Adventure of the month

 There are plenty of things that come to mind when one thinks of Vegas: the non-stop jingling of slot machines, tourists sipping daiquiris from novelty cups the size of toddlers, oppressive summer temperatures so hot that I believe it is legally permissible to bitchslap anyone who uses the term "dry heat". Then there are things that one couldn't possibly be prepared for, things like texts telling you to be ready and outside your hotel at 4:45am. Yet, this was my reality.  Why? Because I had signed up for a tour to Zion National Park, which sits a little over 2 hrs from Vegas.  I had been wanting to visit this park for ages, I finally had a chance to do so and let's be honest, my National Parks passport needed some stamps.  The drive was captivating enough that I abandoned all plans to nap my way to Zion. That, combined with the lively narration from Jason, co-owner and guide extraordinaire for Mohave Wave , caused the time to fly by.  As soon as we arrived,...

You know how you can tell that you have waited way too long to post a trip on your reportedly monthly travel blog? For me, it is generally when I have a hard time remembering all the details of the trip itself.  I'm terrible with numbers so I never have any expectation of recalling significant dates but when I have to run to google for the most basic details- names of museums, why I found it important to photograph a certain monument, who is that in the photo with me? This is when I know I might be a procrastinator.  At this very moment, it is December 2018. This is going to show up as a June entry bc that's the premise here but know that it's a lie.  It is the end of the year and I am doing last minute blog housekeeping lest I have to change the title to Adventure of the Year. So, back in June, I was kicking off my latest undertaking. Specifically, I am now the proud owner of a National Parks Passport and intend on getting as many stamps as possible. My unlik...

Traveling is all about learning. Sometimes it is something as lofty as learning about yourself when you are presented with different perspectives. Other times, the questions are much simpler. Questions such as: "What the hell am I going to do with all this time in Tulsa, St. Louis and Omaha?" Turns out the answer is: a lot. Like going non-stop and still not covering everything I wanted to do kind of busy. Let's start with the first stop, Tulsa. I kicked off my midwestern outing with a visit to the Woody Guthrie Museum, not mind you because I am a huge Woody head. I actually just wanted one of the "This Machine Kills Fascists" t-shirts I had seen on their website. I could have just grabbed one at the entrance which doubles as the gift shop and ran but since I had come this far, I figured I might as well see what this guy was all about.

I began this blog as a way of documenting my wanderings and sharing with friends my experiences traveling around this wonderful globe. As such, this was never intended as a place to discuss politics or current affairs. However. The country where I was born, whose passport I must show when entering foreign lands has gone ahead and elected a boorish, mentally unsound geriatric prone to childish temper tantrums. Or let me clarify, a bunch of racist self-defeating fools who happen to live in states whose "electoral votes" are grievously over-represented voted in this global nightmare. (Note: For me the line between racists and those who don't identify as racists but were wholly undisturbed by the racist statements that defined his campaign is too fine to matter. They are racists just the same). The majority of us, nearly 66 million voters, did not vote for this dumbass. I am disgusted. I am outraged. With every passing day and every small-minded tweet, I am more embarrass...

"We don't grow when things are easy, we grow when we faces challenges." That is a random quote I found online after googling "quotes about challenges". I am not going to bother looking up who to attribute it to because frankly, I don't think it is that great of a quote. I only bring it up as a prelude to bringing up my latest project (or if I want to sound really aspirational and stick to the theme of this post, my latest challenge). Having put to bed the goal of reaching 100 countries, I was looking for something new to focus on. They say inspiration can come from unlikely sources and it did. This time, it arrived via the click-baity newsletter, Thrillist. For anyone unfamiliar, this is a newsletter that is mainly aimed at guys but that happens to include a lot of lists on the best restaurants, bars, architecture, etc in x city, thus my subscription. The article that caught my eye was a list, published this past January, of the 21 best dive bars i...

I'm not suggesting that there is anything irreparably wrong with Daytona, after all one of my coolest friends who might be reading this, is originally from there. I'm just saying that my recent experiences during a two day visit kind of made me go "hmmmmmm". First the 'good':  the famous boardwalk has an inherently charming old-timey look and feel to it.   Walking past the candy-colored shops and ice cream parlors feels like stepping back into a nostalgic 50's era movie set. The beach is expansive, clean and you can drive on it. The drinks are cheap and plentiful.  There is a roller coaster that appears to run on demand. If you are into black t-shirts featuring bikes, eagles, big-boobied women and/ or confederate flags, you don't have to look very far (although that last one really does not belong in the plus column).

Sometimes all it takes is one person doing something nice to change the whole trajectory of your day. All you need is one kind-hearted gate agent (admittedly a creature as rare and mystical as a rainbow-pooping unicorn) to take the time to take you off your STL-LAX-PHX routing, which gets you into Phoenix at nearly 3pm and put you on the direct flight, getting you to your hotel before breakfast closes at 10am. Suddenly, what would have been a wasted day becomes rife with possibility. This was the scenario that played out earlier this week. The discussion about doing a short trip to Sedona the following day quickly morphed into an overnight in Sedona with a side trip to Jerome. Within 20 minutes of the idea being floated around, a hotel room was booked, a groupon for a jeep tour had been purchased and a rental car awaited us.  It came together so easily that it was clearly meant to be.

1. They were recently named the most haunted city in the US. I do not know who actually has the authority to make this call or why Salem, Mass. was recently stripped of the title, but a look around at all the companies offering haunted tours makes it clear that ghosts are big business. It is such a draw that during our excellent free walking tour , our guide, Chris, told us about one of his guests asking where she could purchase ghost hunting equipment.   The fact that he could not easily answer this question tells me that there are not enough entrepreneurs in Savannah.  I would think you could attach a whistle to a flashlight, maybe add an antenna...and voila, you've got yourself the paranormal starter kit.  Add a helmet and you're a deluxe demon detector. I asked Chris what the city planned to do to stay competitive in this field.  You know Salem is spooking it up trying to get their crown back.  If the people of Savannah have a plan, they're not talki...

Things I like: 1. The website RoadsideAmerica.com . The site come in particularly handy when visiting small towns with no obvious places of interest. When it comes to big cities, I generally don't think to even check. I mean sure, NYC must have some great quirky attractions but are you really going to pass up the MOMA in order to see George Washington's wooden tooth displayed in a bar?  Ok, bad example.  I would totally do that. 2.  Bizarro museums, random displays of folk art, unnaturally large balls of twine. If you build it, I will visit. (Note: I tried to stick to the original phrasing but "come" just did not sound right here) 3.  Taking unsuspecting people to visit any of the things listed in #2. Things I don't like: 1.  Most of Texas.  I only say "most" because I am willing to give Austin and San Antonio a pass.  The rest of the state- phoeey .

I don't remember the exact date I learned that it was possible to swim with manatees in the wild but I do recall my reaction to this bombshell.  It believe it went something along the lines of "I WANNA GO!!  I WANNA GO NOW!!! MANATEEEEES!!!" At the time, it was summer, so while it is possible to swim with the full time residents of the Crystal River springs, it was not the best time for me to go.  There are fewer manatees, they tend to be in deeper, murkier water and I was living in Amsterdam.  All of these factors made me postpone this activity that was now in the top five of my must-do's, although to be fair, it was the third factor that held the most sway. Then winter came about.  This is the time that hundreds of gentle sea cows wisely choose to pack up and get out of the cold waters of the the Gulf of Mexico.  These aquatic snowbirds flock to the spring fed King's Bay, which remains 72 degrees year round.

1. Logic- specifically my logic- would dictate that two days before Xmas should be a great time to go to a theme park. People are traveling to get to family; they are baking and decorating dead foliage; they are wandering shopping mall parking lots trying desperately to remember where they left their cars. They are doing whatever it is that people that are into celebrating Xmas do. They are not dragging their families to Orlando to go on kiddie rides and roller coasters. Unless they are. My reasoning, which even with the benefit of hindsight still seems sound to me, was way off. I don't know who these people are or how they normally celebrate their holidays but there certainly were a lot of them. I don't think you could have fit one more person into either Universal Studios or Islands of Adventure. Not even a skinny one. Or a midget. Or a skinny midget. Both parks were at peak capacity.  There were lines for the rides.  There were lines for the restaurants.  ...

I've got to be honest. Fairbanks is not my favorite city.  On more than one occasion,  I have been excited to learn I'm going to Alaska only to be subsequently disappointed when I hear it is that part of Alaska.  Why, you ask.  I'll tell you. 1.  The hotel we stay at is a menagerie of death.  They have every creature, big and small, all with one thing in common: they are dead and stuffed on the walls.  I know this is what passes for decor in that part of the world but it is still disgusting and walking in that lobby pisses me off every time. 2.  When I think of Alaska, I think of Anchorage, Ketchikan, Seward...places with beautiful expansive water views. Fairbanks is smack in the middle of the state and other than a river or two, has no water view to speak of. You will see no whales in Fairbanks. 3.  Years back, a group of us rented a car at the Fairbanks airport.  I asked the guy at the agency if there was a chance that we woul...

There are times when friends, colleagues or perhaps chatty strangers compliment me on my photos. I love that. I've always wanted to take a photography class, but that- along with those French and sushi-making classes- tend to get pushed aside to some vague undefined future date. In the meantime, those pictures aren't going to take themselves, so I have to make do. In order to get maximum results with minimum training, there are a couple of tricks that I employ. First of all, I carry a camera, a Canon Powershot SX20is. This should seem fairly obvious but we now live in an era where Apple, Samsung et al have convinced people that phones= cameras. They don't. A phone will do when you absolutely positively have to get a photo of your Spaghetti Bolognese because, man oh man, that Olive Garden is off the chain but if you are in the middle of the Serengeti, trying to capture the majesty of a pride of lions with your iPhone5s, I am going to mock you two ways. Loudly and of...

I have always had mixed feelings about Salt Lake City. In my very limited experience, I have found it to be an interesting study in contrast.  One look around and you find a city with magnificent mountain vistas and a proximity to some of the country's most spectacular national parks but to get to them you have to run the gauntlet of all these seemingly lobotomized women who refer to each other as Sister-so-and-so and are very intent on getting your home address. It would be easy to infer that they were escaped inmates from a nearby asylum, but they are not.  They are Mormons and they want to make more Mormons. Salt Lake City is a beautiful place but the heavy hand of the Mormon Church always manages to creep me out a bit. How heavy is the hand? The city itself is built around the well-maintained yet still slightly off-putting Temple Square (home to the largest concentration of loboto-sisters)... but like literally built around it.  If someone gives you the address 3...

What do you get when you combine an extended stay in Los Angeles, a day that is supposed to be rainy but turns out to be quite nice, a mostly chilled out group of people (one of whom has what can be most generously described as having a slight Groupon addiction) and some very cooperative marine life? An excellent day of whale watching, that's what.  Or not.  I am not making any promises since I am not sure that this formula can ever be precisely duplicated. Assuming you keep good company, getting the group together and rooting out the discounted deals is easy (just google Groupon or Living Social and whatever city you happen to be in and you will find lots of things to keep the tourist with time on her hands busy).  Getting both Mother Nature and the elusive denizens of the Pacific Ocean to play along is another story altogether.

Earlier this month, I bemoaned 2014's slow start, at least where travel-related adventures were concerned. Was this to be an omen for things (not) to come? Was I to be homebound or exiled to nothing but frozen tundra until Springtime? In an attempt to keep the blog going, I wandered around my neighborhood, snapped some photos and hoped that it would do. How was I to know that my luck was about to turn? How could I have predicted that a mere three days later I would be going to prison? And not just any prison, I would be finding myself within the walls of the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, PA. This is an institution that was the first of its kind; was one of the most expensive public works project in the US at the time of its construction; has been featured on practically every-Paranormal type program there is (ie. Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures, Most Haunted Live- and who knew ghosts were such hams?)and has served as the setting for both the Dead Milkmen's...

I have a conundrum.  When I began this blog 8(!!!) years ago this month, the plan was to post at least one travel-related entry per month.  Knowing my mastery of the art of procrastination, I even chose a title that would, by its very definition mandate that I keep to this schedule.  So far, 213 posts later, it has all been well and good.  Even on the slow months, I have always managed to find some place that I deem to be blog-worthy. But so far, this month has been a different story.  I have gone to exactly two places.  The first, Des Moines, Iowa managed to spectacularly destroy my "avoid the winter of 2013/14" plans.  It was something-below-zero degrees.  I don't remember the exact temperature but it doesn't matter. Anything below zero is uninhabitable and anyone that thinks otherwise is nuts.  I chose to protest these inhumane conditions by following the path of activists and freedom fighters throughout history.  That is, if th...