Just north of Salt Point State Park, half way between Point Reyes National Seashore and Fort Bragg along the Pacific Coastal Highway, is a place called Sea Ranch. About 300 of the 1,800 uniformly shingle-clad, …
October 4, 2012
Travel Stories
Sea Ranch Chapel
La Vida Tranquila: A Family's Pursuit of Paradise
(Originally appeared as a 9/4/12 blog entry at HuffingtonPost.com.) In 1998, I left a boyfriend who admitted he couldn't commit to anything more than putting food in the cat's bowl. We were in our early …
October 4, 2012
Riding the Frecciarossa
Venice: the absence of cars and Vespas… well, you just have to be there to understand the city's magic. From our tiny – but not "tony" – locanda (inn) near central San Polo, Kay and …
Benin, West Africa: Begging for an Education
In the first century A.D. a Christian mystic named Augustine said, "The world is a book, and those who do not travel read but the first page." Those words have guided a great deal of …
October 2, 2012
Shoestring Travel: Berlin
After venturing around London, we hopped on a plane for Berlin to continue our European adventure. (To help with the story, here’s a little background on our adventure: My husband just graduated from the University …
September 28, 2012
Carnaval en Rio – Firsthand
My head was pounding. Fireworks crackled overhead. Hordes jeered, screamed, waved and then broke into joyous whirls of samba. The smell was unbearable, an open sewer ran beside our Sambódromo warm-up lane, and yet thousands …
September 28, 2012
Aboriginal Taiwan
Recently, I traveled to Taiwan to learn about its food. I sampled a range of delicacies, but was most struck by a culture completely unknown to me: the aborigines of Taiwan. The original settlers of …
September 27, 2012
Tijuana Revisited, Part 3
(continued from an August 23 travel story) Via my acute investigational skills and combined Gringo/Uruguayan/Mexican/Spanish language abilities, I finally locate a Tijuana orphanage to spend time with. It was a long, tedious search for answers… …
September 25, 2012
Biosphere 2: Man-Made Wonder
Between 1987 and 1994, the $200-million Biosphere 2 structure with its two “lungs” and Energy Center was constructed on 40 rolling meadow acres west of the Santa Catalina Mountains and a half-hour north of Tuscon, …
Seward, Alaska: Gateway to Kenai Fjords
“Listen to the glacier talking to itself,” our guide urged us. I listened to what sounded like thunder in the distance, followed by cracks and pops as if someone was breaking a gigantic stick. A …
September 25, 2012
Travel with Your Dog in CA
With an estimated nine-million-plus dogs in California alone, it’s no wonder there are so many dogs at parks, beaches and recreation areas throughout the state. The mile-long Huntington Dog Beach, the epitome of a perfect …
September 24, 2012