One balmy morning in November 2023, Herb and I were waiting in line to board a flight from Bangkok, Thailand, to Siem Reap, Cambodia. We had just disembarked from a wonder of a cruise on the Regent Explorer that had taken us through Japan and Southeast Asia and were joining a group of eighteen travelers from … Read More
“We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there.” ~Peter Mercier, Night Train to Lisbon Our first house was a turn-of-the nineteenth-century Victorian on a tree-lined street in Oak Park, … Read More
“I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it.” ~Paul Theroux, The Great Railway Bazaar The Pullman sleeping car was gently rocking from side to side as I climbed aboard the Canadian National St. Hyacinthe. Berths with comfy-looking pillows and rose-colored blankets were turned down for the night, and light from … Read More
It would be hard to find a more perfect place to begin a tour of Palm Springs architecture than the Saguaro Hotel. Rows of balconies painted in a vibrant rainbow of shades wrap around a swimming pool decked out in sunny yellows and oranges. Designed to reflect the colors of Coachella Valley desert wildflowers, the … Read More
Sam Cobb is holding court under a canopy of magnificent palm trees, regaling the fifteen of us who have signed on for his date farm tour with stories about life as a California date farmer. Passionate, delightful and incredibly entertaining, he’s the science teacher you wish you’d had in high school, the one who can … Read More
“What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.” ~Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince Endless rows of twisted, bristly-branched Joshua trees and ruggedly-shaped rock formations line the main road that winds about 30 miles through Joshua Tree National Park. It’s a surreal scene, a vast and desolate landscape that appears … Read More
At first glance, Palm Springs seems like a city firmly planted in another era. The mid-century modern architecture, home tours that showcase where Hollywood stars once escaped the L.A.limelight, and the names of long-ago celebrities etched on the city’s “Walk of the Stars” tell a nostalgic story. You’d almost expect Frank Sinatra to appear around … Read More
“For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant, which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously.” ~Henri Cartier-Bresson, The Mind’s Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers I got my first camera in June 1959, when I turned five years old. It was a Kodak Brownie, … Read More
It was the day after Christmas, and we were headed out with our family for a ride on the Bay Area’s iconic Tilden Park Steam Train. A quick Google check had shown the train opening an hour early at 10 a.m., a great idea we’d thought, given the attraction’s typically long lines. When we arrived, … Read More
On a sunny mid-August morning earlier this year, Herb and I were traveling through the hills near Holy Loch, Scotland, on our way to a place called Rest And Be Thankful. The viewpoint marks the spot where Highlanders moving their livestock would pause to rest after climbing the surrounding steep hills, thankful to have made … Read More