Tag archives: travel

The long muddy rut on Simmler Road was deep enough to swallow my tires up to the axle. Alkali loam transforms into a gooey death sentence for vehicles attempting to experience the far flung reaches of the Carrizo Plain National Monument. However, there was something odd about this narrow trench on one of the grassland’s […]

It wasn’t exactly what we’d planned for. My high school friend Annie joined me to celebrate our mutual June birthdays. We planned a trip to San Diego and Valle De Guadalupe, Baja. She took Amtrak from Union Station to Oceanside; I picked her up at the train station and we sped down to the recently […]

There’s something about the desert air, a splash of poolside glamour, and the hum of classic convertibles cruising by that makes me fall in love with Palm Springs all over again – every single time. This year, I was lucky enough to experience the magic during Modernism Week’s 20th anniversary and let me say… it […]

Monarch butterflies don’t make any noise, but it was way too quiet in the dense eucalyptus grove at Natural Bridges State Beach in Santa Cruz, CA. It felt like there was no life at all in this damp riparian corridor along the wave-battered North Coast. Not seeing any orange flutters was deflating.  With our binoculars, […]

The village headman padded over to greet us, his bare feet slapping the ground, his soles as furrowed as the African earth. The mud huts of the Maasai people stood behind him, corralled by a thorn fence to discourage lions. I expected the headman to make some tribal gesture of welcome, and he held up […]

My posh trip to Napa wine country began elegantly as we soared out of a private terminal at Van Nuys Airport on Aero’s LA-Napa service on a semi-private plane. In just a little over an hour-long, smooth flight – Erewon fresh avocado tartine/toast, sweet berries and coffee served with cloth napkins in flight – a […]

From my kayak, there was no touching down on any beach on Vandenberg Air Force Base. This remote stretch of rugged Central California Coastline is off limits to Joe Public, even if the only member of the common man within the region was a salt-encrusted, sunscreen-smeared paddler in search of empty surf. I was paddling […]

The world knows and loves Rick Steves – our shared Global Citizen whose dispatches from the Olde World edify and ennoble. Let’s imagine Rick. His blue button-down shirt is neatly tucked into dark blue jeans, his brown leather shoes are well-worn, pliant, and have thick clod-hopper soles, his inimitably cheery baby blues smile from behind […]

The sounds and movements were more than familiar to us. The knocks, snorts, sneezes and galumphing led us to the most northern and newest northern elephant seal colony in California, and the world.  The Lost Coast in Northern California’s Humboldt County, and beneath the mighty King Range, offers refuge for lots of wildlife; seabirds, raptors, […]

The last time I visited Oceanside, in northern San Diego County, was a decade ago. There was a lively restaurant, The Flying Pig Pub and Kitchen, which survived COVID (that I did not revisit this time) and a lone little Victorian cottage, the “Graves House” sitting in an empty, weedy beachfront field.  More popularly known […]

My traveling pal and I arrived at the lovely, seaside Hotel Gutkowski (an affordable recommendation from a friend) on a Sunday early afternoon, just moments after a welcome, much needed thunderstorm and downpour began to clear the air. The island of Sicily had been suffering from a drought and the air had been gray and […]

I needed a snack, and I had eyeballs on a girthy, ripe fig. I climbed up on the fence and balanced myself by holding onto a fig tree branch. What I didn’t notice was an island fox on the same limb, concealed in the large, clover-shaped leaves. As I reached out for a purplish-colored fig, […]

Our short but harrowing lift, from La Bella Palermo to the car rental agency, was thanks to a hair-raising ride by our very own Parnelli Jones. Our taxi driver seemed both skeptical and disdainful of the fact that I, a “woman of a certain age,” would be sharing the driving in Sicily with my friend […]

Some of the best unfiltered water I’ve ever drunk cascaded over broad gravel bars along the Canning River – surging down the North Slope of the Brooks Range in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Northeast Alaska. Three friends were paddling in a raft, while I paddled in a one-man pack raft on our way […]

Here are some images capturing only a few of the highlights from my Japan travels earlier this year. Of note was a visit with Hiroshima bombing survivor Sadae Kasaoka, who spent over an hour with us, and seeing the “Atomic Bomb Dome,” a surviving building that was the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. There was […]

They behaved like rambunctious children – playful, and inquisitive. They’d also never seen a kayaker before. Three-month-old northern fur seal pups were almost knocking me out of my kayak while paddling around Point Bennett on San Miguel Island. May and June are an exciting time to be on the Channel Islands National Park. There’s anticipation […]

I love Sicily— and not just because I am half-Sicilian! The food markets, the array of amazing architecture, the people, the scenery… Palermo is a vibrant port city, from its underground catacombs to the heights of Santa Rosalia, and from amazing fine art collections and museums to eye-popping churches and restaurants of the highest caliber […]

A half mile up Scorpion Canyon on Santa Cruz Island, I could hear the deep barks and bellows of raucous California sea lions. Their symphony of bawls carried beneath the low canopy of dewy fog hovering above the Santa Barbara Channel, and the Channel Islands National Park. It was 4 am, and as time crept toward […]

The Channel Islands National Park has always been a haven for migratory birds needing a rest, especially during and following big windstorms. From my kayak, I’m always keeping an eye out for any seafaring feathers that might be out of the ordinary. Seabirds like Pacific loons are on my radar come spring, big northwest winds […]