The Madonna Inn

Depending on your tastes, the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, California, is either the height of gaudiness or a really classy place. This is a photo of the main dining room, in "Pepto Bismol pink," as my friend put it.

The Inn is a California landmark. Its first 12 rooms were completed December 24, 1958, and an additional 28 rooms were quickly built. One hundred ten unique rooms now exist, each decorated differently to suit many individual tastes, like the Barrel of Fun, Antique Cars, Buffalo, Caveman, and Matterhorn rooms, some with waterfall showers, rock fireplaces, European fixtures, and fine furnishings to name a few.

Read more about the Madonna Inn Go to this link, and under accomodations, click 'room features grid' for a sneak preview.

Gaudy or classy, I think I may stay there on my next trip....

ABC Wednesday "C" is for "chocolate-covered..."

Ah, California.... (Another "C"), home of the wacky and wonderful. In this shop they were selling chocolate covered candies of all kinds, including these chocolate-covered scorpions. They also had dried salted scorpions, worms, and crickets, along with the chocolate-covered ones.

Would you try one?

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The Jollier Jolly Roger

This Jolly Roger has been made even jollier by the addition of the Smiley face flag on this boat docked at Morro Bay. Almost makes you welcome pirates aboard your ship!

Welcome to California! Surf's up!

I went to visit a very dear friend in San Luis Obispo, and we made some short side trips. These two surfers are carrying their boards toward the ocean on Pismo Beach. I graduated from high school in southern California in the '60's at the height of surfomania, and whenever I return, it's a major case of nostalgia for me. I couldn't get Beach Boys' tunes out of my head....nor did I want to.

How do YOU roll 'em?

I'm always fascinated by the different ways cultures stack their hay. Sometimes hay'stacks' are just that--stacks; sometimes they're very conical, sometimes in bales.... Here in this Pennsylvanian field the farmer has rolled them into cylinders.

How do they roll 'em where you are?

Theme Day "Night"

Not quite night, but close enough. This is where I slept at night when at my cousin's place. He and his wife have a lovely log cabin home not far from Harrisburg in Mount Gretna, a woodsy resort where we used to go swimming as kids.

Isn't this just the cutest room?


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SKYWATCH FRIDAY - A Kiss in the Sky

People in Hershey, Pennsylvania, get 'kissed' every day, if they look up and see these overhead street lights. They don't melt, either! (These aluminum foil-covered candies are called 'Hershey's Kisses.')

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Gotcha!

This happy cow at Hershey's Chocolate Town tour ride snaps your photo as you exit....but I got her first.

ABC Wednesday "B" is for 'beautiful"

Beautiful indeed, and smart, too. This is my cousin's little granddaughter, Sophia, who accompanied us on our tour of the Chocolate Town Exhibit in Hershey. Naturally, we treated her afterwards.....

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How sweet it is!

Comedian Jackie Gleason said "How sweet it is!" about Brooklyn on his show "The Honeymooners," but inhabitants of Hershey, Pennsylvania, America's chocolate town, believe it's sweeter here! I took a tour of the Chocolate Town Exhibit, which is a far cry (for the better, in a way!) of the tours I took as a kid. Back then, you could tour the real factory, come finger-licking close to the vats of chocolate, and no one had heard of safety precautions! All the same, this tour was fun.

A typical Pennsylvania country scene

I continue my Pennsylvania journey down Memory Lane. For me, this image reminds me so much of the Sunday drives in the country we used to take when I was a kid. Some things don't change much.