Robin took this photo of the Kamchatka Peninsula on our flight from Vancouver to Hong Kong. Views like this were the first highlight of our trip.  

The 13-hour flight on Cathay Pacific proved surprisingly bearable, perhaps because we sprung for economy plus seats. On Cathay Pacific these are not just coach seats with a little extra leg room as in the U.S. They are in a separate section of the cabin and are almost like first-class seats on a U.S. domestic flight. We even got different food from the folks in steerage. 

We’re now in the Hong Kong airport awaiting our flight to Beijing. The Internet seems fully available here, but then Hong Kong isn’t really China. 

Tomorrow morning we fly to China for a trip of almost three weeks. The itinerary includes Beijing, the Great Wall, Xian (home of the terra cotta warriors), Lhasa, a six-day cruise on the Yangtze River, and Shanghai.

We will try to blog from the trip, assuming we can connect to the Internet, which is heavily restricted in China.

The full itinerary, if anyone is interested is here.

We’re back on Whidbey Island after driving through appropriately sunny California and appropriately rainy Oregon and Washington.

We visited family in Huntington Beach and San Martin, Calif., and Eugene, Ore. We set up camp in the rain and dark in Eugene and survived record rains driving north through Washington.

We ate a lot of Mexican food on this trip, in Texas, Arizona, and California. On our last day, we stopped for lunch at a nifty old restaurant called the Columbia Inn, in Kalama, Wash. They brag that both Elvis and Jack Benny ate there, presumably not at the same time. Continue reading

We made this trip’s one stop to commune with nature at the Chiricahua National Monument southeast of Tucson. 

The monument is known for its towering rock formations, which have been eroded away to the point that they look like they should fall over. Many have been given names like China Boy and the Sea Captain.  Continue reading

Yesterday we went into San Antonio to explore for a few hours. That meant, of course, a visit to the Alamo.

The Alamo is a shrine to Texas history, but it’s not in the middle of a park or anything. In fact, it’s right downtown and closely surrounded by hotels, restaurants, and tourist traps like Ripley’s Haunted Adventure.  Bob Wills to the contrary, I couldn’t find a pinto pony or a Navajo. In fact, I couldn’t even find an alley.  Continue reading

Robin took this picture this morning at Sea Rim State Park, Texas, where we camped for the night.

It’s a nice park, except for the mosquitos, which were voracious. The walkway in the photo leads to a wide beach, which is marred only by clumps of tar, which I’m guessing may have come from the Deepwater Horizon. Continue reading

We are on the third day of our annual westward migration. Last night we camped in a state park on Mobile Bay. Right next to our campsite was this sign:

The quality is not great, but it was foggy. We didn’t see any actual alligators, which was OK with me.  Continue reading



It’s only about an inch of snow but it’s quite pretty.  Of course, even an inch of snow is a big problem in the South, and some parts of the Triangle got more. 

We thought we were escaping this kind of weather by coming south for the winter. Next time I guess we’ll have to spend February in Florida. 

We live most of the year on an island, so when we are on the mainland for a long time, as we are in the winter, we often feel the need for an island fix. So we just spent a few days on Hilton Head in South Carolina.

Driving through the Carolinas is always entertaining. For one thing, you pass by towns like Dunn, N.C., which bills itself as “The Dump Truck Body Capital of America.”

Then there’s South Carolina, which names not only roads but interchanges after people. One is named after Ben Bernanke, the former Fed chairman who grew up in nearby Dillon. Then there’s the Juanita M. Smith Sidewalk, which crosses over the freeway. Maybe it’s just me, but naming a sidewalk after someone seems kind of pedestrian. (It appears that Ms. Smith wrote a book called Sidewalks, so maybe it’s OK.)

Hilton Head proved to be quite a bit different from Whidbey. Sure, it has the ocean and broad sandy beaches, and the seafood is good. We enjoyed strolling the beach and visiting Rose Hill Mansion, an ante-bellum home that’s not actually on the island but in nearby Bluffton. Continue reading

The weekend before Christmas, we took the granddaughters to New York for a little holiday tourism. (This report is late because Robin and I were both sick over the holidays. Nothing serious, just horrible colds that hung on for weeks.)

We flew to New York on Friday. The apartment we had rented wasn’t ready, so we got lunch. For dessert, we ended up at the Cake Boss Cafe at 42nd Street and 8th Avenue. This was a big hit with the girls, who are fans of the TV show. Robin had a cupcake, which was good but not, of course, as good as the ones from the Cupcake Bar.

After we finally got into the apartment — if I ever rent one again, I’ll be sure to find out the check-in time — we headed for dinner at Maria Pia, one of those neighborhood Italian restaurants of which New York has so many. The girls were able to get their usuals, salmon for Sophia and noodles for Annika.

Then it was off to our first cultural event, the Gazillion Bubble Show. This proved to be about 85 minutes of a woman on stage doing all sorts of tricks with soap bubbles. At one point she had four children encased inside one giant bubble. The girls loved it. I fell asleep after about half an hour, but remember: I wasn’t feeling well. It’s a great show for kids. Continue reading