Salsa there was that piece of cloth. I purchases 2 yds of the material for a table cloth and it is perfect. In St. George, UT, I discovered a shop called Ur...

We traveled across Oregon yesterday. The journey took us from Ogden, Ut to Portland, Oregon. These are just a few of the images I captured as we took that slow memory filled journey. Fishing platforms used my the Celilo Indian to net fish from the river. Only native Americans are allowed to do this. Windmills used to generate electricity dance across the horizon not far from the huge hydro electric dams. The Columbia River is home to McNary , John Day, Bonneville , and Hood River Dams. They generate power for the north west. Union Pacific Railroad carries products across the state. My great-grandfather helped build the bridges on this rail bed from Pendleton to Huntington. I have a pillow top embroidered by workers from the Far East (China?). Huntington now lays several miles off the I-84. It was a major railroad terminal at one time and the building that still stands on main street (Highway 30) houses business that have been there for over 80 years. This one room school was ...

Tuesday Scribblings...Gratitude and the Garage Door! Posted using ShareThis

Is there a motel at the end of this rainbow? (Tucson, AZ. 2009) Well we really scored with the motel in St. George, UT last night. My husband chose the Ramada Inn by searching online for a good price, good location and reputable chain. The motel sported three award trophies on the counter when we checked in. Our room was perfect, the pool area was as nice as any resort you will find just smaller and the breakfast included, bagels, rolls, English muffins, biscuits/gravy, cereal and several juices. The coffee was passable and the breakfast room was big and sported two big screen TVs. Tonight we are in Ogden, UT and staying in the Holiday Inn Express . This room is equally as nice and there is an indoor pool next to a well equipped work out room . That is a good thing as the mountains still have quite a lot of snow and the temperature was only in the mid 60s when we arrived. The free wifi is just an added bonus. We will wander downtown to the historic 25th Street for dinner this...

Hot air balloon seen this morning from the 1st tee box on the St. George Golf Club. I don't know everything about travel. Getting reservations at a resort several month in advance is one thing. I can do that. My husband and I are time share owners so we are limited by what is available our vacation location . Our choices are narrowed naturally in that case. But choosing a motel is quite another thing. Clean, handy, non-smoking are our requirements. We don't care about the pool or even the breakfast in the morning. We do care about stains on the carpet, a bed spread that is stained and a bathroom that leaves us feeling a little wozzy! The trick is to pay the least for the best! WE ARE NOT GOOD AT FINDING JUST THE RIGHT THING! Unfortunately we have stayed in more expensive places for less, been placed next to the laundry or furnace and spent a wakeful night, Even 4 stars are not a quarantee. Expedia or other discount sights are not a sure thing. We have payed a fo...

My friend said, "I think I've died and gone to Hollywood!" We were visiting some of her old friends from a former life. They were both in their 80's and I was a young person looking on. We were in Palm Spring, Ca. The condominium complex was built during the late 1980's and the view was of a fairway lined with palm tree with water laying in the middle and green in every direction. You could almost feel the ghosts of Bing Crosby and Bob Hope playing through. I love that memory...even though it, like the condo, have gotten dusty over the years. The Oasis, The Palmer Course Well we played golf in Mesquite, NV yesterday. Mesquite is west of LasVegas but would love to be closer. Casinos, both new and dusty, lie along the freeway and the condos are beautiful until you look beyond at the reality that lies there. Like Palm Spring, the fantasy sometimes fades and the reality settles in. The Palmer course there in Mesquite at the Palms Resort is a difficult challeng...

View from the highway approaching Hoover Dam...taken from the moving car, downloaded into my iphoto program on my mac computer and cropped. Not bad huh??? I have a confession to make.... I take pictures from the car while it is moving!!! I know! It is unbelievable but it seems that sometimes stopping just is not possible. I will take pictures through the windshield, the sun roof or out the drivers side of the car as my husband drives leaned back as far as he can. Surprisingly, the pictures will actual turn out very good. I have a small Sony Cyber-shot 7.2 mega pixel camera that I have used for several year. This little camera has been a winner for me. I suppose I could learn to use a camera with a telephoto lens and often wish I had one but this is very simple and the results work for what I do...like taking pictures from a moving car. For example when we went over Boulder Dam on our way to Las Vegas on Highway 93 this last Wednesday, we were following another car in tandem,...