Browsed by
Category: travel

A Novel Town

A Novel Town

Comments 0 Comment

St. Bonaventure Cemetery. Forsyth Park. Jones Street. The Bird Girl statue. 

I’ve been on a crash course to learn about Savannah, Georgia, before we leave for that beguiling city for a family wedding. 

Already I’m encouraged, since many of the sights the city pitches are ones made famous from a novel that became a movie. 

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was an unlikely bestseller when it came out in 1994, but went on to become a feature film that has helped to define Savannah as a Southern Gothic playground, dripping with Spanish moss. 

My walking shoes are ready. 

(Photo: VisitSavannah.com)

Bowling in the Rain

Bowling in the Rain

Comments 0 Comment

We’ve had some rain lately, which reminds me of one morning in Oban, Scotland, when I was awakened by the sound of shouts and laughter wafting up from the bowling green beneath the windows of the B&B. 

It was pouring — but that wasn’t stopping the lawn bowlers. They were swaddled in rain gear, playing their game with the cool concentration of professionals. Cool being the operative word because it was about 50 degrees in mid-August.

I admired the pluck of the players, and later in the day, when it was warmer and dryer, circled back to watch the game. I still can’t say I understand it. But I do get the spirit of it, which seems to be, forget about the weather — have fun! A good lesson to keep in mind. 

Backward Glance

Backward Glance

Comments 0 Comment

I know people who extol the beauties of fall — the color, the crispness, the end of humidity — but I’m not one of them. To me there’s always a backward glance at this time of year.

I don’t mind the heat, I relish cicada song, and I love the long days that summer brings.

So on the last day of this summer, I’m reveling in the sun that’s trying to peak through the ever-thickening cloud cover, and I’m savoring the adventures — from Seattle to Scotland and all the places in between.

Saving Posts

Saving Posts

Comments 0 Comment

For the most part, I write a post, read it over once or twice to check for typos, then pretty much let it go. But today I’ve been making sure I have all the posts I’ve ever written, grouped in months, in PDF files on my computer. 

I couldn’t help but read a few as I went along: There was the round-the-world trip of 2016. 

And something much smaller: riffing on journalism after seeing the movie “Spotlight,” and remembering how my daughter said the film was “a little slow.” That made me smile.

And then there was the couch sitting in a field in the Rocky Mountains. There’s a story behind that one, as you might imagine. 

Down of a Thistle

Down of a Thistle

Comments 0 Comment

Several days during the trip last month the air was filled with flying fluff. It took a while to determine the source, to realize that the fluff was the down of a thistle, the national flower of Caledonia.

Here’s a perfect example of vacation thinking. Were I at home, I would find the thistle a weed and the fluff frustrating evidence of its spread. But in Scotland, I found it enchanting, winged messengers of hope and beauty.

Watching the gossamer stuff float through a heathered Highland landscape was a magical experience. It brought the Clement Clarke Moore lines to mind:

“He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle/And away they all flew, like the down of a thistle …”

And that’s just what we did — fly away, that is.  I miss that magical vacation thinking. 

(I saw a lot more heather than thistles.)

September 10th

September 10th

Comments 0 Comment

It’s Grandparents Day, and as we prepare to celebrate another family birthday (they come in clumps, don’t they?), I’m thinking, actually, of my parents. 

They were never able to do what I’ll do today, which is to wake up in my own house and drive 25 minutes to hold, tickle, cuddle and celebrate a precious grandchild on her special day. I know they missed this, and I wish they’d had it. 

I’ll be the first to admit that I chafe at the suburbs, that I look for opportunities to leave and spend weeks wandering around European villages where beauty is given greater priority than it is here. 

But here … is where my heart is. 

(Happy 1st Birthday, Aurora Anne! photo: CCG)

On the Road Again

On the Road Again

Comments 0 Comment

The last time I strolled any distance was on the streets of Edinburgh. Covid has kept me down and given my feet something they’ve been wanting for months — a break. 

But the break is over, feet. You’re on the line again, or, more to the point, you’re on the road again. This morning I woke up early and strong enough to tackle the neighborhood loop. 

Yes, it will be 101 today, but at 7 a.m. it was a comfortable. 73. I walked and walked.

It felt terrific.

(Pedestrians on the Royal Mile.)

Ephemera

Ephemera

Comments 0 Comment

A woman enters the tiny chapel and crosses herself. I doubt she saw me notice but I noticed just the same. 

The couple in line in front of us can’t take their eyes off each other, are forever touching shoulders, exchanging smiles. She has short hair and dimples. He wears a plaid shirt. 

There were hundreds of moments like these on our trip through Scotland last month. Little things I glimpsed that I don’t want to forget. The ephemera of travel. 

They are like this section of Hadrian’s Wall, a stretch that runs along a lane that’s currently in use. Here is this historical marvel, traces of a structure built two thousand years ago, and we’re driving along beside it as if it was a 21st-century shoulder. 

The ordinary becomes extraordinary. And vice versa. 

On Location

On Location

Comments 0 Comment

On this Labor Day I’ll continue my past few days track record of doing pretty much nothing, which is all I’ve felt like doing. But I have been able to read and watch movies, especially one film I’d been thinking about while we were in Edinburgh — “Chariots of Fire,” which won the Academy Award for best picture in 1981 and is a favorite of mine.

I learned that many of the scenes were shot in Edinburgh locales, including an old church (are there any other kind there?), an elegant eatery, and up in the Salisbury Crags near Arthur’s Seat. 

It was doubly fun to watch the movie realizing that I was right there only a few days ago. Kinda dorky, I know. But entertaining, just the same. 

(For “Chariots of Fire” fans, Harold and Sybil enter Cafe Royal through the revolving door that’s in the foreground while a band strikes up “Three Little Maids From School.”) 

A Souvenir

A Souvenir

Comments 0 Comment

I returned home with an unwelcome souvenir: a case of Covid, the first time for me, or at least the first I’ve known about. Luckily, I didn’t contract the virus until a couple of days before departure, and it didn’t fully reveal itself until I got home. Since home is the best place to be when under the weather, I’ve been more reconciled to the trip’s end.

On the other hand, I miss the energy that usually accompanies a return: the joy of hugging family I’ve missed, the bustle of doing the laundry — mine is still piled up, optimistically, in front of the washing machine.

I’ll spend the next few days sipping Gatorade, nibbling crackers … and dreaming about where I was last month. 

(Portree, on the Isle of Skye)