Happy Birthday, Dear K

Sunset on the St. Lawrence River

We're ending January with a birthday celebration. Today is my dear, dear friend K's birthday. We met the first week of college in September 1968 and we've been talking and laughing ever since. We lived on the same hall and one of us wandered into the other's room and as they say, the rest is a wonderful history. I cannot imagine my life without K's friendship. The view above is K's view across the St. Lawrence River to Brockville, Ontario. It's (really) chilly in the winter, but once the temperature rises, there are few places I enjoy visiting more. 

One of the great pleasures of these last few years has been traveling with K. We had a great trip as a retirement celebration in 2015 to Japan. 

 This was one of our stops on the Philosopher's Path in Kyoto.

We learned to ride the subway in Tokyo 

There were naysayers who told us not to attempt the subway in Tokyo. But a museum was calling our names and off we went. I'm still grateful for the people who observed two confused tourists and gave us directions. 

Downtown Melbourne, seen from the Shrine of Remembrance

I think our greatest adventure was our trip to Australia in 2018. We enjoyed every place we visited, but Melbourne was a particular favorite. We spent a few extra days here before we joined our tour and we were able to get to know this fabulous city in more depth, and we loved it!

All of our adventures don't involve flying thousands of miles. We've had great times in Ottawa. Our trips always include the National Gallery of Canada -- the highlight for our trip in August was a Gauguin show -- bookstore browsing and memorable meals. One of our delicious treats on our latest visit was "smoked meat," marinated brisket, at the legendary Dunn's.

These are just a few high points in over fifty years of friendship. A toast to your birthday, dear K. and a toast to our friendship. Here's to many, many more years of good health, happiness, travel and quiet times watching the river flow by.

It's time to bid farewell to January, 2020. Over the weekend I'll be blogging about Pink Saturday and No-Spending January. Many thanks to everyone who visited and commented over the last month and a big welcome to the new citizens of Buttercupland. 

As ever, thanks for visiting and have a cozy weekend.