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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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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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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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Hawaii’s Big Island: Waipio Valley, Wise Old Grandmothers, Tsunamis, and Kapus
The man on the ATV waved and smiled as our tourist van lurched by on the rutted red mud road. I smiled at his friendliness, but stopped before I waved back – since his ‘wave’ had turned into a one-finger salute. Not so friendly then, these Valley residents, just as the tour books warned. And I understand, I do, especially the part our guide Douglas shared, about how buzzing helicopters hover in the sky so tourists can snap shots of the Valley’s cascading waterfalls, precisely at the same time each day – he sets his watch by it, he noted with resignation. Since the residents who choose to live off…
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Hawaii’s Kona Coast: Stellar Snorkeling, Thrifty Condo Living, and Friends Everywhere We Look
I love the Kevin Bacon game, where you link any two people in the world in six connections or less. We never expected to play Six Degrees of Separation in Waimea, Hawaii, a foodie mashup of art galleries and paniolo cowboy culture tucked up in the misty green foothills on the north end of the Hawaii’s Big Island. But play we did, and who needs six links anyway? We did it in one link (twice!) all in the same marvelous meal at Merriman’s, one of the Big Island’s best restaurants. But first, we had to escape the Costco parking lot. In terms of natural beauty, The Kona Coast is absolutely…
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Why Key West? Rentals We Have Loved and Lost, and Other KW How-Tos
We used to find a Key West rental the easy way. Click around on VRBO dreaming for a while, pick the perfect place, contact the owner, send a small deposit. Done. Uh, no. Not any more. We’ve watched the rental market change dramatically since 2006, and now it’s more like 1) stalk renters who rave about a place, then follow them home to snag the address (we’ve done that); 2) sell all our worldly goods to pay enormous deposits a year in advance (may do that soon); or 3) bake cookies for the neighbors so they’ll invite you back (I always do that. Just ask the neighbors). People often ask…
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Key West and the Dry Tortugas: The Sounds of Silence and the Boat to Nowhere
Something seemed off. With daypacks hitched to our backs, we hiked through Key West’s sleepy streets to the ferry terminal before dawn, then climbed aboard Yankee Freedom III for our trip to Dry Tortugas National Park. Along with 248 other intrepid souls, we were off for a nine-hour tour to one of the most remote national parks in our nation. After a long ocean journey that took us far away from Key West’s party scene and 70 miles out to sea, we spotted a tiny American flag perched atop a faraway hexagonal brick structure. This distant fort in ruins seemed like a mirage, but Fort Jefferson – a former Civil…
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Happy New Year! 2019 Resolutions for Later-Life Travelers
Swim More Laps With Geese, Resolution #3, takes some explanation, so let’s back up and start with the easy ones: Resolution #5: Attend More Dachshund Parades (and other fun stuff) After I sat on the curb watching pooches parade from Whitehead to Duval (a very short parade, of course), I kept smiling for hours. Dachshunds are so…….short, and cute, and hey – if they can regally parade down the street, anyone can! They give the smallest, shortest of us plenty of hope, and we sure can use some of that in the year 2019. And let’s not forget all those interlopers: the Chihuahua Flash Mob, the take-charge boxers, the pampered…
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Vegas Roadtrip: Homeward Bound, and the WEST on FIRE
The West’s vast landscapes seem like old friends to me. In the 1960s, sardined together in Dad’s homemade camper, my family stopped everywhere Mom wanted to stop (antique stores), and at all the national parks. And long ago, Padre and I road-tripped through Montana (above), Oregon, and California. But neither of us remember so much scary fire. In 1965, I’m sure Dad didn’t check the daily fire maps – I bet there weren’t any, at least not that you could google. (Maybe a hotline? I don’t think so). As our departure date neared, I sometimes checked the fire maps twice a day, fearing we were headed right through prime fire…
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Las Vegas, Baby! The Old Folks Do Sin City (without the sin – how boring is that?)
I finally made it to Vegas, after a lifetime of avoidance. And it didn’t turn out the way I thought it might at all. I love it when that happens (usually). At first gaze, the Vegas Strip is one huge glittery mash-up of exaggerated everything: Architecture, debauchery, hotel rooms, shows – even the drinks people were carrying around were outrageous. I thought they were giant, candy-colored batons at first …. where’s the parade, I wondered? Until I realized that people were drinking from those things. And be advised that the hotels and walkways sprawl into, over, and under each other. We walked miles to get anywhere, even to the taxi…
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Roadtripping 2018: Seattle to Vegas, with trips down Memory Lane
Our trips anywhere often start on the Seattle ferry, even if it’s just to see a play at the Seattle Rep. In summertime the boat bursts with tourists snapping photos, hanging on the rails, soaking in the views. I usually read a book, but this time I donned my tourist glasses – Wow! What stunning vistas I’ve been missing. That’s why I love road trips, since they open my eyes to everything I’m not seeing in ordinary life. In the last few days we’ve learned a lot about our younger selves on our long drives: how 18-year-old Annette’s Trailer Park Blues set her course for the next 49 years why…
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VEGAS, BABY! 5 Reasons It’s Time to Hit the Road
The road is waiting! So is Padre, and I better finish this before he gets cranky. After the Epic Journey last spring we picked up right where we left off: yard work and ‘real’ work, pumpkin growing, jam-making, Mariners, and mindless TV shows such as Beach Front Bargain Hunt. Too much news, too, even for a journalism junkie like me. Don’t get me wrong, I love home, much as the nail technician who painted my toes gold yesterday loves her home. She hummed a soft tune near the end of my treatment, similar to music I’d heard in Southeast Asia, so I asked where she learned it. She smiled widely…
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Waikiki: Three Days On the Quiet End, and a Trip Down Memory Lane
It was one of those 1970’s low-ceilinged lounge cabarets; murky dark, smoky, packed. My teacher buddies kept calling for more rounds of syrupy-sweet Chi Chis with umbrellas, and sure – why not? So what if I was pregnant at the time? Hey, this was 1979; no one cared about that yet. Bad lounge singers marched out in cop/construction worker/cowboy/Indian chief outfits to belt out a brand new song we’d never heard before: Y – – -M – – -C – – -A- – -!!!! We rose to our tipsy feet, cheering them on – more Chi Chi’s, please! That bad behavior happened on my first visit to Waikiki almost 40…
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Oahu: How to Take Great Photos in Paradise, No Experience Required
Update: When visited Honolulu in 2019, arriving by cruise ship this time, we took this same photo tour and it was wonderful! See 2019 photos and info here. If you want to go right to the most exciting part of this post, check out the info about our first encounter with an automated Japanese toilet, which we’re still giggling about..…too much information on that later. We think the newfangled toilet discovery is just the first of many oddities (odd to us, anyway) that we’ll discover now that our two-month journey is finally underway. One problem, though – we did a bang-up job getting ready for this trip, but because we…
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Key West, Florida: Make the Most of Eight Hours on Shore
Key West has always been known as a hard drinking town, ever since Ernest Hemingway threw back dry martinis at Sloppy Joes, or Capt.Tony’s Saloon, or both. (The bar debate rages to this day.) When ships dock in Key West, revelers walk off the boat to find themselves smack in the middle of the world-famous Duval Crawl, where several landmark watering holes are lined up within walking distance: Sloppy Joe’s, Capt.Tony’s, Hogsbreath, The Green Parrot, The Bull and Whistle, Margaritaville, Smokin’ Tuna, Rick’s, Irish Kevin’s……and so, so many more. If downing drinks is your primary Key West objective, have at it: you’ve come to the perfect place. With eight…
