Supreme Court Will Hear Trump Travel Ban Challenge (Updated Sunday, July 1, 2018: The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the final version of Trump’s “travel ban.” It’s potential impact on those wishing to enter the U.S. is discussed in this New York Times story.) (Updated at 5:15 p.m., PDT, Sunday, April 22, 2018: On Wednesday, …
(Originally published June 7, 2017; last update on July 19, 2018.) A half-century ago, in 1967, San Francisco experienced the “Summer of Love.” A year later, I lived through a personal “summer of love” when on nearly every weekend from June through August I drove California’s scenic and fabled Highway from Monterey, through Big Sur, …
(Updated April 2, September 10, and December 2, 2017 ,January 14, 2018 and September 5, 2018) Donald Trump has not been known to mince words, either when he was on the campaign trail or after he entered the White House. He says what’s on his mind without apparent regard for what anyone else thinks. Couple …
It’s been fifteen years. Fifteen years since hijacked airliners crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in rural Pennsylvania. But sometimes it seems like those incomprehensible events took place just yesterday. Today is, of course, the fifteenth anniversary of what the world simply calls “9/11.” Where where we then, and where …
“Venice Never Changes,” Samantha Durell replied in response to my observation that compared to other Italian cities, such as Florence or Rome, the famous city of canals on the Adriatic Sea looked like a down-at-the-heels in-desperate-need-of-a-cobbler “repair job” to the fading facades of its houses and palazzos. What Venetians meant, she said, is “We like …
Bumpass Hell. It sounds like a place to avoid like hell when you’re on vacation. But Bumpass Hell, the top hydrothermal feature in Northern California’s Lassen Volcanic National Park, is one of the “must-see” stops along the 30-mile-long main road through the park. Unfortunately, those headed to Lassen this summer this summer literally won’t be …
One of the great things about living (as I now do) in Eugene, Oregon are the nearby natural wonders: Mountains, lakes, rivers, streams, and the beaches and sand dunes at the shore of the Pacific Ocean. During the past year I’ve had an opportunity to explore some of the scenic places with an hour or …
Once or twice a year, a glossy catalog with a posh trip by air lands in my mailbox. The latest that caught my eye was about the National Geographic Expeditions new multi-day private jet excursion to Central and South America. You’ll be gone for twenty-two days, departing from and returning to Miami, making these stops …