The Rich Guy
I seldom have been around people with lots of money. Athletes, I suppose, but I’ve always assumed they will blow it all, and before they were 40; most of their predecessors have. So athletes’ money has...
View ArticleAnother Way You Know You’re Old
* Besides looking at the DOB stats on your driver’s license. You rise shortly after dawn, drag your suitcases (thank God wheels are now attached) down to the docks, take a heaving two-hour ferry ride,...
View Article31 Hours, Door to Door
We have conceded on this site that accounts of long, draining travel are nearly always boring. Meaningless to all but those who survived them. And yet, we keep talking about them. Because they are so...
View ArticleThe Blessed Part of the State
Not all of California is overrun, and we drove up the coast today to luxuriate in that part of it. The Central Coast, it is called. And it is spectacular. Rolling hills, green, when a drought is not...
View ArticleBrown and Thirsty California
We went on a short hike today, above Lopez Lake, about 10 miles inland on Highway 227 from Pismo Beach. California is suffering through a drought of historical proportions, and it is particularly...
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A Hike that Rates a 10
Monday, the scorched and dry hills. Today, the dramatic cliffs and crashing surf of Montana de Oro State Park. The latter is pretty much immune to the California drought — and it made for a very fine...
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The Mad Max Encampment
It is unusual to see private homes built right on the sand of the Pacific Ocean, in California. As is the one in which we are staying. It is even more unusual to sit inside that home and watch...
View ArticleWater from the Skies!
A lesson on how bad the drought has been in the “Golden (tilting towards brown) State”. It rained here today, and Californians were more joyful, verging on giddy, in reacting to it than are Emiratis,...
View ArticleIn Praise of Airline Food
For most of my life, airline food was mocked and derided. “Cold” … “rubbery” … “tasteless” … “inedible”. We ate airline food because it came with the ride. It was distributed, free. No, really. (And I...
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Atlantis The Palm: Las Vegas on the Gulf
It is surprising how many people living in the UAE are eager to visit Las Vegas. No need to make that 20-hour trip. All the locals need do is check in to Atlantis The Palm in Dubai, and they can enjoy...
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My Second Cycling Tour Debut
This has been something of a flashback for me. The first Abu Dhabi Tour … the first Redlands Bicycle Classic. What do they have in common? Two-wheel bikes, whippet lean men, strange terminology and...
View ArticleBuenos Dias from Spain
So, some time off, and we wanted to go to Europe and be somewhere with a bit of light and sun, and here we are on the coast of Spain. It may not be the smartest choice, this time of year, given that...
View ArticleTapas Too Often? Perhaps Impossible
How many consecutive days of eating plates of tapas (Spanish for snack) for dinner would a person need before he or she became tired of it? A week of it? A month of it? Ten years of it? We have had...
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A Spanish City on a Hill
Seems like the older a town is, the more likely it is to have been founded on a hill. Such is the case for Altea, a city of 25,000 between Valencia and Alicante on Spain’s Costa Blanca. People have...
View ArticleAn Unexpected American Conclave in a Small-Town Spanish Mojito Bar
One of those random things that happen when traveling: An unpredictable intersection of simpatico people. In this case, nine Americans meeting at a mojito bar early in the evening in the Old City of a...
View ArticleA Tale of Two Costa Blanca Cities
Altea is amazing. Benidorm is appalling. Altea is a few blocks of 19th-century charm crowned by a 115-year-old church atop a hill. Benidorm is miles of urban sprawl built around “the most high-rise...
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Bonsoir and Bow Wow from Paris
So, here we are again, in the City of Light, nearly all of that light generated by electricity, given that Paris has been sunk in a not-atypical late-October cloud of gloom. But, still … We landed at...
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The Parc des Buttes Chaumont
A curious reality concerning the 11th arrondissement, where we are staying: It is the most densely populated quartier in Paris but it has very few major … anythings. Landmarks, stores, parks. So, if...
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The American Church of Paris
Paris has two major American churches and, curiously, they are only about 800 yards apart, with the Seine River filling much of the gap. We checked out the American Cathedral on a Sunday evening back...
View ArticleThe Bakeries of Paris
This is something I love about France, and Paris, in particular. The bakeries. A trip to the boulangerie is a treat. In Paris, good bakeries pretty much can be assumed. Now and then you find one that...
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