Late Bloomer Traveler

We have been heading south on our travel in Portugal the past few days and visited Evora and Beja today. Evora has such an interesting history as there are layers of history from the Romans, Moors, and Christians built on top of each other. The Chapel of Bones (decorated with thousands of human bones) was macabre yet fascinating.

We’ve spent the past few days exploring and learning about wine/port in the beautiful Douro Valley — and of course, sampling many 😀 We are a really enjoying this magical part of Portugal.

We’ve been enjoying the past few days exploring the lovely city of Porto. One of my favorite things to do while traveling to a new city is meeting with the locals — I really had fun chatting with this dad and daughter team yesterday while shopping at a local market. The entire family is involved in their small business. I could have stayed longer but my husband was all “shoppinged-out” 😂

The West Coast debut of the exhibit, Portraits of Courage is now on display at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California. Paintings of 98 U.S. service members and veterans who have served with honor since 9/11 are on display. What makes these paintings extra special is that all were painted by President George W. Bush of veterans he has come to know personally since he left office.
But hurry if you would like to see the exhibit, A Commander in Chief’s Tribute to America’s Warriors, as it will be showing through May 19.

So I have lived in Southern California for decades and never knew this little piece of history existed but glad I had the opportunity to visit yesterday. The Diego Sepulveda Adobe in Costa Mesa was built in 1823 and was part of the Mission San Juan Capistrano — it was used as a station and shelter for the herdsman for the Capistrano cattle.
Four distinct periods of California history are represented in the rooms of the adobe - Native American, Mission, Spanish, and Victorian. It is well preserved (some of the adobe bricks are original) and houses some fabulous artifacts found in the area which date far before the Spaniards arrived.
I attended for a group tour but the adobe is normally open to the public the 1st and 3rd Saturday of the month.

Eye spy with my naked eye: We have been really enjoying the past few days in South Florida. I was sitting on our porch this morning enjoying my coffee and noticed some “movement” in our tree —I couldn’t spot him right away since he blended in with the greenery. Normally, I am NOT a fan of reptiles but this “little” guy and I kind of hit it off.

To all my friends who celebrate Easter, I hope you had a joyful one . We listened to service early which was wonderful and so inspirational — the Easter message is so uplifting. A special bonus of the day was catching the final perfLormance of MJ The Musical. It was a lovely performance — the music and dancing were fabulous.