A Very Gatsby Party

We  went to a wonderful house-warming party a couple of weeks ago at a recently renovated estate right on the shore of Lake Ontario.  Since the original house was from the twenties, the theme of the party was Gatsby.  Erich, my DH,  and I did our best to evoke the era.

Yours truly and hubby posing next to the lake

As you can see, the setting was absolutely spectacular...

 And the costumes were fabulous as well...

Folks on the balcony

There was delicious food, lots of entertainment, and the evening ended with fireworks over the lake.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that this is not our usual social milieu.  You see, we live on the wrong side of the tracks, the tracks in this case being the QEW (for non-Canadians that is a big highway running parallel with the lake shore.)

A couple of vintage models.....

Making Changes

I apologize if things look weird here.  Because of my frustrations with getting photos and text to display in the manner I want, I was just about to switch to another blogging platform.  When what to my wondering eyes should appear but Blogger in Draft, an advanced form of Blogger that is not yet in general release.  It seems to provide some of the things I want - like captions for photos and the ability to change the width of the columns- so I'm giving it a try.  The blog may be a bit unstable as I adjust my header photo and experiment with other changes.

More on Kauai

During our days om Kauai, DH and I found a great place for breakfast on the south shore called Joe's on the Green. This cheerful character, a red crested cardinal, waited not-too-patiently for us to finish our banana pancakes (with coconut syrup). Yum.

About one quarter of the Kauai coastline is inaccessible except by long and strenuous hikes or by boat, although the boats are not supposed to land. Not being in tip-top shape, we opted for a boat ride along the Napali Coast. The scenery is spectacular with mountains coming right down to the water, isolated beaches, and many caves. In a couple of places, the boat went right into the caves and right under a waterfall. (No pics of that particular waterfall because my camera was under my rain poncho.) Some friendly dolphins had a great time playing in the bow wake of our boat.

Back on land again, we explored a blow hole on the south shore

Secret Beach (which is listed in all the guide books) is on the north shore.

We had a rainbow right outside our condo. I ran as fast as I could, but the pot of gold was gone by the time I got there.

Trip to Kauai

Quite awhile ago, DH and I purchased a one-time, week-long stay with a time-share outfit. It was a very low price for a place that rents for $400 per night, and the only hitch was that we had to listen to a 120-minute sales pitch aimed at getting us to buy time-share points. It's amazing how l-o-n-g 120 minutes can be! But it was worth it because we had a great time. And thank goodness for frequent flier points which got us there for free.
We were on Kauai, the garden island, which is the wettest of the islands. Even in the dry season, there are lots of waterfalls and the rivers are full.



















We drove up Waimea Canyon, the "grand canyon" of Hawaii, and stopped to enjoy the views.

































































The road ends and to get any further, you have to hike. The ocean side of the mountain was shrouded in thick fog and the trail was muddy and very slick in spots, but we hiked a mile to the "viewpoint" in hopes that the fog would go away. In the photo below, you can see the ridge we were aiming at in the upper right corner. You can also see the famous red dirt of Kauai in the foreground. The big hiker with the hat is my hubby.

The ocean side was still socked in, but I got one nice shot into the canyon.