Relax~Revitalize~Renew ~101

Viaggiatore and I are ready for the road again.  Nevermind that we just got back from another trip to London; there is a very special trip coming soon... one that we've been looking forward to for a very long time.

This will be the one that truly counts, for the whole year.  This will be the one during which we can relax and let the world go away, revitalize our souls and our bodies, and renew all those things about life that we love, live for, and believe in.  We'll find new things, too, which will only enrich the experience.  Oh the adventures to be had!

Mr. Black has agreed to join us on this excursion as well, so the company will be very good, indeed.  There's much to be said for good company on adventures to be had.  We'll visit friends and family, make new friends along the way, and see so many countless wonderful things and places. 

Here's some preliminary Introspect:

Mike The Headless Chicken

I really wish I was kidding about this one.

Let's go back to September 10th, 1945 in the very small rural town of Fruita, Colorado.  Lloyd Olsen's wife, Clara, sends him out to kill a chicken for dinner.   Lloyd fells the axe on the chicken's neck.  The head comes off and the chicken, oblivious to the loss of his head, keeps right on going about his bird business.  When Lloyd found him alive and well, sans head, the next morning, he decided to let the bird live and fed him with an eye dropper to keep him going.  

They named him Mike and Mike became so famous that for the remaining 18 months of his headless life, he hit celebrity status; he even wound up in both Time and Life Magazine.

 

That celebrity status became legend and now there is an annual Mike the Headless Chicken festival in Fruita, during the third weekend of May.  The festival features a lawn mower race, chicken dance contest, eating contests, chicken games (like pin the head on the chicken and an egg toss), 5k run, a car show and a 'Good Egg' award, among several other interests.   

If you would like to know more about it, he has his own website:

Mike's website.

Alternate titles for this post:
the afterlife of a chicken
it just wouldn't die
and in other news... chicken defies death

axe me again

life after death

stranger than fiction

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

There And Back Again... Paris & Versailles

Ahhhh.... April in Paris...


Round and round we go...


Keeping time...


Mr. Black and I made friends! Please meet Louis


Viaggiatore made lots of new friends, too!


Where the light is pink in Paris...


Bon Apetit!


The Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles


Viaggiatore met this new friend at the Louvre


Angels abound...


Sunlight through stained glass at Notre Dame


A bridge over calm waters


Guarding the bridge... Viaggiatore loved meeting all the Parisian Lions!


Standing at attention on the Seine


The Sacred Heart


Flowing Seine


The only sphinx in the Louvre with an intact nose


Saint Michel defeating the devil


A close look at the Eiffel Tower


Ways to get from here to there


Con Te Partiro... just for us!


Aphrodite of Milos
She was made between 130-100 BC! She looks mahvelous!


The lions at Versailles were small but very friendly!

Two Wolves

Two Wolves

One evening a grandfather told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside all people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two 'wolves' inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"

Grandfather simply replied, "The one you feed".

~author unknown

On Safari

We stopped at the Denver Zoo last Wednesday to marvel at their feeding schedules; let's see what else was there...