Its really cooling down, reflecting the beauty of autumn. The days are shorter and the weather is cooler. The pumpkin season has begun.
Those crisp days in October
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Relaxing backcountry ~ early Fall
Cottonwood, home of St Gertrude’s Monastery
Its a historical ancient building that was built in 1907. If you’re a Catholic, you’ll appreciate seeing such a wonderful architecture such as this one. The Building was occupied by Benedictines sisters originally from Swizerland and the Benefictine sisters still occupy this monastery to this day. Its location is in a precisely beautiful location on the central Idaho of about 1400 acres of private land.
Next to the monastery are three separate buildings i.e the Monastery museum & Gift shop, their spirit center for events and retreat and the Inn at St Gertrudes. All are owned and operated by the sisters of the Monastery.
The Inn - wonderfully appointed and I will definitely be coming back to this place. The ara is al about hiking trails and with the cool and beautiful autumn weather, walking around was indeed a great exercise!
We stayed a night at the Inn which is managed by the monastery. It has only 4 rooms to rent out to the public :
1. Bluebird Studio room with Prairie view,
2. Meadowlark Studio room with forest view, 3. Pheasant Suite with Prairie view and
4. Hummingbird Suite with forest view.
Reservations can be made via their website or via TripAdvisor. These 4 rooms are well appointed, much like a hotel room.
Continental breakfast is served from 7am to 9am every morning. They also have evening snack at 6pm daily with coffee/tea and had a chocolate cake while we were there on Saturday.
Back Country
Started off at eight, a cool morning ride towards the picturesque highway 55 with a number of quaint small towns along the way. The road is winding uphill and downhill and repeatedly uphill and downhill drive until we reached our destination, Cottonwood. You can, without doubt, pull over to a scenic overlook or viewpoint to take photographs. The famous highway 55 is a gateway to the state’s popularly remote and beautiful back country. Summer travel season is pretty much over and so the roads aren't too busy.
The Petronas Twin Towers
Amazing to look at and curious how it feels on the double decker skybridge, thought to be the highest bridge in the world connecting both towers together. The view of Kuala Lumpur city is spectacular from this bridge. Though I am a height freak I somehow made it to the top. A few amazing views taken from the skybridge :
Cultural Structures
Yet another site that makes Georgetown a UNESCO World Heritage site is the Kek Lok Si temple. It’s a 131 year old unique Buddhist temple located near Air Itam mountain in Georgetown Penang
Georgetown, a UNESCO heritage city
Its a city with a mix of old colonial and cultural buildings and shophouses with the old original design and structure which are mostly attached to the Chinese communities in the area; it is also a modern city with modern buildings and big shopping malls. It was a hot sunny day when we arrived Georgetown and having never been here before, we wanted to cover the heritage side of the city as much as we can as well as to savor the local delicacies that was always talked about on the travel sites.
We have not had lunch at this time and one of the hotel staff said that Sri Weld Hawkers center isn’t far away and not bad at all to try out. So we started walking out of The prestige Hotel where we are staying. We thought it was a nice walk and after seven minutes later, we reached the hawkers place. Truly, not bad at all as there’s a lot food varieties from each stall that was available there. We have even decided to go to the same place for breakfast the next morning before exploring further out. There was a long line on the front and we were wondering why there are so many people in line. It was the savory traditional ‘Nasi Lemak’ (fragrant rice, archives & Chili paste on a banana leaf which we did try and of course, it was delicious.
Our amazing stay with The Prestige
Arrived Georgetown Penang on a short 3Days 2 Nights stay and had our accommodation booked at The Prestige Penang, constructed out of old shophouses and warehouses, to this amazing hotel. The hotel website features a detailed description that attracted us to stay here. When we arrived, our expectation was high. But gladly the hotel staff made us feel welcome the minute we stepped in. My first impression on whats around : seeing a small lobby area / shiny platinum checking in counter,the on site dining area right on the opposite side, the lounge area, & the arcade , they were all in a separate area of space unlike a traditional big hotels, making it uniquely prestigious!
Travel & Places 
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