My Vacation

Well, I'm back from a wonderful trip. I went to visit my friends Donna and Chug in Western Massachusetts. I took the Amtrak from Buffalo/Depew, NY to Springfield, MA and then we drove back to Donna's place about forty minutes from there.
Saturday Morning we went to the post office and the library of  Leverette, MA and then on to the great little bookstore - well great used bookstore called the Bookmill of Montague, MA.
While visiting Donna and Chug and their dog Isabella - Bella for short, we went for walks, rested, read, ate and I did my sewing or showed her my Zentangles. Here is the home page of Zentangle a fantastic drawing/meditating/zen technique invented or discovered by Rick and Maria and which I've been doing for over a year periodically. I really like doing this form of meditating and use it to rest from the busyness of the days.
On Sunday while her husband went to Boston for a Red Sox game Donna and I went to Brattleboro, Vermont to see the museum there. The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center was a lovely building with a great lady at the front desk, great exhibits and for me in particular the Salley Mavor exhibit. After walking around the town a bit we visited the Delectable Mountain Cloth where I bought a few yards of tiny lace for my dolls. This store was absolutely wonderful - crammed full of fabric, lace, buttons, jewellery, - anything you can imagine for doll costuming and for that matter costuming in general. The links to these places are by no means the only links. While you are checking out the Brattleboro links check out the ones with the pictures of the floods from hurricane Irene.
We were going to go to the Peace Pagoda but time slipped away from us. Donna had an appointment in Amherst MA on Monday and then we went to have lunch with her friend in Northampton, MA. I have been to western MA to visit before and every time I'm there I feel like I need to move there. But I'm that way when I go to Tucson, AZ or St.Petersburg, FL as well.
When I can figure out how to put my pictures in my blog I'll show you some of the view from their home and some of the landscape from the train. Oh, and the train ride back was a bit different than the one to MA. The train was about forty five minutes late into Springfield from Boston and then we slowly lost time to get me to Buffalo/Depew, NY at 2:30 in the morning. I had booked a hotel room because I do not like driving in the dark expecting to get in shortly after midnight. Good thing they had saved my room. In spite of the delay I had a wonderful time both travelling and especially with my friend Donna.