Wanderlust: Jackson Hole

Everytime Nick and I go on vacation, I tell him that THIS place (*insert location*) is definitely the place that I’d like to move.  While we’re there, I inevitably begin to search for real estate listings…  It’s a pattern that I go through that [I’m sure] makes traveling with me both difficult and feel like a broken record.  Nevertheless, on our most recent jaunt to Wyoming, I fell in love all over again with a new place.  With a backyard view like this, who’d ever want to leave?

Not me! Now I just have to figure out how to buy one of those million dollar views!  (It turns out that real estate there is pretty darn expensive.  Try the most expensive in the U.S.  Oh well.  Maybe next vacation spot.)

For the love of Deyrolle

About 5 years ago I had the joy of visiting Paris.  On that very brief visit, I was told that I MUST stop in to see Deyrolle while I was there.  For those of you that have never visited, it’s a natural science “Cabinet of Curiosities” shop started in 1831 that is filled to the brim with taxidermy, etymological specimens, shells and coral, beautiful instructional charts, classrooms, etc…and all displayed with a nod to whimsy.  (This is evident from the first moment you look in the window and see an antelope dressed in gardening clothes.)  Unfortunately, I had other appointments to attend to while I was there, but I literally could have stayed in Deyrolle for the entire day.  It left me feeling sad to leave because I wanted to explore every nook and cranny of this incredible place, and felt as if I’d only scratched the surface.

Fast forward a few years, and I heard that Deyrolle had experienced a terrible fire and most of it had burned.  Thankfully the owners and volunteers were able to save a great number of specimens…and today the shop has been rebuilt.

In 2009 Assouline Publishing released a book of photographs by Laurent Bochet called 1000 degrees Celsius that captured the remains of what happened after the fire.  It’s a captivating book that I would recommend to anyone who loves animals and the spirit of survival.  The portraits section at the end is my favorite part for it’s vitality against the blackened walls of the shop.  It features volunteers posing with specimens that survived the fire from Deyrolle.  My favorite quote from that section is, “Amid all this carbon, they [the specimens] had never looked as much like survivors.  We gathered them together so that they could rub each other, nuzzle each other – a kiss.”

See more photos from Laurent Bochet’s 1000 degrees Celsius after the jump.

Hotel Rooms: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

Mr. House Obsession and I have been looking for places to spend our honeymoon for the past month, and looking at endless possibilities when it comes to hotels.  Now, both of us travel a decent amount for work and and therefore have a lot of experience with hotels.  In fact, Mr. House Obsession’s parents owned a hotel for many years and he grew up living there.  So as you can imagine, we’re both pretty picky when it comes to the place we’re going to stay for what is supposed to be one of the most romantic events of our relationship.   (P.S. as it turns out, I’m actually WAY pickier about the aesthetics of the hotel room…but that’s beside the point.)

Even though I know that the hotel interior shouldn’t matter to me that much, it does this time way more than usual.  I didn’t want this room in Barbados.

I wanted this room in St Barth.

Rather than a big “fancy” hotel like this in the Dominican Republic…

We wanted a quiet lodge-like place similar to this hotel in Belize.

I don’t care that this place is in beautiful St. Croix if the room looks like the Golden Girls decorated it…

It’s clear that beach chic can be done well, as exemplified here by this lovely place on Tortola, BVI.

Oh, I’m sorry Antigua…you must have known I have a thing for hammocks!!

Unfortunately Antigua, I read the fine print and your hotel has no air conditioning here.  In June, that will be a big problem for me.   I just know it.  So I’ll keep looking…

At any rate, as you can tell…I’ve had a lot of fun digging through travel websites looking for places to go and vacation.  I could literally spend all day just thinking about visiting each and every one of these fabulous spots.  Even the ones with not-so-pretty hotel rooms, still have beautiful locales.  My new favorite websites for all this digging are LuxuryLink.com and MrandMrsSmith.com Check them out and begin ogling all the beautiful vacation spots for yourself.   Considering how much it’s snowing outside in Philadelphia at the moment, I definitely want to think about beautiful beaches…for sure!

Long overdue photos of the Ohio State Fair 2009

Several weeks ago Nick and I went to Ohio to visit our friends in Columbus.  While we were there we stopped off at the Ohio State Fair for the afternoon.  And of course, I enjoyed myself immensely.  Here’s all the heartland goodness.

Sheep Judging

Sheep shearing

Roast Beef Sundae?!  On a hot summer day?  No thanks.

Fancy chickens?  I’ll take two please!!

Or maybe just one small one?  Do you think my neighbors would hate for me having chickens in the city?  It can’t be worse than having loud kids, right?

Anyone up for learning how to milk a cow?  Ehhhh….maybe not.

Nah, I think I’d rather have a meatball splash.  Sounds super refreshing, right?!  Just like a dip in the pool.

And of course, the perfect photo op by my wonderful guy (who took all the photos obviously).

Days at an early 1800’s Stone Mill

Yesterday and today are being spent working at this old mill in central pennsylvania.  The weather has been nice, the food has been excellent, and cell phone reception has been noticeably absent.  But here are a few pics showing the loveliness of the setting:

House Tour of Huron, South Dakota

I have no reason to not have been posting on the blog since the return from my vacation (other than I got engaged and have been seriously preoccupied!), so I do apologize for my lack of attention to this space.    I honestly can’t promise that it’s going to get better either…but I did take a lot of great photos of the houses of Huron, South Dakota while I was there.   I love looking at houses…and I hope you do too.

This one looks like the Brady house, no?   “Marsha! Marsha! Marsha!!”

This house needs a paint job, no?

They’ve turned this beautiful old Victorian into a museum.

Note the little tiny church in the front yard of this house.  Weird, right?

For such a small town, there was a shocking amount of variety here.  Anyways…I found it rather enjoyable checking out their houses while I was visiting.  Oh, and Mt Rushmore, the Black Hills, and the Badlands were all great too!

Off to South Dakota

I’ve been pretty slack in my posting of late.   I apologize.  First of all, I was preparing for major birthday festivities…and also to head off for vacation in South Dakota.  N’s family is from there, so we’re doing 9 days of what I’m calling my Wild West Adventure.  We’ll be hitting up Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota and Minnesota in our journey.  Hopefully I can show off lots of fun pics when I return.  For now, you’ll have to settle for this postcard.  See you soon!!

Trip to California

I just got back from a work trip in Santa Ynez, California.   It was a lot of fun to get out of the cold Northeast for a few days, but I was busy nonstop while I was there…so unfortunately for you I didn’t get to do much sightseeing or photo-taking.  I did manage to snap a pic of my hotel room in Santa Ynez though.  It was pretty over the top Victorian style (for my taste), so I had to take a pic to document it.   I mean…check out the chandelier and the drapes!??!  It also had a remote control fireplace and a huge white wicker headboard.  (Sorry my photos are so terrible.  I accidentally left my camera battery at home, and had to use my phone for these few images.)

We stayed at the Santa Ynez Inn.  Even though it wasn’t my style, at least the room was spacious and the beds were quite comfortable.  I have to further mention their over-use of gold & brass everywhere too.  I forgot to get pictures of it, but the faucet in the bathroom was actually a golden swan similar to this one!

The majority of the time I was there was spent working, and the nicest thing about the area was the drive to and from the job.  Here’s the my drive in on the morning commute…

Oh, and lastly…I got to meet John Forsythe of Dynasty fame while out for dinner there.  He was completely fabulous and kissed my hand in introduction!  So lovely of him.   He’s still quite a handsome man for someone who’s 90!

San Francisco…yep, just as good as I thought it would be

I only had two days in San Francisco…so it was a whirlwind tour to say the least.  But in that time, I discovered many great things such as:

Nachos made to order in the Mission.  Heck yeah!!  This reason alone is enough to make me want to move there.

High quality thrift stores.  There were so many great little places with an awesome assortment of stuff.  I realized that if I did live there, I would drive myself crazy seeing so many amazing things and a tiny apartment to live in.  Heck, I already own more furniture now than would fit in most places.  No wonder there are so many great things in the vintage stores there.  Perhaps no one can fit any of it.

Muir Beach Overlook.  I mean, c’mon.  It’s gorgeous.  There’s really nothing else to say other than that.

After looking through all my photos, I realized that I didn’t have that many great photos that were worth posting.  Most are just random tourist-y photos.  I just didn’t have enough time to do anything there that was truly photographically awe-inspiring.   However, I did take some pics of my friend’s apartment (with his permission) because I thought it was inspirational enough to post here.

He has fabulous taste…and lives in Russian Hill.  Here you go:

This is the entry to his apartment.  Looking into his gorgeous dining room.  I LOVE his apartment.

Here’s the view from his apartment.  What’s that in the distance?  Oh yeah, the Golden Gate Bridge.

This is just another view of the interior.  Detail shot of his fireplace.  And it works!!

Anyways…I loved my time there.  And of course, staying at my friend’s place was great.   I could downsize to an apartment with that view!!

Appearing soon in California…for a short time only!

Next Friday I’m heading out to Los Angeles for two days!!  Not only am I getting to head somewhere warm to escape this dreadful cold weather in Philadelphia, but I’m excited to see a great friend of mine that works for Shabby Chic!!  Woohoo!  Maybe I’ll get to meet Rachel Ashwell too?!  (I doubt it though…because I’ll be working myself.  However, I did see her several years ago in High Point.  She’s quite attractive in person, I must say.)   At any rate, that’s alright b/c at night we’re going to be celebrating her husband’s birthday.  What great timing, eh?! Arrive in L.A. for work,  work all day, and then head out with old friends for cocktails?!   I love it!

Meanwhile, after work is done on Sunday…I’m heading out to San Francisco for two days!!!  I’ve never been there before so I’m SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO  excited!!!  Can you tell how excited that is?!  (I’m using an awful lot of exclamation marks in this post, so I hope I’m getting the point across that I’m EXTREMELY excited.)  Oooh, San Francisco.  I’m intrigued by your beauty!  By the thrift stores, colorful exteriors, hilly streets, trolleys!  Yay!  Oh, and I forgot to mention that the [official] reason I’m headed up there to visit is because of yet another friend (who also happens to work in the home decor business — for DWR).  So next weekend is going to be chock full of talk about design, antiques, decorating, blah blah blah.  OMGGGG!  I’m salivating just thinking about it all.  I can’t wait.

Okay…calm down.  I promise to take LOTS of pictures!