It’s just become less invasive to buy a house than it is to book one on AirBnB. When I started using AirBnB, I was put off by their service fee structure, but otherwise liked the experience. We stayed in cliffside houses overlooking the sea, urban lofts, and jungle cabins. Because other websites ask for basic information, I didn’t mind that…
Why Albertans Are Better Americans Than Americans
Driving through Alberta triggered all sorts of thoughts and made me aware of how prejudiced I can be towards people who are different from me. But when you come from the USA, Christians, conservatives, and cowboys are often crazy. In Alberta, that’s just not the case. While more overtly conservative than Quebec and the maritimes, Alberta’s politics…
Hawaii: The Final Frontier
One of the great highlights of Hawaii’s Big Island is the Mauna Kea observatory complex. It’s located 14,000 feet up on what is the tallest mountain in the world when measured from the base of the sea floor. From our home base in Waimea, we drove only about an hour to the visitor’s center named after…
Maui Highlights
Although Maui was the most disappointing of the Hawaiian islands we visited, there were certainly some things to like. Here are our personal highlights.1. Snorkeling with vonu (sea turtle) that was as big as me, and she let me hang out with her. This was a SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE. Don’t put it past me to start…
Impressed with Canada’s Cowtown: Calgary, Alberta
General Impressions Beer Food Coffee General Impressions Alberta takes a lot of crap from Canadians. It’s the punch line of more jokes than no other province except for Newfoundland. But Calgary is the part of Alberta that can take it on the chin. It’s a confident city, has a good deal of swagger. The vibe…
Intermission
I have information to share from Calgary and the Canadian Rockies, to Portland, the Sunshine Coast, several trips to Bellingham, Amtrak, and more related to beer hunting, foodie grazing, hiking, and biking. We’re also going to Alaska next week, and Hawaii mid-September. There’s too much to do to worry about blogging, my spirit hasn’t been…
Rocky Road Trip Day 7: The Calgary Stampede
Last year on my birthday I was in Iceland and I found a pair of Mexican cowboy boots at a store in Reykjavik. The boots were handmade, with exquisite embroidery. Only one pair existed in the store, and when they fit me perfectly, I felt they were destined to be my shoes except for the…
Rocky Road Trip Day 6: The Royal Tyrrell Museum
Royal Tyrrell Museum’s paleontology gems Bad food with good vibes Foreign birthday beer They might make fun of their elitist tree-hugging counterparts on the coast of British Columbia, but Albertans aren’t anti-intellectual, anti-sustainability, or anti-government. It’s a kinder, softer version of the American heartland over here. They drive to their megachurches in pickup trucks, but still believe in…
Rocky Road Trip Day 5: Dinosaur Bones in the Badlands
Along with North Korea and the United States, only Canada allows the killing of the unborn. Canada protects endangered species like whales, but not human fetuses. That’s what the billboards told me today, in the Alberta prairies. I shuddered. It wasn’t the billboards, or the giant Christian mega-plex replete with preschool and movie theatre. There was…
Rocky Road Trip Day 4: Head Smashed-In Buffalo Jump
Today was divided into three parts: The drive through Fernie and through Crowsnest Pass Head Smashed-In Buffalo Jump UNESCO site Fort MacLeod First, the scenery unfolds continuously like a NatGeo film reel. Fernie area is especially fetching because the town sits in a tight basin surrounded by mountains. On one side of you are precipitous bald rock faces that slope…
Rocky Road Trip Day 3: The Long Bomb from Oliver to Kimberley
Every road trip has a long bomb: those days it’s better to keep on truckin’. Today was our long bomb. The drive from Oliver in the southern Okanagan to Kimberly in the Kootenay-Rockies takes seven hours, but it’s plenty scenic and there’s stuff to do and drink along the way. The south Okanagan is semi-arid shrub-steppe with sagebrush,…
Rocky Road Trip Day 2: Okanagan Wine and Cheese
Waking up in the Okanagan is really awful. That sense of peace that floods the brain can be unbearable. But I got over it, and managed to leave the house for a day of wine touring and picnicking. Uggggg. So on this ugly warm and pine-scented morning, we said hi to the Okanagan sun (which was…
Love and Barley 