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Ireland Road Journeys and a Marriage, the Second Time Around
We were at a crossroads. A literal crossroads, halted on a bramble-hedged rural lane, Gaelic signposts pointed in five bewildering directions. We’d learned the hard way that sometimes a wrong choice might send us veering off down red-dirt cowpaths, into private farmyards, or to the edge of towering cliffs. Which way do I go? he asked, and I raised my finger from the map to point: “Go that way!” My new groom had been white-knuckling the Irish driving for the last two weeks. We first met at the facility where my grandparents lived and where, as chaplain, he befriended my cantankerous granddad, Charlie, famous for his daring nursing home escapes.…
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Transpacific Cruise: Hawaii Hotspots, LA Party Animals, and Where to Next?
Our 30-day transpacific cruise reminded me a bit of our 30 years of marriage, and FYI our anniversary is TODAY –the old married folks say Woo Hoo! (See end of article for info on our upcoming Irish Honeymoon Re-do 30th Anniversary Trip.) On both journeys, there have been constant surprises (Padre turned into a gardener, and onboard we both turned into classical cello groupies! Who knew?), threats to survival (eruptions and Rapid ‘Ōhi’a Death – yikes! – and then there was that time with the circular saw….), and fortunately, plenty of successful teamwork. I shudder to think what life in a tiny cabin must be like for an unhappily married couple…
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Tahiti and Moorea: Manta Rays, Sharks, and the Lure of Distant Islands
The old man misled us about Tahiti, pretty much his entire life. I know my dad didn’t do it intentionally, but mislead he did, and guess what? I planned an entire cruise based on what I thought was true, when in fact things didn’t go that way at all. That said, I’m more than ok with how things turned out. We strolled Tahiti’s black sand beaches and snorkeled with lemon sharks off Moorea, and now we’ve added a few more tropical island destinations to the travel bucket list. Turns out that cruise ships do sometimes stop on Dad’s WWII islands – you know, the ones he actually visited. Turns out he…
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New Zealand’s North Island: Rotorua or Hades? Shire or Sheep Farm? And Is Auckland Shut or Open?
We were young and stupid. Little did we know that life cost money, so we said ‘sure’ when offered a spot in a 1991 Auckland teacher exchange program. Almost-newlyweds with a blended family of typical teenagers (lots of scowls and secrets), we barely paid the bills as it was. I mean, Why NOT take a somewhat impromptu trip to New Zealand, way Down Under? We kicked off our married life with a magical two-week Ireland honeymoon, so it figures that we signed on for our next grand adventure as soon as we could manage it (or not), despite the restrictions of our demanding mid-career lives. Seems we’re not the folks…
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New Zealand’s South Island: Welcome to Middle Earth! Earthquakes, Albatrosses, and Breathtaking Landscapes Everywhere
Eleanor Catton had me at the ball gowns lined with gold sewn into their hems. The 1861 discovery of gold set off a frenzy of fortune seekers stampeding south, way south, to New Zealand’s wild and empty Otago Peninsula, our next cruise stop. Catton brings this era to riveting life in her 848-page historical novel, The Luminaries, and even though Padre grumbled about hauling my ‘book brick’ his suffering was worth it, at least to me. I adore long reads that hold up, and it will go to a lucky Golden Princess passenger soon, hopefully one with lots of luggage space left. In Catton’s historical mystery novel I learned what 1860s life…
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Tasmania and Sydney, Australia: Unzoos and Zoos, Manly, and the Golden Princess – Finally!
Funny what comes to mind when people heard we were visiting Tasmania. No one thought we were talking about Tanzania, thank goodness (they all had excellent geography teachers, I’m sure), but everyone asked if we would see Tasmanian devils while here. Puzzled, our new Tassie friends asked us why Americans inevitably ask about the devils, and we laughed – it’s the cartoon, of course! Tassies are not familiar with the cartoon devil, so just goes to show you how mind-penetrating those Saturday morning cartoons can be. Americans of a certain age (our age) grew up with that rambunctious, whirling dervish the Tasmanian Devil, so that’s what we think of when…
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Tasmania: Wineglass Bay Bushwalking, Port Arthur, and the Isle of the Dead
Most visitors don’t make it all the way to Wineglass Bay Beach, the one in those famous photos. They stop at the Wineglass Bay lookout, snap selfies with the perfect curve of golden sand down below, and debate whether to keep going down to Wineglass Bay Beach, despite the warning signs that do everything in their power to discourage. So many hard hard steps! Must bring survival water and food! It’s a long long long way! Beware! Turn back before it’s too late, Dorothy! In fact, a hike to the lookout alone takes an hour and a half, and some tourists don’t read the fine print even on that. They’re…
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Hobart, Tasmania: MONA, New Friends, Death, and Life: What’s Not to Like?
I knew Padre could sleep anywhere but didn’t know he could snore away, tucked inside MONA’s big white egg with me while a pulsing, hallucinatory light show closed in from all sides. The thing was on the ‘hard’ setting, even. I guess the guy really likes his sleep. Padre finally made it to Tasmania’s famous MONA (Museum of Old and New Art), a long-time travel goal, and he was so not asleep before we entered the egg. You better not be, or you’ll fall into a deep dark pool or be lost forever in the labyrinth of Escher-inspired staircases and dark stone passageways throughout the museum’s subterranean levels. Is it…
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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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They All Start with T: Three Reasons We’re At the Airport, Again!
We like the airport. No, we don’t like pat-downs, delays, mind-numbing microphone announcements, or being smushed nose-to-nose with other passengers on a bus ride out to the tarmac to catch our plane. (United thought of a new way to torture passengers! Way to go, United!) We seldom complain about airport indignities because we love what the airport does for us. Kind of like how we stuck with algebra, since it was our ticket to college. (I like algebra now, truly I do, math buddies out there…) The airport gets us to the three T’s and much more, so off we go again. My always-supportive sister-in-law follows our travels closely, and she…
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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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A Key West Christmas: BELIEVE!
I’ve always been a Christmas person. My folks loved Christmas too, and I have treasured memories of all those family Christmases long ago: Sitting in the pew at Christmas Eve candlelight service, Mom’s gorgeous table groaning with turkey and all the fixins, the tree with treasured ornaments, some I still hang on my own tree 60 years later. Over time, things change, of course. For several years I took over the family dinner duties, and have oodles of photos of our extended family, smiling round my Christmas table, so many in fact that I finally put them all in a photo book (you’re all in there somewhere, family – trust…
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St. Lucia and Grenada: Whales, Revolutions, and No Bananas for You!
So which is it: An idyllic paradise, or the modern-day legacy of a colonial past? Is it a picturesque Old World British village set in a lush tropical paradise, or the former site of bloody revolution, executions, and brutal slavery? Is it a romantic Loveboat, or the place where relationships go to die? That old saying ‘there are two sides to every story and the truth is somewhere in the middle’ applies to our Caribbean trip so far. Take that last contrast, for instance, on full display in the ship elevator the other day. When the door shut after an elderly couple got off, another passenger asked the rest of…
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Antigua and Barbados, Afoot and Afloat
There’s a first and a last time for everything. The last time I leaped off the back of a sailboat in snorkel gear was, let’s see….25 years ago? This time it was only a short drop, but if I managed it, my string of life leaps off cliffs, diving boards, and boats galore was not over yet, not by a long shot. But I had to do more than leap. I also had to survive our Captain’s Challenge (which is advertised as an activity for ‘intrepid swimmers’): Swim through deep ocean seas to Hell’s Gate rock formation, clamber inside its coral-encrusted limestone cave, climb up to the top of the…
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Passenger Categories: Which One Are You? Southern Caribbean, Post #1
I love to people-watch on a cruise ship. Everyone’s away from home in a new environment; so how will they behave? I’ve already met several folks like me: a Planner as opposed to a Show-Up (who just shows up). I booked this cruise almost two years ago, in fact, and have thoroughly researched our seven island destinations: Antigua, Barbados, St. Lucia, Grenada, Aruba, Curacao, and Bonaire. We have a huge map of the Caribbean Islands covering the wall of our cabin, a mini-Christmas tree set up on the desk (Planners think of everything), and I know the best place on board to meet like-minded over-planners (the Cruise Critic Roll Call…
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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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Tokyo: Monsoon Rains, Trains, Blossoms, and Brains
So I cheated. The photo above is not Tokyo, but it could have been a couple of weeks ago. The Japanese adore all things cherry blossom, and although the delicate pink blooms only hang around for a week, Tokyo dwellers go all out. Office workers pour out of skyscrapers to frolic under the blossoms at elaborate picnic parties, we hear. We witnessed this firsthand farther north in Hakodate, where I took the picture above, smack in the middle of 600 blooming cherry trees – lucky us. And lots more cherry blossom pictures in my next post (I threw one in here to help us imagine what Tokyo might have looked…
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Kamchatka, Russia: May the 4th Be With You. Twice!
What a perfect day to get to live twice: Star Wars Day! On a cruise ship crossing the international dateline, for us that means late-night parties, cakes, balloon drops, and two daily schedules, both for May 4th (not making that up – check out the picture). Even though I’ve been planning this cruise itinerary for months, I didn’t really get the fact that we would do some Groundhog-type time travel and repeat a day of our lives, only with cruise amenities and Star Wars cupcakes. So what did we do, with our extra day on earth? Same old, same old (writing, reading, failing to avoid the buffets, attending science presentations).…
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Thailand, Vietnam, and Japan: Buddhists and Buddhas Everywhere!
I can see Russia from my cruise ship! Well, maybe that’s Russia – it definitely will be Russia tomorrow morning. For the next week, we occupy a room on the Celebrity Millennium as it sails across the Bering Sea (with a stop in Russia, if the Russians see fit to let the passengers off. Sometimes they just say ‘nyet’ we’re told, and miss out on all that tourist cash. Bad capitalists…..). This week, I hope to NOT do two things (eat too much cruise food or read the news) and plan to concentrate on one thing: Capturing our Epic Journey in words and pictures, before my memory starts its inevitable…
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The Golden Triangle: Burma, Laos, Hill Tribes, and My First World Assumptions
We were sitting on red ants. We had crossed the border into Laos, and at the local market children had been trailing our every move, pestering us: “Baht! baht!” – imploring us to give them money, pointing to our Diet Coke cans, asking us to buy some for them (we think that’s what they wanted, anyway). As hard as it is for both of us to say ‘no’ when asked to help (especially when the askers are children), we listened when our guide Ranee told us that if we gave in, we’d cause a mini-riot among the poor children. So we hardened ourselves and kept saying ‘no’. But now the…
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Thailand: Ancient Kingdoms, and an Elephant or Two
A ride on an elephant was definitely not part of the plan, but here we are: riding on elephants. Go figure. We knew we were going to visit an elephant rescue camp, but if you’d asked me yesterday if I would ever ride an elephant in this lifetime, that would be a definite ‘no’. So glad we did (Padre even swam with them), and the elephant rescue camp impressed us so much that I plan to devote an entire post to our visit and the camp’s work in the near future, as well as longer posts on topics such as Burma, our visit to the Northern hill tribes, endemic poverty,…
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Bangkok, Thailand: Temples, Buddhas, and Watch Out for the Supersoakers!
We’ve been in Thailand for a few days with our small Gate1 Tour group, an eclectic collection of Americans and Canadians, shepherded expertly by our Thai guide, Ranee. I’m writing from the bus as we travel north, through rice fields and a heavy rainstorm. Quite refreshing after the relentless heat of Bangkok. Bus travel take us back to our old student tour days – suitcases outside the door of our (quite elegant) hotel rooms by 7:00 am, rotating bus seats, getting to know the various personalities of fellow travellers. For Ranee, it’s probably a bit like herding cats – she’s very good, giving extra attention where needed, keeping everyone on…
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Japan: Kyoto, Shimizu, and the Two-Heart-Attack Train Challenge
We don’t back down from travel challenges, but our race through Yokohama’s sprawling train station had me longing for the rocker and remote, just for a moment. The morning started on a high note, with our entrance to Yokohama Harbor and our last morning with the Diamond Princess (thanks Shari for the ‘view’ tip, and the detailed instructions – it helped, trust me!). We hoped to disembark by 7:30 AM at the latest, catch a taxi to Yokohama station, locate the ticket office to buy our Narita Airport Express tickets, then find the Promised Land – platform 10 – all by 8:26 AM to make our noon flight. Hey, old…
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Hong Kong: No New Husbands Here, but a Great City Nevertheless
Hong Kong more than lived up to expectations, and I didn’t have to find a new husband there, thank goodness. Our wonderful tour guide Mandy would have helped me if things had come to that, I’m sure; she was simply the best. (Mandy and her sister Apple make up the much-in-demand tour company, The Hong Kong Getaway.) So Mandy started the new-husband thing as we taxied under Hong Kong Harbor, then traversed switchbacks all the way to the top of Victoria Peak. She described the various neighborhoods as we passed through each one, and informed the ladies in our small group (myself and Judy) that if we were looking for…
