Puerto Rico

We visited Puerto Rico in 2008 on a weeks vacation around Christmas.  It’s a beautiful island with some very interesting history and geography.

San Francisco, The City by the Bay

In 2010, we were discussing where to go for vacation and San Francisco was brought up.  My family asked me about San Francisco since I’d gone there a number of times for work and I had very few answers.  My problem was that I was in San Francisco for work and having a family, I didn’t stay to sight see so I knew very little about the city.  Essentially, I would fly to San Francisco, usually go the Moscone Center, stay in a hotel and then leave. That clinched it, we decided to go and explore San Francisco so that I could see what I’d been missing.

New Mexico Family Trip

We took a family trip to New Mexico in 2013.  The Native American reservations were eye opening and not in a good way.  As a nation, we should do a lot more to help the original “Americans” to improve their living standards.  We went to the Balloon festival, what a gas that was.

Chicago

Clare and I are Frank Lloyd Wright fans. A trip to Chicago, in 2015, was natural. We went to Oak Park to see Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and workshop. We also went to some of the homes and building that he designed.

Falling Waters and other Frank Lloyd Wright designed homes in Pennsylvania

Oregon

Our first trip with Road Scholar was in 2015 to the Portland, Oregon area.  It was a terrific trip to a part of the country we’d not been to before.  We had an excellent tour leader whose background was in geology who gave never ending details of how the area was formed in geologic times and how the area might be effected by possible natural disasters in the future.  It was quite fascinating, at least I thought so.  The name of the trip was The Faces of Oregon: Mt. Hood, Columbia River Gorge & the Coast.

New Orleans, Jazz, Jambalaya, and Joie de Vivre

I don’t know how we did it but we went to New Orleans a couple months after going to Spain on another Road Scholar excursion.  It Jazz, Jambalaya and Joie de Vivre in New Orleans.  We had a wonderful time in New Orleans. We learn a lot about the city and the culture.  Don’t let the Voodoo get you down.

Sedona and the Grand Canyon

Sedona is magical while the Grand Canyon is majestic, what else needs to be said.

Miami for Christmas

We took our family to Miami for Christmas in 2018.  What a nice Christmas gift.

California Dreamin

Clare and I decided in September 2019 that we’d enjoy visiting the California coast.  I mean, who can forget the Mamas and Papas singing California Dreamin if you lived through the 60’s.  We started in San Diego, passed through LA, up to Santa Barbara and Monterrey, enjoyed the beautiful coastline going through Big Sur and flew out of San Jose.  Truly a wonderful trip.

Hudson Valley, New York

After a hiatus from travel due to COVID, Clare and I ventured to New York’s Hudson Valley to go to the Hyde Park area to learn more about the Roosevelt’s in August of 2022.

Costa Rica

Clare and I went to Costa Rica in February, 2020 to get away from the snow and ice that usually accompanies February in DC.  As it turned out, February was mild this year, no doubt due to global warming.  In any case, we had a really terrific trip with a great guide and a wonderful group of travel companions through Road Scholar.   If you’d like to be inspired by a environmental photographer, I’d suggest Cristina Mittermeier.  I found her story inspiring.

Five Days in Seattle: Story, Streets & Surprises

Seattle’s the kind of place you think you know. Rain, coffee, tech, and the fish-tossing guys at Pike Place Market. But spend a few days walking its hills, talking to locals, and ducking into coffee shops and underground tours, and you realize there’s way more under the surface—literally and figuratively.