Tag: Travel

Saturday Snapshot: Visiting Book Characters

On By cherylmahoneyIn Saturday Snapshot27 Comments

I’ve mentioned before that I love visiting places that figure in books, and I’ve been lucky to do that fairly often.  Once in a great while, I get to visit a character from a book–sort of!

These are the original Winnie-the-Pooh characters, the dolls owned by Christopher Robin Milne, A. A. Milne’s son.  Rabbit and Owl were slightly more imaginary, and Roo was lost in an apple orchard around 1925, but you can go visit Kanga, Tigger, Edward Bear, Piglet and Eeyore at the New York Public Library.  There’s a lovely display in the children’s section.  You can’t see it in this picture, but Eeyore’s tail really is held on with a tack!

This is the Peter Pan Statue in Kensington Gardens, which is where Peter ran away to when he left home.  I don’t actually know those two little girls, but they happened to be there when I snapped the picture and I liked how it came out.  And I’m fascinated by the base of the statue–I see something new in it every time I look at it.

There aren’t very many bookish characters available to be visited…but at least there are plenty more bookish places I still want to go…

See more Saturday Snapshots on At Home with Books!

Saturday Snapshot: My Literary Cat-Friend

On By cherylmahoneyIn Saturday Snapshot17 Comments

I try to make a habit of walking around my neighborhood every day, and along the way I’ve met lots of neighborhood cats.  My favorite is Ruby, a very friendly adventurer who plainly has a literary interest.

There’s a small library only about six blocks from my apartment, and most of the time that’s where I see Ruby.  She likes to hang out on the brick wall or the front steps.  She’s a smart cat, and has realized that this is the place to go to meet people–or perhaps she likes to read.

I had always assumed she lived nearby, but then one day I actually took a look at the address on her tag–it turns out she lives a block and half away from the library.  By that point I’d been seeing her there for months, so I knew she wasn’t lost.  She just likes to travel.  In practical terms, I know I probably should worry about her crossing (quiet) streets, but if you actually meet Ruby–well, that is the most sure-of-herself cat I’ve ever seen, and it’s hard not to believe that she knows exactly what she’s doing.

Just once I did worry a little–I was walking a block on past the library, and Ruby seemed inclined to go the same way, the exact opposite direction from her house.  She ignored my suggestions that she ought to go back, and I don’t really think she was trying to follow me at all.  I think she was just going about her own business.  She trotted off down a sidepath with no hesitation, and sure enough, I saw her back at the library a day or two later.

I must admit, there are days when I feel somewhat envious.  I’d rather like to spend the day hanging out at the library too!

Visit At Home with Books for more Saturday Snapshots!

Saturday Snapshot: Bookish Places

On By cherylmahoneyIn Saturday Snapshot25 Comments

One of my favorite things to do on trips is to visit places I’ve read about in books.  Somehow, having a fictional event set in a real place makes that place so much more interesting!  Maybe it’s because I read about so many fantasy or sci fi places I’m obviously never going to go 🙂 so it’s especially fun when I can go somewhere real.

Everywhere I turned on my trip to New York, I seemed to be seeing something I knew from a book or a movie or just the cultural consciousness.  Naturally I took pictures of everything!  But I’ll just share a couple today.  🙂

First, the fountain in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  It’s lovely in its own right, and all the more interesting because Claudia and Jamie took a bath in it while they were hiding out at the Met, in From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg.

Next on the museum tour, the Natural History Museum.  It’s featured in The Night at the Museum, but personally I was more interested in it as Caroline’s museum.

In The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline by Lois Lowry, Caroline is an eleven-year-old girl and aspiring paleontologist who goes to the Natural History Museum every week.  She knows all the exhibits and everyone who works there.  It’s clearly a second home for her, and I felt that a bit vicariously, even though it was my first trip.  And anyway, who doesn’t love seeing dinosaurs?

I’ll save some other places for another week…  In the meantime, check out more Saturday Snapshots on At Home with Books!

Quotable Mason Cooley

On By cherylmahoneyIn Quotable1 Comment

“Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are.”

– Mason Cooley

Return Trip by Bus

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fiction Friday1 Comment

After posting my last Fiction Friday about an adventure on Greyhound, I looked back at my writing to see if the rest of the trip felt post-worthy.  Oddly enough, I found that the part about Disneyland was not as interesting as the part about Greyhound (which is not how it felt in experience!)

Don’t get me wrong: I LOVE Disneyland.  Which may be the problem.  I wrote like mad all day, but lots of “Loved this ride” and “That ride was great” and “PIRATES!” does not really lend itself to writing anyone else will find all that interesting.

But the ride home on Greyhound–that had more to offer.  So just take my word for it that it was an amazing time in Disneyland; and then we (the slightly fictionalized “we”) got back on the Greyhound to go home…

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Saturday, 10:50 am

I have definitely been waking up far too early far too often lately.  Up early again today, so as to get dressed, eat breakfast, pack up and get out.

Angela drove us to the Anaheim Greyhound station, which is very tiny.  One little room and a few chairs, just one door instead of numbered gates.  And, saints be praised, they had an intelligible intercom system.  Four Greyhound stations, and only one had announcements that could actually be understood. Continue reading “Return Trip by Bus” →