Have you ever spent a Christmas season in New York City? No? Then my suggestion to you, if you love a good old-fashioned Christmas complete with all the fixins’, is to spend a few days in the Big Apple when the spirit of the Christmas season is at its apex. There is nothing else that compares. I promise.
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San Antonio, Texas is, simply put, one heck of a great vacation destination. It is family-friendly, it is easy to navigate, it offers many activities and adventures, and there are no crowds right after Labor Day. But even when there are crowds (like on the Labor Day weekend), San Antonio is a must-see. And, a caution here, a couple of days just won’t be enough time.
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(An early morning view of the beautiful Mission San Jose in San Antonio’s Missions National Park.)
Thank you, Hurricane Gustav. We are sitting high and dry in one of the loveliest cities in North America, San Antonio. We are supposed to be in New Orleans. But thanks to a little convincing by Gustav and American officials, we changed our plans.
On the day we were set to arrive in NOLA, evacuation orders forced nearly two million folks to leave the southern seaboard. We had planned a holiday riding the rails, the Amtrak rails, but the trains were needed to take people out of New Orleans, so Amtrak cancelled our reservations.
We were in Houston (another area slated to be hit by Gustav) so we had no choice but to rent a car and head north to San Antonio. In fact, on our way, we passed a convoy of 2 dozen buses that were heading south on a rescue mission. Later, on TV, we watched as an endless line of buses, filled with those folks escaping the storm, headed away to safer zones like Dallas and Houston.
Now we are watching as the eye of Gustav makes landfall — the good news, maybe, for New Orleans, is that the eye will be passing farther to the west than expected.
But in the meantime, we are in San Antonio, where we have rented a comfortable house, we have walked the famous Riverwalk, we have ridden the canal boats, we have paid homage to the Alamo, and we have made an early morning trek to the old Spanish missions. What a joy!
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My husband and I celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary yesterday. Our formal plans had us dining at a very cool eatery called “The Bootlegger Italian Bistro,” in South Las Vegas. We had eaten there when we first arrived in Vegas and thought it would be a nice place, with its classic old gangster ambience, to have our anniversary dinner.
But our plans changed. Vegas has a way of doing that to plans. So, we cancelled our reservations in favor of another place. And we are so glad we did. We had one of our best times yet in Las Vegas.
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Are you planning a trip to that Mecca of Nevada: Las Vegas? Maybe you have never visited this city of bright lights and money-grabbing slots, or maybe you haven’t been there in awhile.
The good news? Many things haven’t changed.
The better news? Many things have changed. Especially at the airport and at the car rental building.
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There are almost no words to describe traveling an authentic portion of Route 66. If time machines exist, then this is one of the finest.
There is an ambience of days gone by, the good old days, when Mom and Dad packed up the old Chevy with 3.5 kids, a dog, a cooler, Dad in his best driving hat, and Mom in her finest traveling clothes, and hit the road in search of adventures, or maybe a new life on the other side of Amercia.
The atmosphere, the sense of nostalgia along “The Mother Road” is so poignant, so acute, that it will bring tears to your eyes. At least, it did, to mine.
My husband and I set out yesterday in search of Americana history. We left Vegas about 7 AM and reached Kingman, Arizona about 3 hours later. With a few stops in the desert along the way, we had set up the perfect photo safari. But we had no idea just how perfect our day was going to be. Because the adventure that is Route 66 still lay ahead of us.
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There is a place in Las Vegas that very few visitors know about. Even fewer will ever see it. It is a place called, “The Boneyard,” and it is a photographer’s dream, even if all you can get is a glimpse through the thick mesh and wire fence surrounding the compound.
The Boneyard is aptly named as it is a sanctuary for old Las Vegas neon signs - the bones of historic Vegas, if you will.
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I’m jaded when it comes to variety acts. I have owned an entertainment company for more than a quarter century, and there really isn’t much out there that turns my crank. I have had my fill of jugglers, magicians and comedians. I am married to a magician, and I still teach interactive comedy theatre, so, it is with great pleasure that I can say I have found a really good variety show in Vegas that’s not only fresh and exciting — it’s actually fun.
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Harry Smith, from the CBS Early Show, referred to this zoo as a “zoolet.” And he’s right. New York’s Central Park zoo is a very tiny animal sanctuary, but it does prove the old adage that “Good things come in small packages.”
The Central Park zoo is the perfect destination if your time and your cash are a little short. The admission price is tiny, and it’ll take only a couple of hours to look around, but the animals are very exotic, and the little haven has a very inviting ambience.
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