On the Road Again
In addition to being an introduction to the Writer’s Quotes Wednesday Writing challenge, this post is submitted in response to Lens Artist Challenge #140 “A Change of Scenery” hosted by guest host, Beth from Wandering Dawgs. “Beth suggests trying a different route on your walk, run, or bike ride of our local park. She also extends other opportunities for us, e.g. browsing our archives “to feature images from places we have visited in the past when you needed a change of scenery.”
Lisa Coleman invites us to share in the Bird Weekly Photo Challenge#41 Bird Reflections. Finally my photos also apply to Cee Neuner’s Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge Birds of Any Kind.
CFFC runs weekly challenge starting every Tuesday. 
Writer’s Quotes Wednesdays Writing Challenge Logo
This was one of my dad’s favorite songs. He sang it every time we got in the car to go on a vacation. Interestingly, it was Mom who really took us on the road. When she and Dad divorced, the three of us, Mom, Randy and I, packed our belongings into a 1967 VW Bug and got on the road again traveling from Indiana to Oregon in five bumpy cramped days.
Oregon
Randy and I loved our new adventurous life. He still lives in Portland, OR not far from where we first settled, and I still love to visit. In 2018 when I went up to see him, we decided to spend a few days out of the hot, dusty, smoky, Portland air and go to Newport, Oregon. We stayed in a great suite right on the bay. Every morning we looked out and saw this bird standing in the water.
Same place. From our room he looked real. What do you think?
“Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.”
Gustav Flaubert
LOL! That’s a good excuse for travel, I’ll take it. I disagree that it makes you modest. So what if your tiny? Small and mighty, learned, more interesting, understanding, maybe.
To me, travel is a rare privilege in life. How many people are fortunate enough to have the time and money it takes to travel? I will never see every country in the world. Yet I am so blessed. I take the opportunities to travel as they come to me. Via these reflected birds, I’ll only tell you about a very few places I’ve gone.
Australia
Two blogging friends invited me to come to Australia. It was the opportunity of a lifetime. These elegant, photogenic birds swam in the creeks at Healesville Sanctuary in Victoria, AU. Their reflections told them what they needed to know, “I am so beautiful.”
By the way, I just read Lisbet Collaert’s book, Plunge. Fabulous book, stirring, heart rending, you must read it especially if you are thinking of sailing full time. You can read her promo on my blog here. She didn’t have a lot of money to travel, but made that her lifestyle choice. It’s always a costly choice even on a budget, but this next quote tells why travel is so important.
“Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” –
Seneca
Central California Coast
Who doesn’t want a strong, vigorous mind? I do, I do!
I have been fortunate enough to change scenery both by traveling and by moving. When we lived in California, it was only a two hour drive to escape the summer heat or the winter valley fog. We enjoyed a change of scenery in San Luis Obispo, Avila Beach or Pismo on the Central Coast of California.
One of my favorite things to take with me when I travel is a camera, and my phone has been a dearest travel companion. On this occasion in 2013, I isolated myself for two weeks for NaNoWriMo to write a book. Each day I walked to Avila Beach from our trailer. One day I caught this flock of birds sitting on the log with my phone.
My husband thought it was my best picture ever even though the quality was not great. I always looked expectantly at that log every time I crossed over the golf course bridge hoping to see them again, but I never did.
This hungry bird awaited me at the beach.
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
Mark Twain
Prescott, Arizona
When Vince and I married in 1995, he mentioned in passing that he loved the high desert and wanted to live there. I had a great job teaching in Woodlake, CA, and was as uninterested in living in a desert as these birds are in moving to the Arctic Circle.
Twenty-five years later, after he mentioned it maybe 30,000 times, I agreed that the time was right. If we were ever going to move to the desert, we should get a move on. As soon as I said yes, Vince sprang into action, and within three months, we had exchanged our California Dreaming for a home in the mountain city of Prescott, AZ.
We enjoy hundreds of miles of trails and a change of scenery as often as we wish.
Now it’s your turn. Are you among the hundreds of thousands ready to get back on the road again? Pull out your camera. Write in your journal, write a post and link to this week’s #WQWWC (Writer’s Quotes Wednesdays Writing Challenge).
Or maybe you’d rather make it a photo challenge. That works for me. Maybe you don’t even want to write a post. That works, too.
Find a quote or respond to one of mine.
Quotes are great fun. You can see how I quadruple-dipped here with one post. Make your post count for the most visibility and have fun with it.
If you respond to this #WQWWC prompt – Travel, leave me a link in the comment section. I don’t always get pingbacks. I love it when you do that, too, but I have missed people and I hate to do that.
You can copy, paste and edit this little logo in your own post and add my link each week to the url and have an automatic pingback. Or just add it if you think its a good logo. Canva is my graphic artistic consultant.
Thanks again for stopping by my blog and playing with quotes.
My Reading List for This Week
A comment about reading. When you commit to submitting to a photo or writing challenge, it’s most rewarding if you meet the people in the community. Reading adds a lot of time to the process. I never thought I could read this many blogs in a month, much less a day. But I found that if I take the time to cut and paste the links into a document – even my blog, but I also use a Google Doc, I can read at least half of these in a day. I’ve never tried to read this many blogs in a day, so this is my challenge.
You are welcome to cut and paste my list into any document and see how well you can do with it. If you put this list of links in your next photo challenge for any of these wonderful bloggers, you give them some extra coverage too. So it’s win-win.
#WQWWC List
#LAPC List
- 100 Country Trekkie
- Aletta
- Amy
- Cee
- Chava
- Debbie
- Diane
- Gina
- Happy Love
- John RH
- Johnbo
- Julie
- Karina
- Leya
- Lily
- Lisa
- L.J.
- Miriam
- Natalie
- Oh the Places
- Out of My Write Mind
- Patti
- Sarah
- Siobhan
- Solaner
- Sophia
- Stupidity Hole
- Sue
- Susan
- Suzy
- Teresa
- Tina
- Yan
- Zimmer
Bird Weekly Challenge
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge
- Aletta
- Amy
- Brian
- Chava
- David M
- Deadhead
- Debbie
- Don
- Eklastic
- Elizabatz
- Fascinating Q life
- Hammad
- Heather
- Irene
- Jackie
- Jenn
- Jez
- Judy
- Kat
- Klara
- Lin
- Lisa
- Lisa on the beach
- LJC
- Maria
- Marilyn
- Mimi
- Nicole
- Nora
- Out of My Write Mind
- Philosophy
- Robert
- Russell
- Sally
- S.M. Kelly
- S.M. Kelly City of Springs
- S.M. Kelly Here & There FEATURED BY CEE
- Sarah
- Sofia
- Susanne
- TBL
- Teresa
- Two Sisters
- V. J.
- Xenia
- Yinglan
Marsha Ingrao - Always Write 
86 responses to “#Writer’s Quotes Wednesdays Writing/Photo Challenge #18: Travel”
[…] Travel – 173 views, 39 likes, 85 replies, 3 other challenge links, 90 links (reading list – I […]
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I AM ready to travel! We have a road trip planned soon 😁
In 2018 and 2019 (I think!) we did road trips up and down Highway 1. Down to San Francisco from Depoe Bay Oregon, then up to SF from San Diego. Two of my favorite trips, and the start of more road trips to come. Your photos took me back. I’m ready to hit to road again!
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That’s so lovely. How is Hwy 1 doing, repair-wise?
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Well, when we were there is was really good, we had no issues. We heard or read there was another wash out on a part of it. I hope someday we can go back again, it’s not real far away, It was so beautiful!
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I agree, Lisa, I didn’t go up that way too often because we always stopped at the Central Coast. We were at Hearst Castle in December 2019, but that was as far north as we went on that trip. I used to go to yearly meetings in Asilomar when I worked for the county office of education. Lots of lovely places to visit along the California coast. Enjoy the beach for me. It’s a little far since we moved to Prescott, AZ.
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We stopped at Hurst Castle too, it was amazing! Oh, it’s a ways for us too, we live in the southern AZ 😊
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That is a long way! We live in Prescott! Next time you come up this way, let me know. 🙂
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That would be cool, huh? I am actually meeting a blog friend on Saturday!!
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Very cool! Have fun.
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[…] is my entry for Marsha’s Wednesdays Writing/Photo Challenge #18. I wrote in a previous blog about the strawberry farm outside Stellenbosch in South Africa. They […]
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[…] your pictures about travel, vacations, your favorite place to go, your travel bucket list… #Writer’s Quotes Wednesdays – Travel. Hope to see you soon. 🙂 New topic starts […]
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[…] Written for Marsha’s Writer’s Quotes Wednesdays Writing Challenge #18: Travel […]
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Thanks, Lisa! 🙂
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[…] your pictures about travel, vacations, your favorite place to go, your travel bucket list… #Writer’s Quotes Wednesdays – Travel. Hope to see you soon. New topic coming Wednesday […]
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Hi Marsha, here’s my post;
Thanks
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Yay, I’ll be right there! 🙂
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Thanks 🤩
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[…] Marsha is the host of WQWWC […]
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[…] Marsha – Always Write […]
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[…] one of the values I would immediately try to pass onto my child was the love and appreciation of travel. In psychology, we measure openness to new ideas. As a matter of fact it is one of the big five […]
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Thank you for sharing a link to my blog.
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Thank you for the mention Marsha!
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You are welcome, Aletta. I went link-crazy! I’m glad you don’t mind! 🙂 It helps me to visit blogs of participating challenges. 🙂
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You are welcome to link my posts, Marsha!
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Thanks Aletta. 🙂 I think it’s a win-win.
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😀
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this post sure made me want to get back on the road again; glad you are enjoying life in the high desert. and thanks for sharing some great photos!
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Thanks, Jim. What are some of the favorite places you’ve been?
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everywhere we’ve been! Denver, Boulder, Hilton Head, Phoenix, Disneyworld, Savannah, Hawaii, Raleigh, Cleveland, Orlando, Key West….
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Wow, You need to post at least one in my challenge, Jim. You’ve been all over. Where have you been in HI?
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We’ve been to Oahu and the Big Island. One of our sons lived there for several years, so we got to visit him!
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So awesome. We’ve been there, but our main go to place was Maui because of our timeshare.
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nice place to have a timeshare!
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It was. But timeshares being timeshares, we got out of it this year. 🙂
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we got rid of our timeshare a few years ago. 🙂
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Good move. I enjoyed it, but it was annoying to go to the updates. I’m a sucker for “saving money and protecting my assets.”
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and the annual maintenance fees were quite annoying as well!
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Exactly, and exorbitant. That’s why we got out even though we lost our initial down payment, which was so hard to do, but we’re free!
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we got a few vacations out of ours, but who knows if it was a good investment or not…
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We had lots of vacations, and it was not! LOL
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probably not for us either )
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[…] I am also sharing my post with Marsha at Writer’s Quotes Wednesdays Writing Challenge […]
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OMG, Marsha. Answering a challenge and issuing a challenge in the same post while saluting past challengers. Wow. I love travel, but haven’t been to the places you highlighted. Thanks for the journey. Meanwhile, here’s my contribution – a beach walk about Travel. https://beachwalkreflections.wordpress.com/2021/02/27/47-travel/
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Thanks Frank. It means a lot that you join in! 🙂
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Travel with birds! Lovely photos.
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Thanks, Anne! 🙂
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Lovely bird reflection photos 🙂 thank you for the mention as well 🌼
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You are welcome, Lily. I enjoyed all your posts as well. 🙂
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Attractive pictures and blog. I am inviting you to have a look on my last two blogs
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I will do that in the morning, Mina. 🙂
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So do you think those birds sitting on a log with your phone were placing bets with your phone? Ha, ha, ha, ha. Gotcha….
>
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I don’t remember what I thought now. Vince probably said something and I wrote it as a comment probably 7 years ago.
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Do you think the high desert is a keeper, or is it too early to tell? I’m sure that Vince is a keeper and the 2 probably go hand in hand. 🙂 🙂 Happy Easter, Marsha, and happy trails!
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I’m loving it, Jo, but it is too soon to tell. Vince may get antsy, but I think it will take a few years. I think if his son decides to retire here, It’s definitely a keeper. It was a tremendous amount of work to sell everything and move two households here. We have his sister with us, so we have two condos here. None of us are anxious to do it again for a while!!! Thanks for asking, Jo. You are so sweet. Have a happy Easter yourself. See you on the trail. Speaking of which, did you hear that Sue Vincent passed on March 29th?
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No, I didn’t know, Marsha. There was a post from Stuart this morning which seemed ambivalent. He’s been wonderful, hasn’t he? I suppose it’s better now than having her linger but she truly was amazing. Thanks for letting me know. 🙂
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She was amazing. I only got to know her recently, and can see why she was so well loved.
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I enjoyed your bird pictures, Marsha. You are certainly keeping yourself very busy with blogs.
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I am, but I’m not trying to write books. I haven’t mastered the art of doing both like you do so well, Robbie. I think I like the immediate feedback too much. 🙂
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Thanks for this wonderful post and for taking part in the change of scenery challenge.i enjoyed your bird reflection photos. Your Mark Twain quote is one of my favorites.
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Thank you Beth. You have been such a fabulous guest host this week. It has been enormously busy for you, I know because I’m still trying to visit everyone, and you are quick with the visits and a wonderful comment as well. Thanks for doing such a great job.
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Marsha, you are welcome. It was my pleasure!
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🙂
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What great inspiration you are to us.
I hope your enjoy my interpretation.
https://ceenphotography.com/2021/03/31/wednesdays-writing-photo-challenge-18-travel/
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Thank you Cee. You inspire me, too. I feel I am growing because of our friendship.
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Me too!! 😀 😀
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Lots of hugs. Have a wonderful weekend and happy Easter. 🙂
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[…] is my entry for Marsha’s Wednesdays Writing/Photo Challenge #18. I’ve not done a Pick Me Up for quite awhile and I thought Marsha’s challenge was a […]
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A nice collection of bird photos and fun travel memories! Thank you for the mention Marsha. I got your message with the questions. I’ll review them and read your previous interviews. I’ll get back to you.
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Thank you so much, Natalie. You can pick and choose. I may ask some follow-up questions after I’ve read through your responses to make the narrative read smoothly.
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Beautiful memories from your travels 🙂
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Yes, I had fun sifting through photos, Cathy. I know we are all anxious to get back to traveling. Like the Lens Artist challenge, we all need a change of scenery even if it’s just looking through our pictures of great trips. 🙂
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Absolutely
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🙂
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Apart from Australia, we’ve had the privilege of visiting the other spots. Amazing!
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V.J. I know you’ve done a lot of traveling too. We live in an amazing world. 🙂
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Thank you, Marsha! Have a wonderful week. 🙂
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You are welcome, Amy. Your photos are always a delight. But these were especially dreamy. 🙂
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Hi Marsha….I loved your post. The oregon coast is stunning and I’m thankful we live so close and visit it often. I’ve always loved that song too.
I decided to join in to #WQWWC. Here’s my link:bhttps://troyerslovinglife.blogspot.com/2021/03/wqwwc-march-31st-theme-trave.html
I don’t have wordpress so haven’t figured out the pingback but I did link to your blog in the post.
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Thanks for the mention Marsha.
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You made my week. 🙂
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Thanks my friend
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Hugs and happy Easter, Sadje. 🙂
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Thanks.
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A happy Easter to you too
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Thank you, Sadje. 🙂
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You’re welcome 😉
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