Be sure to pay a visit to these special patients the next time you are in the Florida Keys.
Turtle Hospital? What’s a turtle hospital? We were staying in Marathon, Florida which is nicely situated between Key Largo and Key West. Our drive to Key West took us past an unusual sight, especially if you are from northern Canada, like we are. Glad we stopped.
Lewis, our terrific taxi driver on St. Lucia, shows off his chicken coop.
St. Lucia lies in about the middle of the arched string of Caribbean islands located between the Dominican Republic and South America. It’s one of the prettiest islands to tour, and, as far as I know, it’s the only place you can chow down on “cow heel” soup. And the only place I have ever been where your cabbie will take you to his house.
Amazonian home near Santarem, Brazil
Despite a history of gold deposits and despite being one of the largest cities located along the Amazon, Santarem and the surrounding area is rich with the flavour of days gone by. If you are seeking a more historical Amazon, slower-paced, and a more pastoral bit of civilization, then Santarem is the place to go.
Dominica in the Caribbean, is a small island that plays big. Especially if you brave the tiny winding roadways filled with rubble, and make your way up to the rain forest aerial tram. Bring your rain poncho.
Deserted Old-timers on Devil’s Island, French Guyana
Devil’s Island was made famous in the movie starring Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen: “Papillon.” But the Devil’s Island that tourists are welcomed on today is not the island associated with the unfortunate French prisoner, Papillon (Henri Charriere).
“Go ahead, make my day!”
We can’t bear heading straight home to our climate of snow and ice after spending weeks in the tropics. Having just finished off a 14-day adventure through the Caribbean islands and up the Amazon, we felt a short stay in the Florida Keys would help to ease the pain of transition. And so it did, in spite of the unusually cool temperatures.
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.
Read on . . .
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.
Read on . . .
(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!
Read on . . .
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.
Read on . . .
