My car is full of wood

Ok, painfully cute

At the Fabulous Breakers, Palm Beach

 
For one night, of course.  Also, I left my phone in my car back home, duh...AND...my only pair of correct-strength glasses. So I can barely see.  If there any typos, I apologive.

This is my room. As you can see by the beautiful driveway and gorgeous flowers, the elaborate palms that are lit tastefully at night, when you get comp rooms, they generally don't face the ocean. Ah, well. C'est la vie.  Best steak ever tonight.  If I'd had my phone, I would've taken a picture of it. Just assume it was way better than this.

Two views of my hotel keys since September

Somewhere is my toolbox with two decades of these things. And that doesn't even factor in. the many multiple night stays or the frequent metal keys you can't keep.

Room 806, the Four Seasons, San Francisco

Nice hotel. But gougy.

Also...more super-cliche San Francisco...busy day

The Golden Gate again, in the coastal redwood groves of Muir Woods, Bohemian Grove, Jon inside a small redwood, the TA building.

The tour continues: San Quentin and Alcatraz

The entrance to San Quentin plus a distant view from a bridge. Also, a terrible pic of Alcatraz....that's it behind the pole in the center...

Dulles to San Francisco.

Again. For one day.

Dragged self out of bed for haircut

Before and afters...

Naturally, being stuck for two days in the most pleasant part of San Diego, the most pleasant city there is...

...staying in the hoity-toity Gaslamp district. And naturally I have been sick in bed the whole time. Finally went out to take a picture. Happy Election Day!

Lots to catch up on, but let's start with getting out of New Mexico...

Today's itinerary: 3-hour drive to Albuquerque, sound chk, show at 3, out at 5, plane takes for San Diego at 7. Crowded flight. The actual end of what might be my last busy season. Melancholy.

November 3 First Santa sighting on TV

You over-eager capitalist a-holes. Like this will make us buy more. Death to Santa!

The Lodge, Ruidoso, NM

Picnicking in front of fireplace and watching football. Nothing til 6. How lazy am I?

We landed in Albuquerque in time for sunset...

We actually ARE taking a left at Albuquerque so we should end up in the right place. Which would be Alto, in this case.

The Wonderfully Named Craterian Ginger Rogers Theatre in Medford, OR

One of those places where you can climb into the rafters. Sweet.

A word on Kevin Costner's performance as Robin Hood

For reasons utterly inexplicable, as it only encourages him, one of the lesser lights among the cable channels...you know, TBS, TNT, Encore, one of those...has decided to show "Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves" every few minutes. It is impossible, while typing on a phone, to fully explicate how desperately horrible Kevin Costner is in this, and how completely and keenly aware of it he, and everyone else in the production must have been. What a dreary and awful shoot that must have been. (shudder) This is what I mull over in the San Francisco airport during layovers.

Because sometimes the hotel dryers don't work...

...even though they take your money. The Red Lion Inn in Medford, OR. I cannot recommend highly enough that you stay anywhere else if visiting Medford.

Almost caught up, 10/31, Driving Bend to Medford, OR

These pines with golden trunks keep appearing amidst the regular trees. Beautiful. By the way, all of the photos in this entry were taken on the same 3 hour-drive yesterday. Great place.

 We had in mind to get to Crater Lake: supposedly the northern approach was closed, but you could go the long southerly route. Closed? Why would it be closed?  I mean, it's a beautiful day...

Well, it's a couple of kinds of beautiful day, apparently.  As we got closer to the lake, it tuned into THIS kind of beautiful.

Dave and I got to the "Crater Lake - 3 miles" sign, before having to stop and turn around. Which wasn't all that easy to do --kinda slippery and tricky, so I guess I should be happy I'm not a Jack Nicholson-style tourist-sicle, permanently chagrined in the woods of south central Oregon.

 And so we returned to our regularly scheduled Oregonian beauty....

STILL catching up: 10/30, Tower Theater, Bend, OR

Day off today

All we have to do is get to Medford. Looks like I need a day off. Love you guys.

STILL catching up: 10/29 en route to Bend: Detroit Dam

If anyone reading this blog still thinks I am not old, crazy, and tired, the final frame of this movie should clear that right up.

STILL catching up: driving to Bend 10/29, Oregon Men's Correctional Facility, Max Secure

Also, a side note about Spanish Television...

 

My new favorite show after touring around the west for a couple of weeks has to be Telemundo's "Descontrol."  Of course, there are the obvious reasons: an overabundance of lush, scantily-clad, Spanish beauties shaking their barely-liveried and occasionally oversized tushes with a wild, Latin abandon.  However, there are also comedic elements, as this clip will show.  They are often shaking their shapely, desirable hinderparts to clunky, mom-and-pop sounding horn music performed by mariachi bands that seem to be comprised of middle-aged men concerned with neither their appearance nor their modern appeal.  It's as if MTV's Beach Party had Lawrence Welk playing, but kept shaking their hot, teenage asses 2012-style nonetheless. Charming.

Still Catching Up...The Hotel Murano, Tacoma, WA, 10/28

 

This is the Hotel Murano in Tacoma. It is ridiculously beautiful and well-appointed.  Murano is where fancy glass comes from so the hotel is themed with beautiful, museum-quality glass from top to bottom.  there will be a lot of pictures of the Murano because I liked it a lot.

This is the glass just in the lobby. Not to mention the long fireplace with glass oars and glass portraiture on the walls.

 

 Every floor is dedicated to a different modern glass artist. I was on the 10th floor: Steve Klein.

Even the men's room in the lobby was gorgeous.

Room was fine. Not a bad view.  Room 1014, Hotel Murano, Tacoma, WA.