Spring Break- Frida Kahlo at The Dali, St. Pete

One of the best and unplanned parts of our Spring break, was getting to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit at The Dali museum.  Kenan mentioned wanting to take the boy to the Dali, and having been there before many years ago i said i didn't need to go. i had no idea that they had a new building, and i was picturing the little museum i had visited probably 20 years ago. 

On the morning they planned to go, i decided completely last minute that i might as well go too. My girl was planning to stay home with Nana, but she too decided to come along.

So you can imagine my surprise when we walked up and i saw this gigantic museum! To add to the excitement, i comepltely freaked out when i saw that there was a Frida Kahlo exhibit on disply. i absolutely love Frida Kahlo and would have been so disappointed if i had stayed home and then found out her work was on exhibit! 

The new building is a work of art in itself. *The Dali’s stunning new building was designed by architect Yann Weymouth of HOK, it combines the rational with the fantastical: a simple rectangle with 18-inch thick hurricane-proof walls out of which erupts a large free-form geodesic glass bubble known as the “enigma”. The Enigma, which is made up of 1,062 triangular pieces of glass, stands 75 feet at its tallest point, a twenty-first century homage to the dome that adorns Dali’s museum in Spain.

Inside, the Museum houses another unique architectural feature – a helical staircase – recalling Dali’s obsession with spirals and the double helical shape of the DNA molecule.

The museum offers self guided, audio tours. they provide an ipod and headset, and as you move from piece to piece, you click on the picture on the ipod and it narrates the corresponding story.  It was interesting, but i honestly found it a little distracting. i would have rather just read the info myself. i suppose it's helpful for when the museum is very busy, you don't have to wait for your chance to get close enough to read the info about each painting.

As we were getting our headsets from the front counter i asked the woman working if we were allowed to take pictures. Often times cameras are not aloud in museums. She told me that no pictures were aloowed inside the Frida Kahlo exhibit, and you could take photos (no flash) in the Salvador Dali exhibit.  So we snapped pictures on the outside before entering the exhibit.

Once inside the Frida exhibit, i immediately noticed that EVERYONE was taking pictures. There were museum staff standing right there, and smiling and seemed to have no problem with it. Several people were even using their flash and the museum staff, standing right there,  didn't say a thing. There were also no signs anywhere saying not to take photos.

So after we finished the Frida Exhibit, i went back and took one photo. :) 

The Salvador Dali exhibit was amazing. i was surprised how small some of the paintings were, and how large others were. He detail work on the small painting is just unbelievable. 

The audio tour does provide a lot of information about the Dali's life and work. It was a very enjoyable museum to visit for the entire family. For kids, there is the Mustache tour treasure hunt.  It's the family friendly version of the audio tour, and they win a prize for completing the treasure hunt. The only downside of it, is that the mustache tour didn't include all the paintings, and my daughter wanted to rush through the treasure hunt to get her prize, so i ended up missing some of the information from the regular tour trying to keep up with her.

After we finished up in the museum, we went outside to the gardens. There is a tree with ropes hanging down that are covered in admission bracelets. So we took ours off and added them to the tree. There is also a hedge maze and there was a tribute garden for Frida Kahlo.

They also have a nice gift shop, with souvenirs in all price ranges. The Dali Museum was a really neat experience. i'm so glad i decided to tag along last minute. i would have been devastated to miss the Frida exhibit, and see the new museum. Definitely add it to your to do list next time you visit the St. Pete area! 

*See more at: http://thedali.org/about-the-museum/the-building/#sthash.iXdWOMon.dpuf

Spring Break 2017- Bradenton/Anna Marie Island

Spring break in Florida!  This year we decided to take a quick trip down to Florida to visit with my parents over the kids spring break. They ony get 2 days off for spring break, the Friday before and the Monday after Easter. We took them out of school Thursday and Tues, so we had a little more time to enjoy the break. It still ended up being a very quick trip.

 The first day we drove around 6 hours, and stayed the night in Savannah. The next morning we headed to Leesburg to visit my 79 year old Grandma.

Since we were just stopping for a few hours we brought pizza and pie, so she didn't have to worry about cooking. After eating we went down to the pool house and the kids spent an hour enjoying the pool while we sat around a visited. It was great to see my grandma and a nice break from all the driving. After leaving my grandmother's we headed on to Bradenton, where my parents live 6 months of the year.  It's only about 2 hours from my grandma, so we arrived Thursday evening.

The next morning we got up early and headed to the beach! Anna Marie Island is just across the bridge from Bradenton. We like to go to Coquina beach.  If you get there in the morning, it's really not that busy. 

The water is crystal clear and quite shallow, so i could let the kids play in the water without worrying too much. While they were swimming, a school of fish came close to them and then pelicans began diving all around them scooping up the fish.  It was a pretty neat thing to observe.

We spent a few hours on the beach with my mom, then headed back to their house for lunch. The kids enjoyed the pool at the clubhouse, while Kenan and i tried to recover from the drive. After dinner, we headed back to Anna Marie Island to enjoy the sunset.

This was taken at Bradenton beach. There are beaches all down this strip and fun little shell shops and touristy stuff. We were looking for a relaxing low key vacation, and the beach was just what we needed. 

Summer Travels- Greensboro Sciquarium

This weekend we headed back to Greensboro Science center to check out their brand new SciQuarium.  We purchased a family membership to the Greensboro science center earlier this year, which has allowed us to visit other science centers and zoos for free or half off admission. We've made good use of our pass and have enjoyed planning weekend trips around the different science museums, zoos and aquariums. We purchased our membership before the Sciquarium was open, so we were looking forward to come back and check it out.

The lights in the SciAuarium were very dim, so i didn't get very many pictures.  They have an exhibit of penguins, river otters, and a fishing cat.  

In the very center is a hands on ray exhibit where the children can reach into the water and gently touch the rays and guitar fish. This was my daughter's favorite part. 

My boy was not as excited to get his hands wet. 

The shark tank was really neat. There are a bunch of sea life in the tank, not just sharks.  We just happened to be there during the fish feeding time, and so the tank was really active. It was extremely hard to get pictures because of the lighting, so all of my fish photos turned out super blurry.  There are a lot of really neat fish in the tank including some large southern rays, huge eels, sharks of course and a lot of really beautiful fish. 

This was part of the otter exhibit. The otters would climb all over the dome where the kids were. We were hoping to see the otters play in the water, but they were napping while we were there.

This guy is inside the actual science museum, not part of the sciquarium. The kids call him Frank. The last time we were here he was trying to eat Sage through the glass.  i believe he is a Caiman. 

After wandering around the science museum, we went outside to see the animals.  

We watched the giant tortoises get a bath, and the maned wolves were up and active for the first time. In the past when we have visited they are napping in the long grass. We'll see the top of their ears, and sometimes their backs are too us. So it was neat to see them up and walking around. They were very beautiful unusual looking animals, with long slender legs. 

After leaving the Science center we went out to dinner and then headed home. We did not get very far down the road before Kenan noticed the car was smoking. He immediately took the first exit to get us off the interstate. At this point we knew something as seriously wrong. Smoke was pouring out from under the hood, and the back windshield was getting sprayed with something (we thought it was oil).  We came to the stoplight, and when we tried to go the car wouldn't do anything. Kenan turned it off, back on and we were able to start moving just enough to get through the stoplight and coast into the first driveway which happened to be a Sheetz gas station.

Now we've been having problems with our car for the last 9 months. We replaced our engine which had 240k miles on it, with a used engine that only had 90k miles.  It drove fantastic for a while, and then began overheating. Kenan replaced the thermostat, but it continued to overheat. We took it into the shop where they blew out the coolant hoses. Sometimes air gets trapped in them and it creates a vacuum, so it registers that your coolant is full even though it is low.  That seemed to help for a while, then it began overheating again. We had it back to the shop to have the head gaskets replaced.  We got it back, and 3 days later the radiator blew up.  Sent it back to the shop and had only had it back about 3 days when this happened.  So we were beyond frustrated.

We were stranded over 2 hours from home with no one to call. The local numbers that we should have had were programmed into the cell phone which i only used temporarily and no longer have. Kenan's cell is about 10-15 years old and doesn't have any local contacts in it, and it doesn't have internet access or anything like that.  So we really had no idea what to do. A local man stopped and asked if we needed help. He told us he lived right down the road, and to give a call if we needed any help at all.  We borrowed a phone book from the Sheetz station and began calling local garages and tow services. It was about 7pm on a Saturday, and we could not get a hold of anyone. So we called the good Samaritan that had stopped to help us and asked him if he could look up the number of the garage back home where we'd had our work done. We tried calling their emergency towing number and ended up calling the mechanic at home. 

Kenan explained what had happened, and from his description the mechanic was able to diagnose the problem, it was just a cracked transmission line. So the local man came back and packed us all in his truck and took us to the local auto-parts store so Kenan could get what he needed to fix the line.  The man brought his tool box, extra rags...and hung out until we had the car fixed. He was incredible helpful. So we eventually got it fixed and made our way back to Virginia. The car drove fine all the way home. 

Two days after our NC adventure Kenan took the car to Radford to pick up propane tanks, and again the car died. This time it was the battery and alternator. He was stuck there for several hours, trying to get the parts he needed to fix it.   At this point just about everything in the engine has been replaced, so hopefully that means nothing else will break down. lol.  We will be staying close to home for a while and once we get through this house stuff we really need to think about getting a new car. 

So this is probably my last Summer travels post for the year.Our focus is really just getting into our house and trying to regain a sense of normal. 

Summer Travels- Stone Mountain in NC

Several year ago we hiked at Stone mountain State Park in NC for the first time. It was a really beautiful hike, with a gorgeous waterfall and amazing views at the top. We enjoyed it so much that we we decided to go back this summer and visit it again.

The trail is beautiful, with lots of foliage, wildflowers and moss.  When we came a few years ago, we didn't even realize there was a waterfall until we came to it. We first hiked up to Stone mountain and then on our way down we followed the trail that took us to the waterfall. It was a pretty strenuous hike, and i remember being completely exhausted climbing down all the stairs.

When we began our hike we ended up follow the trail that went straight to the waterfall first. There is an observation deck, and warning sign posted everywhere.  This is an incredibly intense fast moving waterfall that washes over shear rock.  Anyone who has ever hopped the fence to get a closer look has to completely insane. 

It's an amazing and powerful waterfall.  It goes straight over the side of the rock, and guarantees a quick and painful death to anyone crazy enough to ignore the signs. 

The trail takes you down to the base of the fall, and you can sit on the rocks and even dip your feet in the water here.  The energy is absolutely incredible. There is just something so healing about the sound of moving water. As if it moves right through you and washes away any negative energy that has been clinging.  It leaves us feeling energized and recharged.  We continued along the path which took us along the river and through a very magical forest. The kids ran ahead of us and counted toad stools and pointed out all the fairy house.

The trail brings you to the Hutchinson homestead. The Hutchinson Homestead is complete with a log cabin, barn, blacksmith shop, corncrib, meathouse and original furnishings. They have lots of signs with information about the different buildings and history.

The Hutchinson homestead is at the base of Stone mountain. Stone mountain is a 600 foot granite dome. This is the view from the homestead. Pretty amazing.

As soon as we left the homestead we began our trek up the mountain. We quickly realized that we should have taken the trail to the top of the mountain first and then walked down to see the waterfall. 590 steps going up is a lot harder than going down.

 i like to think i'm in pretty good shape, but i had to stop several times to catch my breath.   It was a really difficult hike.

By the time we got to the top, we were all feeling like this. The view was spectacular, but we were exhausted.  We only had a few minutes to enjoy the view before we started to hear thunder, and saw a storm brewing on the horizon. 

We enjoyed the view for a few minutes and snapped some pictures, then continued on.  There are several places to stop and enjoy the unusual rock landscape and spectacular view. 

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We had a great time at Stone Mountain and were really glad that we were able to return. Although we were completely wore out, we had a fantastic time.
 We've really tried to do something fun every weekend this summer. Kenan works long hours 6 days a week, but has taken off one day each week for a family day trip. We were also hoping to take a weekend trip to the beach or a trip to Atlanta to check out the new Aquarium, but we ran out of weekends.  The was summer way too short this year, and my kids have already returned back to school this week.

As much as i dread back to school, i am enjoying having a bit of personal time again. i really haven't touched any of my crafts/projects since we moved to the RV so i am hoping i'll start feeling inspired again soon.

Summer Travels- The Cascades

The Cascades in Pembroke VA is one of our favorite hiking places. It's a little over an hours drive away, but we try to visit it at least once a year. My favorite time to come is in the early spring when all the first wildflowers are blooming.  The area is covered in trillium, wood violets columbine, anemones, jack in the pulpit, blue cohosh etc.  It is still a beautiful walk other times of year, but the spring is definitely my favorite.

This year we visited in the middle of summer, so most of the windflowers were not blooming. We've had so much rain this year, that the area was damper than usual and everything was lush and green.

The hike follows this beautiful river through a winding rocky path.  The hike can be a little strenuous, but the 70 foot waterfall at the end makes it all worthwhile. The cascades is considered one of the most beautiful waterfalls in Virginia, and of all the waterfalls we have visited it is by far my favorite.  i enjoy the actual hike as much as i enjoy the falls.

Although there were very few wildflowers, we did get to see a few butterflies fluttering about.  This one is a called a Red spotted purple, even though it looks black and blue.  They are usually spotted sucking the minerals out of the soil near the edges of the creek.  

Last year was the first time i've ever come across a purple flowering raspberry Rubus Odoratus. i had spotted it on our way back from hiking at panther creek. It was actually covered in fruit, otherwise i would have dismissed it as a type of wild rose. 

Although we visit the Cascades every year, i had no idea these were all over this area. We typically come in the spring, so the raspberry isn't flowering. The leaves to this plant don't look like a typical raspberry, so i've never paid it any attention before.  i was pretty excited to find them here, they are such a pretty raspberry! They are also sometimes called thimble berry and Virginia raspberry. i'm hoping to come across these again in the wild (not a state park :) )so i can dig up a runner and get some established on our land. i just love them!

Although the hike is several miles and strenuous in places, the kids love to come here and have no problems hiking the entire distance.  The scenery is completely magical, and there is amazing energy everywhere. 

The waterfall at the end of the hike is breathtaking. Kenan always takes the kids out to the falls. You can follow the rocks across and walk right up to it. The rocks are really slippery though, and it's hard not to fall. So i prefer to stay. :)   i'm not sure how i managed to get this picture of them without anyone else in it. The day we were here there were a ton of people at the falls. There were people all over the rocks, walking up to the falls and several were even in the water swimming. We always let the kids wade in the shallow areas, but we've never swam here, although many people do. 

The falls always leave us feeling energized, and the walk back seems really easy. Last year we continued up the trail to see the other falls farther up, but this year we were there a bit later and decided to just head home. Just as we got back to our car the rain poured down and  it began to storm.  Seemed like the perfect ending to such an amazing hike.

We left feeling energized and recharged.