Normally, I use this little online soapbox to talk about various destinations I’ve enjoyed over the years. But what was the journey like leading up to these trips? Five summers ago, we bought our first house and moved into rooms that took forever to fill with furniture. About six weeks later, the recreational soccer season…
Category: Travel
Smoky Days
You can still smell cigar smoke walking down Seventh Avenue. More than a century after its heyday as the cigar-manufacturing capital of America, men—and women—lounge about Ybor City’s sidewalk cafes and enjoy a break from the Florida sun by puffing on a cigar. It’s a long-practiced, ideal way to wait out the afternoon humidity because…
A Four-Day Vacation With My Former Self
There appears to be three primary reasons people fly to Florida: to visit an elderly relative, to attend the funeral of an elderly relative, or to party on the beach. On the flight home, I sat between two people returning from two different funerals. At age 42, I can proudly say I was the one…
Whales in the Mountains
My first clue was this goofy-looking, very dated, blue-and-white parking sign showing a smiling whale with wheels. We were figuring out where we could legally park and my initial thought was “What the hell is there a whale sign doing in the Catskills???” Goes to show what I know. Turns out Hudson, New York, was…
My Quixotic Search for Small
Maybe it’s because I live in the shadow of the Empire State Building or that I’ve been in a car accident during rush-hour commuter traffic on the George Washington Bridge or that a homeless guy in the West 4th subway station peed on my foot (I was wearing flip-flops, a no-no in New York), but…