Daytripping in the Finger Lakes

A road trip to the Abbey Store in Piffard in the Town of York, #LivingstonCounty, #Newyork will be a delightful experience browsing in the new brightly lit and spacious home to the famous Monks Bread and more.

The Abbey of the Genesee is a Roman Catholic community of contemplative monks belonging to the world-wide Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (O.C.S.O.) more commonly known as Trappists. Their lives are dedicated to seeking union with God, through Jesus Christ, in a community of sisters or brothers.

https://www.geneseeabbey.org for complete information.

A new store at the Abbey of the Genesee

As you can see from the photo, the bookstore is comprehensive, there are many handmade gifts and locally produced products. There is a section with tables and chairs overlooking the valley not shown in the picture. I am assuming that eventually there will be coffee, tea and light fare offered for customers.

The store is over to the right of the main complex.

Fruitcake lovers come from far and wide for the delicacy, and during the Holy Season, it is available in attractive tins.

Worship services open to the public are on a regular schedule, along with retreat activities.

The new entrance dedicated to the store.

Looking up to the second floor

Purposely taking pictures of someone's laundry hanging from his upstairs window could be considered invasive. It's as if you are peeking into a place that you don't belong.

However, there is something about traveling in particular countries where this scene is a common sight.

Often tourists - I am one of them - walk up and down side streets snapping photos for different angles, colors or simply striking shots while getting a glimpse of how the locals live life.

Let's face it. Rarely do you see that in the US, and if so, it is in the countryside where people still hang out the wash in the yard in warmer weather. Yet, it's an option in most cases. With our dependency on washers and dryers, it is no longer a household chore.

Growing up, I spent many an hour hanging the laundry to dry with my mother while she made uniform arrangements of types of articles in order of size. The billowy sheets at one end. The socks at the other. She was quite precise in her organization and use of space on the clothesline. On the other hand, I often got scolded for haphazardly draping a shirt without much thought to how it would air in the breeze. Or, I wouldn't be able to fit every item on the line due to leaving too much space inbetween items. That took extra time for redoing the whole process much to my chagrin.

It was an opportunity for conversation with my mother, too. She often remarked that she thought it wrong for people to "hang their dirty laundry out for the public." That was an era of family privacy, and transparency wasn't a household word.

Later in the afternoon when mom and I went outside to take down the laundry, we looked up into the Long Island sky and watched the international planes coming in steady procession to JFK International Airport fifty miles up the coast. One or the other of us would start to unravel an imaginary story about a passenger and his exotic adventures in distant lands. I remember how I wanted to be on one of those planes, too. Chills would run up and down my spine while my cat, Scampy rubbed at my leg. That travel bug partly started early in the backyard.

Being of "old school" mentality, my mother never saw the need for a dryer. In the winter she would hang the laundry on racks in the cellar. Otherwise, you would find her in the backyard checking on her laundry. By then, she had figured out the time schedules of each airline and knew them by route. That was before computer programs giving out all that information, so I honestly don't know how she did it.

As for the cloth holder for the dozens of clothespins, I still have my mother's hanging in my utility closet, although it has not been in use for over thirty years.

In Suchitoto. El Salvador

In Socorro, Portugal

Blooming love in El Salvador

How lovely when two people later in life find true love.

I stopped to watch the wedding party for a moment or two in the crowded plaza on a late Saturday afternoon. Everyone was dressed to the nines, and depsite the tricky cobblestones, shoes measured at least three fashionable inches.

Well, I am holding back on some of the details. One, in particular.

It is the bride's eighth wedding and those are her daughters and granddaughters in the procession along with the groom outside the church in Suchitoto, El Salvador.

One of the best ways to find out about a country is to go where the locals congregate, mingle and strike up conversations.

In this case, my tour guides knew just that one tiny piece of the puzzle about the bride, and the rest was left to speculation. A marriage of convenience? A business arrangement? Friends of former spouses?

I left shaking my head and giggling. Oh, love has its own ways, and who am I to interfere?