Hit the Road
A few days in the ‘Big Apple’ requires a plan and flexibility
When you’re on the loose in the Big Apple for 72 hours, you need a plan but with flexibility.
Woman’s book chronicles unlikely year in Iraq
The fear of being unemployed and mounting debt are strong motivators, which is why Gretchen Berg found herself in a small town in Iraqi Kurdistan teaching young adults English.Not exactly the path that the 39-year-old copy writer and fashion maven had envisioned, especially since she’d already dismissed a teaching career. But in 2009, financial desperation [...]
Mammoth Mountain, Lake aren’t just for wintry seasons
It’s the first week of June, but sizable patches of snow linger on the trail to Crystal Lake, 9,000 feet in the mountains near the town of Mammoth Lakes.
Former Ohio reformatory gets new life as historic building
From our perch on the metal-grated stairway, we can see the five stories of tiny, two-man cells — row upon row of metal bars stretching the length of the enormous East Wing.
Spending a summer-style stay in a cottage in mid-winter
I know it’s not nice to gloat, but boy, are we tempted.It’s a summer-like Sunday in January and we are sitting on the porch of The Beachcomber restaurant
Plenty to see, do and eat in beautiful Manhattan Beach
There are few things in life better than a cloudless sky, 72-degrees, a gentle breeze and a wide, white Southern California beach on an off-season weekday. That’s what my friend, Wanda, and I see on a recent Thursday after a 90-minute drive north from North County. We’ve arrived in Manhattan Beach, and checked into the [...]
Salvation Mountain in need of some saving of its own
I was saddened to learn recently that Leonard Knight, 80, proprietor of Salvation Mountain, has been placed in a nursing home in El Cajon because of dementia. Now that Knight is no longer there to expand, maintain and protect it, no one knows what will happen to the 50-foot-high-by-150-foot-wide creation made of local adobe clay [...]
