Another Weekend, Another Trip

I love that we've gotten to travel to so many foreign destinations, but sometimes the best trips have nothing to do with foreign countries and everything to do with being around family.

One of the many blessings in my life is an amazing extended family who works so hard to stay connected and involved as we get older.  In yesteryear, we always had certain holidays to look forward to, knowing we would all be together.  These days we have to try a lot harder to get it to work with everyone's complicated schedules, but two weeks ago we finally got together for the first time since Steve and I got home.

Words don't really adequately describe how lovely it was to spend time with everyone and it was so sad to have to leave to drive back to Michigan.

Poor Allie spent a serious portion of the day immersed in homework even though she was on fall break.  The constant busyness is something I often miss and simultaneously do not regret leaving behind from my college days.  (Sidenote: what do you think of the size of the portraits vs landscapes? I can't decide if I like the portraits or if they're just too big for most normal screens)

Part of Allie's homework was taking photos for one of her film class projects, but unfortunately the film in her camera wasn't advancing so she ended up with a lot of nothing.

A new forming tradition at our get togethers is a few rousing games of catchphrase, which always results in much hilarity watching everyone describe and guess clues.

Everybody brought a little of something to the party and we had more than enough to eat.  I brought desserts (more deets tomorrow!) as there is no better way to make five desserts without worrying about promptly eating them all.

To top it off, we all got to drink out of awesome skull cups in celebration of the upcoming holiday.

Labor Day Travels Part Deux

The inside spaces at the House on the Rock were filled with room after room of awesome, and the outside was no exception.  This huge cannon and chain was on display and it really looked like it could have been used at one point, although I don't know if it was.

There was a lot of wood supports and framing outside and it made the whole place feel warm and charming.

An overhead shot of the outside garden paths and ponds.  Everything was lush and green; even though it was a dreary rainy day, it was still delightful.

There were bridges across the pond connecting the paths, and some kind of koi/huge goldfish in the pond.

More bridges.  I feel like this would be a great place for family pictures; a great outdoorsy feeling without getting too far into nature.

There were also a couple of pretty little waterfalls.

Another little waterfall.

We had a couple other adventures in Illinois including a trip to UIUC to visit the infamous underground library and the cornfield that caused it.

Performing Arts theater building on campus

We also spent an afternoon at a nearby orchard enjoying the best hot apple cider and apple cider doughnuts. They really were the best doughnuts I've ever had.  They also had a little farm museum with all sorts of old farm equipment and memorabilia from life in the early 1900s.

They even had a 48 star flag on display.

I really loved the look of this old fashioned stove/oven.

They had a few animals too including this baby cow, some goats, and chickens.  It stank to high heaven inside the barn, but the animals were pretty cute.

Cool old truck sitting outside the orchard.

The worst part about our trip was that it couldn't last longer! We had a great time visiting and really recommend going to the House on the Rock!

House on the Rock Rocks!

Over labor day we drove to Illinois to visit my best friend and her family for a few days, and while we were there we drove up to Wisconsin to visit the House on the Rock.  If you've never been, it's what is sounds like, but the house and surrounding buildings have turned into museums full of a bit of everything from anywhere.

Outside there was an ornamental garden with some pretty adorable plants.  These are a type of ornamental pepper that are so small they can grow up instead of down.

These pumpkin on a stick were probably my favorite because they are just too cute.  In reality, they aren't pumpkins at all but actually eggplants.

More eggplants, this time white eggplant which look like little eggs growing on a plant until they turn yellow.

Stained glass inside the house.

Asian themed statues.

This was the ceiling in one section of the house and I really liked the way it looked.

Since the house stands on the edge of a rock, this infinity room lends a great view to the surrounding area, if you can stand the bounciness of the walkway.  The whole structure was cantilevered and so it would sway up and down as people walked the length of the room.

This was my favorite gun from the very large collection.  I can't imagine it would have worked well or been very accurate, but it was probably comical if it was ever used.

One of the best parts was all of the player instrument exhibits.  Each one played a different song, and this one played Octopus's Garden.  It played near continuously while we walked around the giant whale and looked at the model ships.

Teeth from the giant whale.

Giant indeed.  This took up the entire middle section of what was a very large warehouse type building.  The whale is in battle with the giant kraken.

Tons of model ships lined the walls on several levels around the whale.  There were a lot of recognizable boats too like the Titanic, Mayflower, and Columbus's three boats.  

Planes, boats, and even cars were in the museum.  This car had been entirely covered in a tile mosaic, which was pretty cool looking but I would imagine made the car incredibly heavy.

Another schmancy car unfortunately type unknown.

Even the bathrooms were decorated with all sorts of stuff.  This bathroom had an entire winter scene populated by penguins while some of the other bathrooms had planes suspended from the ceiling and glassware in display cases.

Back outside they had wagons, carriages, and this funeral carriage as well.

House on the Rock is filled with lots of crazy weird stuff, but as far as museums go, it was probably one of my favorites and well worth the drive!

Kandy: Trip to the Tea Museum

A short 4 km drive from Kandy is a fabulous Tea Museum.  The old tea factory has been converted into a museum and goes through the history of tea production in Sri Lanka and the tea making process, which is more complicated than one might think!

Sri Lanka Tea Museum

Hand drawn factory plans

An old liquid chromatograph used for tea testing.  They had lots of old sciency instruments used to do testing and research on tea leaves.

Drying racks for the tea leaves to dry on.  This whole floor would have been covered in these racks in an operating factory.  The building was windows on all four sides so the air could circulate and help dry the tea.   The huge walls of windows were absolutely gorgeous; I'd love to live somewhere with so many windows.

A shaker machine to shake out small particles.

Steve hanging out on the top floor.  When we got to the top floor of the museum, they have a little tea shop where you can have a free cuppa tea.  I was constantly shocked by how tasty the tea was, and I'm not even a huge fan of tea.  But I suppose packaged tea bags don't compare to quality loose leaf tea.

They even had this awesome working telescope to get a good view of all of the surrounding areas.

We walked about half way back to Kandy, which was much easier since it was almost completely downhill.  On the way we passed this goat getting some lunch in a nearby field.

We walked past so many tea fields.  Most of these weren't being picked at the time; we didn't see tea harvesting until we passed some on the train ride to Nuwara Eliya.

Check out the rest of our Sri Lanka travels:

Colombo: Beira Lake and Gangaramaya Temple 

Colombo: Dehiwala Zoo

Summer Reading

Colombo: Viharamahadevi Park

Colombo: National Museum

Colombo: Fort

Train Ride to Kandy

Kandy: Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, 1

Kandy: Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, 2
Kandy: Udawattakele National Sanctuary 

Kandy: Shopping and Sites

Kandy: British Garrison Cemetery and Royal Palace Park

Kandy: Peradeniya Royal Botanic Gardens