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A Key West Merry Christmas, and a ‘You Matter’ Message
On the darkest day of the year, does anyone else have a case of the grims? The dictionary defines the word grim as unpleasant, depressing, and difficult to accept. Grim means you grit your teeth. Grim means you’re going to hate this. Grim means you can’t do anything about it. I suspect that ½ of Americans feel rather grim since November 5th, and the fact that the other half of America doesn’t seem much bothered by the grims makes it even grimmer for the rest of us. I checked with the grammar gods to see if I should use more grim or grimmer in that last sentence, and it turns out both work. I like the word grimmer better since it reminds me of dimmer.…
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Scotland: Edinburgh’s Best Buses, Boats, Bookstores, and Tour Leaders (ours!)
In most tourist cities there’s a hop on hop off bus option: Visitors hop on multi-colored double-decker buses outfitted with live guides or taped commentary, and then hop off to visit top sites. Sometimes hohos work well; often they’re slow or unreliable. Edinburgh’s hohos proved reliable and fast, so it’s no wonder Rick Steves, our go-to travel guidebook writer, recommended them. (note: Edinburgh has multiple hoho bus routes – we used CitySightseeing’s 48-hour option). In Edinburgh, we called Uber for short trips and to transfer hotels, but we liked the bird’s eye overview of Edinburgh’s parklands and hills the bus provided, as well as its two-mile Port of Leith loop. I was determined to board…
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SCOTLAND: Castles, Carvers, and The Royal Mile
Excessive dancing? Can there be such a thing? When Mary Queen of Scots returned to Edinburgh at the hopeful age of 23 she danced too much, according to party-pooper Edinburgh preacher John Knox. The last guy you ever want to invite to a party would be Knox, prominent Protestant Reformation leader, who replaced St. Giles Cathedral’s glowing rainbow-hued stained glass windows with plain clear glass. So much sin lurks in gorgeous glass, I suppose. Stained glass picture stories served as the poor person’s Bible of medieval times, so who gets rid of beautiful windows that helped illiterate peasants learn Bible stories? A sourpuss, I’d say. John Knox stood out in…
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Scotland: Outlander Castles, Villages, and More
The wheels came off this trip on the first day, literally, but that was after the cyberattack and the volcanic eruption. ‘Tis but a scratch, as Monty Python’s jesters would say. We finally made it! After visiting Duone Castle, above, where Monty Python and the Holy Grail scenes were filmed in 1975, we recalled those cheeky jesters, who made careers out of mocking life’s tribulations. What would they do in our situation? Why they’d laugh and carry on; it’s just a flesh wound. I mean, why waste some of life’s precious minutes whining about problems? Be like the joyful jesters. All right just a wee bit of whining, since the story’s rather…
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Scotland: Off to Solve Some Mysteries
I finally found Anna Shaw, but then she disappeared. Anna Shaw’s life is such a mystery. She’s one of my Scottish ancestors, prominently featured in the family notes, until….. she simply disappears. And she doesn’t just disappear from my family tree. Anytime she shows up on someone else’s family tree, poof. Nothing, except her name. Dead end. She came from Scotland, I know that, but from where? How? Why? How can one person leave so faint a trace? I discovered a few clues after going down the Ancestry research rabbit hole with a free two-week membership. I love learning the where, how, and why of the ancestors, but Padre, not…
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What We Learned in Singapore, Java, and Bali – and Merry Christmas 2023!
When our Mideast trip went ‘poof’ for obvious reasons, we thought we’d head somewhere warm and relax instead. A cruise to Singapore, Java, and Bali? Sounds good, right? It was beyond good, but it wasn’t the warmth and relaxation that stuck with us. Oh sure, we left our footprints in warm sand on distant beaches, and swam laps in delightful swimming pools. And yet…. We also toured temples, mosques, historical sites, and oodles of museums, and all that learning changed us somehow. The cultural richness of Southeast Asia intrigues us – did you know that ALL the world’s religions originated from here? – and now that we have returned home…
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Singapore/Indonesia: A Sudden Travel Pivot
We were THIS close to embarking on our latest bucket-list travel adventure to Israel, Istanbul, Jordan, and Dubai. I bet you can guess what happened next. When I clicked on CNN one early October morning, there it was, the huge black word – WAR – and an ominous photo of flame-trailed red missiles shooting across the dark Tel Aviv night sky. We had booked three late-November nights in Tel Aviv, but I didn’t wonder for a moment: I knew what the stark headline and missiles meant for our latest adventure. As I set to work on the necessary cancellations and tucked our half-finished lectures back in their cases, I wondered…
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GREENLAND AND ALL THE REST: ICEBERGS, INUITS, AND A SPECIAL GUEST
Never saw an iceberg before, but now that I have….I wouldn’t blame the iceberg either, for that Titanic thing. Icebergs do what they do and will for the foreseeable future at least until all the glaciers, the iceberg parents, melt away due to global warming. (Don’t think so? Science for the doubters, right here/click here.) So we are thrilled we saw some of the monsters while cruising through Greenland’s Prince Christian Sound, then down the infamous Iceberg Alley between Greenland and Newfoundland. We saw icebergs doing what icebergs do, just living their best lives, floating and melting and sometimes crashing into ships. (Not our ship – yay. Thank you modern…
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ICELAND: Coastal Cruising, Myavtn Moonscapes, and What About Those Elves and Bad Santas? 
Cruise ships aren’t for everyone. Never-cruisers shake their heads over the horrors that must lurk aboard a Celebrity Summit-type monster ship, our home for a 12-day Iceland-to-Boston journey. I understand why people with normal reasoning abilities might not want to be smushed together below decks with 2030 passengers sharing plated dinners, swirly martinis, and viral loads.* I get that. (*About those viral loads: No cruising for us for a time, until those pesky loads calm down. More on that situation in an upcoming post). That said, never-cruisers will never watch as deckhands cast off hefty dock lines from immense iron cleats, or lean over a high railing to wave bon…
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ICELAND: Savage Landscapes, Storytellers, Literary Riches, and the Blue Lagoon
Our van driver steered into ferocious battering winds, clutching the wheel to stay centered in the lane. Icy sheets of rain slashed at the windows, and we stared through driving sleet at miles of lava rock, stretching away into the distance. The storm transformed black barren fields into blurry nightmare hellscapes, and I wondered: How do people survive in such a land? And this is their summer? When one of us inquired about the bad weather, Elias our driver/guide shrugged and smiled. “This is pretty good, actually.” While prepping for this trip I read repeated warnings about the vagaries of Icelandic weather. Be prepared for anything, especially at the tail end…
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ICELAND: Land of Fire and Ice, but What Lurks Underneath?
Iceland reminds me of a truth I understood long ago: Never underestimate what lurks behind a calm, quiet face. That smiling person in the corner? She may be the angriest person in the room. That grumpy gruff person over there? Might be the kindest. And that woman in the corner, who seems distracted? Or so it seems. She may propose the winning solution, or destroy everything in an instant. You just never know with people, islands, or icebergs, based on the visible. Iceland’s like that. On its surface, Iceland’s soaking warm sulphur pools and jagged rifts of stiff black lava stone look calm, a land of dramatic beauty and eye-popping…
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Colorado Hot Springs: Three Insights for Happiness Along the Road Trip of Life
We drove slowly down a quiet leafy street, searching for an address, hoping the wealthy residents didn’t think these elderly gawkers were casing the joint. I pointed to a white flat-roofed mid-century: “There! That was our neighbor’s house, and the two-story boxy thing here used to be our home.” The curved archway in front of the blocky box’s front door was just so wrong. (More on that later.) As I stepped from our rental car onto that oh-so-familiar street, an image of a wailing preschooler appeared in my mind’s eye. The limping strawberry-blonde dribbled a trail of crimson blood behind her on the chalk-white sidewalk, and sputtered something about her…
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IRELAND: Happy St. Patrick’s Day! A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away……
In Fall 2019 we were working the ten-year travel plan hard, traipsing around the globe. On our October self-drive around the Emerald Isle, we steered our tiny rental car over bumpy cart paths and up roads to the top of black rock sheer cliffs, just as we had 30 years prior. We hunted down most of the same stops from our 1989 drive, and wow – one of our best trips ever. The only one that tops it was that original honeymoon trip, when we were still young and in love; the young part’s gone now but the love has stayed. I’m glad we both kept journals of that 1989…
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REGAL PRINCESS: Quiet Cruise to Nowhere, Two Letters, and a Yokohama Flashback
So I’ve been referring to our little cruise as the ‘Cruise to Nowhere’ but that’s just wrong. The island of Eleuthera is NOT nowhere, and it’s not just the island where Princess Cruises plops their passengers for an idyllic day in the sun, for lounging, snorkeling, and feasting. Ok the Princess part of the island IS all that, but Princess only owns 40 acres of Eleuthera, the longest of the Bahama chain at 110 miles. This gorgeous island paradise is known for its magnificent beaches, aqua-marine waters, Bahama charm, and laid-back vibe. We hopped off to explore the Princess acreage and its pristine sandy beaches, and by cruise ship standards, the resort…
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Ancient Egypt: Edfu and Dendera Temples, Cleopatra, Coptic Cairo, and HOME
Life sure has a way of zipping along, doesn’t it? Blink and you’ll miss it. We’re about to embark on “The Cruise to Nowhere” (next post) so I’m going to quickly ‘finish’ Egypt, just for now, so I can say to myself it’s finished – love that sense of accomplishment! (There’s so much more, of course, as usual). EDFU AND THE CONFOUNDING HIPPOS: EVIL MUST BE DEFEATED – AGAIN! Our last two temple visits make for the end of our Nile River journey, as well as the end of over 3000 years of ancient Egyptian civilization. These temples were built by the Ptolemies, the last great dynasty to rule Egypt,…
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Ancient Egypt: The Bus Wins! Who Knew? More Temples and Padre the Ham
Have you ever been tourist-tired? You know, that point of exhaustion where you’re this close to grumping at someone who doesn’t deserve it (Padre) and you just have to STOP? Squinting into the sun and sticky hot, I headed back to the bus ahead of everyone else to cool off in its calm, air-conditioned silence. But first, I snapped one last photo before climbing aboard. I didn’t intend that pic to be of the Gate 1 tour bus at all, but of the glowing pyramids off in the distance. The bus’s bulk served to block a direct sun glare, and despite my jet-lag I marveled at the fact that I…
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Ancient Egypt: Nile River Cruise, Crocodile Mummies, and Which Way Is UP?
I’ve had Egypt at the tippy top of my travel bucket list for most of my adult life, as anyone who reads my blog knows by now. Sorry about that; I tend to repeat myself when I’m excited about, well, anything, from windstorms to Wordle. So now that my dream came true, what have I learned? Ah, so much. Was it worth it, even as Omicron emerged to threaten us all again? YES. Was Egypt as grand as I thought it would be, after all these years of anticipation? YES. Was what I loved most about Egypt, what I thought I’d love most about Egypt? Now that’s complicated. That last…
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Ancient Egypt: Mummy Adventures in the Land of the Dead, and a Mystery
If I need to get Padre’s attention, all I have to do is say ‘The Land of the Dead’ and he perks right up. That’s because he’s been intrigued with all things funerary since his early years, when he worked in a local funeral home to afford college. He dealt with caskets, bodies, the works – and considered a funeral career before veering off into ministry and chaplainship. He spent his career years serving the elderly, where his calming presence was much appreciated by those facing end-of-life issues. Which is all of us, eventually, of course. I mean, no one gets out of here alive, right? The Egyptians were much…
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Ancient Egypt: All Aboard the Queen of Hansa, Two Temple Visits, and a Surprise!
Which one of the sunbathers lounging on the ship’s upper deck might be a devious murderer, I wondered, as I relaxed in the warm Nile River sun? Is it the mysterious man in the Biden shades, who never says a word? He could be Simon Doyle, the cad who ditched his fiancé to marry the rich socialite. Or is it the woman with the upswept beehive in a flowery flowing tunic, carrying herself with a regal air? Maybe she’s the romance novelist with a secret personal problem. Or is it the pudgy man in professor glasses and safari hat, a dead ringer for an Italian archaeologist with a criminal past…
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Ancient Egypt: A Bustling Cairo Market, and the Blonde’s Take on Veils and Hair
A woman peered at me through the eye slit in her black veil: What must she think of this older American woman with a head of bright blonde platinum hair? As we strolled down al-Muizz Street, one of the oldest streets in modern-day Cairo, every woman I saw – our group excepted – wore a hijab, or veil, over her hair. Only a few ladies wore what the lady peering at me wore: the full black niqab covering her whole face, a billowing black robe, and gloves, but they all had scarves on. I spotted a wisp of bangs peeking out of a hijab here or there, but hair? Totally covered. So…
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Ancient Egypt: Mummies On the Move and Museums In Transition
Many Egyptian wanna-be visitors wonder: Should we wait until the spectacular, state-of-the-art Grand Egyptian Museum finally opens, or is Egypt worth visiting now, when the current showcase for Egypt’s treasures, Cairo’s Egyptian Museum of Antiquities, is half-empty? Advice after our visit to the old museum: GO NOW. It’s true that the dusty place is packing up with movers bustling about, doing what movers do. We saw stone panels saran-wrapped and stacked in hallways, piles of taped-up boxes filled with ancient art, smudgy glass cases empty and unlocked, their former treasures removed. But this museum, even half empty, has oodles of wonders, and two hours to see it all? Not near enough time, because…
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Ancient Egypt: Claustrophobic Pyramids, Hissing Camels, and the Gauntlet of Touts
It’s 4:45 am. A monotone Gregorian chant spills into the early morning silence of our Nile River boat cabin, where I sit by the balcony window, tapping at the laptop. Yet this chant, similar to a song on my Amazon relaxation playlist, is not Gregorian. As morning approaches over the River Nile, it’s the Muslim call to prayer. Many Egyptian Muslim men sport a darkened indent on their foreheads, in fact, from pressing their heads to the floor five times a day. Devout Muslim women pray five times a day as well, but the ladies suffer repetitive stress issues in their ankles from the prayer position they assume, according to…
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Cairo Here We Come! But First, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert and a Platinum Blonde Surprise
The last time I flew through JFK I was with my 80-year old Dad, not Padre, returning from Landstuhl, Germany, where we visited my brother, who’d been called up for National Guard duty during the Iraq War after 9/11. Dad’s long gone but I chuckled when JFK’s luggage carousel sparked a memory of me snapping at the old guy to ‘leave the bags alone and let the girl do it’ due to his bad back. He was a young 80, always up for an adventure, and didn’t let the inevitable creep of medical infirmities slow him down for a few more years yet. He did relent, though, and let the…
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ANCIENT EGYPT: Hapshetsut Still Reigns Supreme at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art
Remember that famous photo from King Tut’s tomb, when Howard Carter saw the glint of gold and “wonderful things” as he peeked through a small hole in 1922? Carter’s candle flame almost went out as gaseous air escaped from Tut’s underground burial site. Until Carter peered in with his candle, whoever sealed up this door was the last to see inside Tut’s tomb, more than 3000 years ago. What happened to all that stuff? And what about all those other ‘wonderful’ things the tomb robbers and archeologists carted off, centuries ago? Egypt’s excavated tombs stand mostly empty today, and next week we’ll view their painted walls, stone sarcophagi, and a mummy…
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ANCIENT EGYPT: Arabic, Airports, APPS, and the Big Apple
Almost there! We’re getting close to T-minus liftoff for our first international trip since the world abruptly shut down in 2020. Ok we did sneak across the border to visit our close friend Canada for a few days, but…Canada. International Lite for Seattle types, although we did have the sticks-in-noses PCR tests in order to cross the Maine-Canada border. So not Casual Canada any more these days. And our rusty travel prep skills still work! So far we’ve learned that: GOOGLE TRANSLATE HELPS US SHOW RESPECT We taught ourselves to say ‘Do you speak English, please?” in Arabic, with the help of Google Translate. تتكلم الانجليزية من فضل Also how to…
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ANCIENT EGYPT: We’re Baaack, and Ready to Raid (visit) some Tombs!
It’s finally time to dust off the passports and dig out the money belts, because we are headed overseas soon, to visit EGYPT. Now if you’re curious as to how important an Egypt trip is to our travel goals, just read this old post, one of my first. (Travel: Well, Why Not?) Third time’s the charm, we hope, since two prior trips have been cancelled because, well, you know. Strange times to be travelling, so we’re putting ourselves in the care of our old friend, Gate 1 Travel, who shepherded us through Thailand a few years back. We chose the Thailand trip because 1) Gate 1’s prices are easy on the travel…
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KEY WEST: Snowbirds, Coconut Telegraphs, and the end of Pandemic Times, Maybe?
This past year sure was a doozy, wasn’t it? Wish I could say we’ve been trekking in Patagonia or some such recently, but no. We’ve been set back on our heels like everyone else, especially by that mind-numbing number: 500,000. Soon, that’s how many Americans will lie dead due to Covid-19. We’ve been home until recently, clicking through America’s current nightmares from our couch. And we’re definitely not bored. Watching military-garbed, zip tie-equipped insurrectionists scale walls and stalk our nation’s leaders is not boring. Just terrifying, so it was more than the right time for a trip. Since we started wiping down the groceries last March, our recent Key West flight…
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Ireland: The Dingle Peninsula, Covid-19, and Me
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! A strange one, this St. Patty’s, due to the coronavirus outbreak. In Dingle, Ireland, near where the photo above was taken, all the pubs are closed. Imagine that. And the Dingle Town band cancelled their pre-dawn St. Patrick’s Day march, a tradition dating back to the 1870s, for the first time ever. Locals refer to today as “The day the music died…” Geez. Now that’s depressing. And here we are, locked in our coronavirus bunker (i.e. home) for who knows how long. A month or two? Maybe more? Since we’ve been told to “STAY HOME!” (those are scare quotes) due to our age – almost young ha…
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Key West Christmas Greetings from Padre and the Blonde!
Key West is so not Seattle in December. We’ve got to keep our wits about us, since the wind-whipped backyard palm tree keeps flinging coconuts down on our pool deck. And don’t worry, Christmas won’t really be late (above pic), even though Christmas porch decorations here lean more toward Margaritaville than Bedford Falls. Christmas won’t be as late as our Ireland trip posts, at least there’s that. Ireland was one of our best trips EVER and I have plenty to say about what we experienced there, as usual – the full story will slowly show up here by and by. We did take many incredible photographs, and below we’ve included…
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London: Royalty and Rebellions, London Walks, Beheadings, and all that Cultural Loot
King George III stole the show. British royals also stole a few countries, an entire Greek temple, Padre’s Irish ancestral homelands, and India’s massive Koh-i-Noor diamond, inset on one of the crowns displayed with the Crown Jewels. So plenty of thievery here on the Sceptered Isle, but King George’s heist was a masterpiece of musical theater. I’ll never forget how the mad King pouted his way onstage, commanding us to sing along as he snapped, “NO don’t change the subject…’cuz you’re my favorite subject….forever, and ever and ever….” Well maybe not forever. In addition to our cheap third row (oh wow!) seats to Hamilton, we ran from a clown brandishing a…
