Viajes de la Costa Chica

Incredible photo ops - without a camera!

2009-12-16T16:31:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, Ben and I spent Saturday through Monday in Palm Springs with some friends from Suncadia, Laurie and Brice Wilhite. We played at Indian Canyon on Saturday - nice, but a few sprinkles (what would you expect?). We played on Sunday at Hideaway - an exclusive, invitation only club where Laurie's dad belongs. It was lush and pampering, and god knows, if they'd known who we are, they probably wouldn't have let us on.

But the photo ops of the weekend came at the Celebrity Course at Indian Wells Country Club - a municipal club that costs only $35 to play if you live in Indian Wells, which we don't. We paid $121 each, which is a chunk of change, but worth every penny, mainly for the views. Of course, we didn't have a camera with us, so I can't share any pictures with you, and the website quite frankly doesn't begin to do the place justice.

Starting with the 13th hole, the views of the fairways back to the tee boxes are backed up by stunning, multi-layered mountain views, acres of wild and set flowers, and - in many cases - waterfalls and ponds. (Of course, there is a downside to those ponds, but you already know that.)

I had first heard of this course about four years ago when I sat on an Alaska flight next to Orrin Vincent, founder and owner of OB Sports, which managed the construction of the remodel of the two courses at Indian Wells and the spiffy new clubhouse (I can't believe the bathrooms in that place! The floors alone are worth framing!).

In our short flight to Seattle from Palm Springs, he tried to convince me that it would be worth the 16ish-mile drive down to Indian Wells to play the courses, which takes quite a bit of convincing, as Ben and I rarely drive more than five miles in any direction to play golf. I put it in the back of mind, but never had the impetus to go. After all, there are nearly 100 courses between our home and Indian Wells - why not stop at one of those?

Too bad, because we've missed some beautiful golf over the past four years since the courses re-opened. It's almost enough to make us consider moving down to Indian Wells for the $35 greens fees.

Well, let's not go that far.

But I am going to send Orrin a note. He was right. I was wrong.

Rain and golf

2009-11-30T15:41:00.000-08:00

A month ago, Ben and I went to Oahu to play golf, and I didn't write about it. That's because it was the kind of trip for which you should get a "do-over." As in: If you go to Hawaii for four days and it rains three of them, you should get a do-over. As in: You've just spent a week's worth of vacation time, hundreds of dollars on airfare, nearly a thousand on golf and thousands on hotel rooms, and it frickin' rains, you should get a do-over.

I was so depressed about it, I couldn't even write about it. So here's the Readers Digest version:
We played Ko Olina in the pouring rain, and it wasn't great. Highway on the left, houses on the right, nary an ocean view, and a few angry black swans. As any golf day does, it beat working. But given the effort it took to get there, nothing special. We played Turtle Bay - one day with rain on the Palmer Course; one day without rain on the Fazio Course. The Palmer Course was nice - and truthfully, it only rained part of the day. The view from the 17th was spectacular. But that bermuda grass took some getting used to...take an extra club 'cause it's like playing with velcro balls on velco fairways. The Fazio course had two nice ocean views, but otherwise wasn't much to look at.

Now, Hawaii needed the rain. I think it had been 6 months since they'd gotten any measurable rain on Oahu, so we didn't get much local sympathy. But, playing golf in the rain wasn't what we'd bargained for.

So, you see, it seems like we've discovered a pattern here: This past Thanksgiving weekend, Ben and I played in Palm Springs and it rained. It hadn't rained in the Coachella Valley since Feb. 16. That's NINE MONTHS! But, Ben and I show up and the clouds finally find their way over the mountains to pour on our golf game. Indians Canyons is a course where I usually shoot in the low 90s, but took all of 54 strokes to get through the front nine. The rain finally stopped for our back nine and I shot a 45, but the damage was done. "Rain quenches thirsty valley" was the headline in the Desert Sun the next day.

And, remember last summer when we went to supposedly dry Kamloops, BC, to play golf and it rained and rained?

So here's the deal: If you and your golf course need rain, call us. We'll bring our golf clubs, make a tee-time and I'll bet it'll rain. It'll cost you, but you'll get the rain you need. And Ben and I can quit our day jobs, which will make rainy golf a little less painful.

Long after we've returned

2009-07-20T15:50:00.000-07:00

We've been home for nearly a month now, and I've had some time to ruminate on our trip. It's particulary salient today, as the area between Kelowna and Kamloops where we were is up in flames. We noticed all the dead (pine beetle) trees along the way, and I guess we all know that eventually, these rusty-red forests are going to have to burn.

The one thing I learned about taking a golf trip to multiple courses in an area with a plethora of choices is this: Save one day for the golf course that you didn't know about, didn't choose or under-estimated. We booked five courses for the five days we could play before we left. But over and over again, people told us we should have played Talking Rock. It was close by and we could have done it, if we hadn't already booked our days full. Next time, we'll leave a free day to take in that course that's highly recommended by locals.

And the one thing I learned about the Kelowna area is that it is worthy of a wine trip alone. I can't imagine going up there and not golfing (there are at least five other courses besides Talking Rock that we didn't get to play but looked great), but next time, I'm going to leave a lot more time for wine tasting and vineyard visits.

And finally, I need to emphasize that the Canadians we met on this trip - at the bars, on the courses, at the airports, around town - were among the friendliest group of people I've ever been around. They don't just greet you in a friendly way and scurry about their business. They really love engaging in conversation and helping you get to know their region.

With that, I'll leave Kamloops, BC, behind us for now. If you ever decide to go up there, be sure to tell me how you find it.

Apart together

2009-06-25T19:39:00.000-07:00

Sun Peaks, BC - Everyone here tells us how nice the weather was – last month. Doesn’t do us a lot of good, but I guess it’s an apology of sorts. (Canadians are so nice.) “Sorry, we wouldn’t have invited you if we’d known it was going to turn out like this.”

Well, they didn’t exactly invite us, so it’s not really their fault. But today was pretty horrid. It never got above 50, and it rained most of the time. Occasionally, we’d see a sun break, but it was not enough to change the general trend – cold and wet.

So, Ben and I broke our golf date. Our first full day here at the Delta Hotel at Sun Peaks offered the first taste of our vacation of what a "full service" resort provides. A bar. TV. Spa. And laundry.

Yes, we severed the tie that’s kept us bound at the hips since we started this vacation. Ben went running this morning, and then did laundry, and I spent the afternoon at the spa. Togetherness is great, as long as it’s occasionally interrupted by a bit of separation. I think every successful marriage has come to that conclusion.

Wondering about the laundry? On vacation? I guess you'll have to check out Ben's blog to figure that one out. Oh. He doesn't have one.

Soggy Dunes

2009-06-25T09:30:00.000-07:00

The Dunes, Kamloops, BC – Every once in a while, you visit a place where you wish you could come back when the weather is better. That’s never more true than when you play golf on a great course in the rain.

Maybe the Dunes isn’t a capital-G-Great golf course, but it sure seemed like it could deliver a nice round on a warm, sunny day. A links style course with un-links-like well-bunkered greens, the gently rolling fairways were wide enough to encourage healthy swings with the driver, but narrow enough to keep you honest. The colorful wild fescue along the fairways gave it a Scottish links feel (okay, how would I know?), and the paucity of water holes kept lost balls to a minimum. In short, we liked it.

What we didn’t like was the slow play, especially when it began to rain on the 14^th hole. The course boasts that it “promotes a four-hour round,” but there was nary a marshall on the course to encourage the pokey foursome in front of us to move along. By the time we ended, there were four or five empty holes in front of them.

If we’d played at the “promoted” pace, we would have had one hole in the rain, not five. But the old coots in front of us turned it into a five-hour round, largely because they won’t admit that they are too old and frail to play from the regular men’s tees anymore. Not a one of them could drive more than 100 yards, and if one of them scored lower than 130, it had to be due to a very creative pencil.

The rain. Oh, the rain. It wasn’t the “shower” the weather websites predicted. It was what we in Seattle call “rain.” Steady, soaking, dripping-from-every-seam rain, the kind of rain that makes you want to keep the hood up on your parka, until you realize you can’t see the ball when you turn your shoulders. Good thing I had a hood for my clubs or I’d been pretty upset about getting my new club grips wet.

I guess the rain added to the Scottish atmosphere, and if we weren’t so tired of the old farts in front of us, we might have settled in for lunch at the clubhouse and stared at the soothing grayness. Instead, we packed up our wet clubs, shed our soaked shoes and headed up the hill for Sun Peaks, and tomorrow’s golf adventure.

Of all the courses we’ve played so far around Kamloops, the Dunes – in spite of the weather and the slow play – has been my favorite.

Ho-Hum Sun Rivers

2009-06-25T08:57:00.000-07:00

Kamloops, BC - Sometimes it’s not the golf course, it’s the golfer.

That was certainly the case on Tuesday, when Ben and I teed off at Sun Rivers, a golf course surrounded by housing developments on the rims outside of Kamloops. The course was fair enough, but my drives weren’t. We didn’t close the day with a terrible score, but it wasn’t what we should have had on a wimpy little 116 slope. Oh, well, there’s always tomorrow…at least when you’re on a golf vacation.

But while it wasn’t the cause of my lackluster round, Sun Rivers certainly doesn’t inspire great play. It was named one of Canada’s best new courses in 2003, but it’s hard to see why. Winding back and forth in hair-pin curves, the cart path defines 18 holes that are tiered up and down steep slopes lined with houses. Many holes offer a full view of Kamloops below – and there aren’t many folks who would say that’s a really special thing (See “Not our nicest town” blog from June 22), unless they really like power lines and industrial sprawl. The back nine was less house-bound than the front nine, but you never get the feeling that the houses are here because of the course, rather than the other way around. This was a course built with housing development in mind.

The course doesn’t give up its secrets easily. Several holes had blind tee shots (see photo above), and a couple of holes provided no view of the green from the middle of the fairway, either. The course book offered some clues to good placement, but that usually only helps the second or third time around a course. As a newcomer, it’s a crapshoot.

The only thing other than the touted “view” worth mentioning about Sun Rivers is the restaurant, where diners on the deck can watch putters and chippers on the practice green and offer cheers or jeers as appropriate. (We mainly cheered, not having proven ourselves much better in our round.) The food was tasty and inexpensive, and the waitress cheered us up after our mediocre round with her chipper attitude.

At least the weather held. We hope for the same tomorrow.

Canadian food

2009-06-23T17:35:00.000-07:00

Ben has been a man of a certain age for a couple of years, and with that comes all kinds of health worries - in particular, prostate cancer and all the health effects of high cholesterol. After some cajoling, he finally went to the doctor a week ago to get the appropriate tests. The results were amazing. Best of all, no signs of prostate cancer. But the cholesterol test was the zinger: For a guy who eats eggs, bacon, butter, cheese and steak, and thinks that those are the five food groups, his cholesterol was low. Not just low, amazingly low.

Therefore, when we ordered lunch at the clubhouse the other day and he ordered poutine and pogos, who was I to say it was bad for him? His massive intake of fatty foods apparently does him no harm.

I think one of Ben's favorite things so far about Canada is poutine. Pogos is probably second. Poutine is that uniquely Canadian combination of French fries and cheese curds covered with brown gravy. I have no idea where the dish originated, and no one I have asked seems to have the answer. It's like asking a citizen of the USA where meat and potatoes came from. They just are. I personally can't imagine eating poutine, but then, I don't have to.

Pogos are a Canadian brand of little corn dogs. Ben got six of them in his order. Pleasantly brown and greasy, they seemed all puffed up and happy sitting in a little family-like circle on his plate next to a dish of poutine. A happy meal for a guy who doesn't need to worry about his cholesterol.

All I can imagine is that Ben is much happier with Canadian food than he would be with, say, Russian food. I can't imagine him quite so happy about borscht and cabbage.

Today, as we were relaxing after our round of golf, he looked out over the wide Thompson River valley and proclaimed, "I like Canada." I think poutine has something to do with that.

The Greatest Mom and Daughter

2009-06-23T17:26:00.000-07:00

South Thompson Inn, Kamloops, BC -- This is truly a golf vacation. You can tell. We get up in the morning and have a breakfast that anticipates a full day on the golf course. We get dressed in our golf togs. We head off to hit some practice balls at the driving range. We play a round – four or five hours, depending on the venue and the fullness of the tee-sheet. We have lunch at the club house, looking out over the ninth or 18^th green, critiquing the approach shots, the bunker shots and the putts of the performers in front of us. We return to the hotel room and take a nap. We get up in time for a night cap and some discussion – about today’s golf game, of course – and then fall to sleep with dreams of doing it all over again.

Life should always be so simple.

And golf should always be as fun as it was yesterday. Compared with Tobiano, which beat us up and spit us out the day before, Rivershore Golf Course was a walk in the park. Laid out in the floodplain next to the South Thompson River, it was mostly flat, and mostly predictable. The slope was higher than Tobiano, but it didn’t feel like that. And, like most Robert Trent Jones courses, it was set up to be hard to par, but easy to bogie. And, after the sage-brush infested gullies of Tobiano, we were looking for something that gave us a change to bogie a few holes.

It turned out, I bogied the entire round, which for me is a fine score. Ben shot better than he did the day before, too. But what really made the round fun were the women we played with. Diana and her 71-year-old mother, Pat, who live just east of Kamloops, had won a round at Rivershore in a tournament in their local golf league championship. We called Pat "mom" all day, and she seemed fine with that. She tolerated Ben’s colorful language, and oohed and awed at our good shots. Meanwhile, she hit the ball predictably down the middle of the fairway – not far, but far enough to par a couple of the par 3s, and double bogie most of her way through the round: a respectable showing for a tiny woman with a couple fractured vertebrae.

Generally, we enjoy the people we are paired with at random. Only once did we get hooked up with a total jerk – one that was so notorious that the starter caught us at the turn to apologize for making us play with him. Most people are great, and either they play no better than we do, or they tolerate our duffs and shanks, probably remembering how they played after just a few years of weekend golf. Still, Pat and Diana were just the antedote we needed after our tough round at Tobiano. Wherever you are, mom and daughter, thanks for rescuing our golf vacation and giving us one of the most enjoyable days of golf we’ve had in – oh – at least a week.

"Not our nicest town"

2009-06-22T19:45:00.001-07:00

Kamloops, BC - Standing on the tee box on the 13^th hole at Tobiano on Sunday, we chatted with a couple of guys from Vancouver, who like us, were waiting for the backlog of golf foursomes to clear the teebox and the first landing area before teeing off. As usual, we exchanged “where are you froms” and talked about the golf games to come and those just past.

“Kamloops isn’t one of our best towns,” one of the men warned us, when we explained that we were staying in Kamloops and making it the central location for our five-day golf vacation. With that warning in mind, we drove into Kamloops after our round, a little leery about what we’d find.

I expected a boarded up downtown, like those we’ve become used to in mid-sized towns in the Midwest, where strip malls and WalMarts have replaced downtown shopping districts. But, to our surprise, downtown Kamloops was bustling. Partly, that was due to the Jehovah’s Witness convention that was just letting out of the downtown convention center as we were arriving. But, even without the extra folks dressed in their Sunday best wandering out of the big hall to their cars, the town was apparently more than surviving. We walked past several restaurants and shops on the main street, an old, historic hotel and a historical museum, all open on Sunday as a regular practice. We stopped at Kelly O’Bryan’s, a typical Irish pub and restaurant, for dinner, and the place was jammed.

After that nice surprise, we drove out of town, and Ben discovered his “Big Letdown.” Canada might be a nice place, but it’s also a place where beer costs $15 an eight-pack (yes, eight, not six) for Molson Canadia – a regular lager along the lines of Coors or Miller. Obviously, Ben couldn’t live here – at least not on his salary.

Gum-drop golf

2009-06-22T19:40:00.001-07:00

Kamloops, BC – As we think about the 20 years that we’ve been married, Ben and I believe that golf has helped us stay together. It’s a sport that men and women can compete equally – thanks to the “forward” tees – and one in which you don’t have to compete against each other, unless you want to. There’s plenty of challenge just competing against yourself and all those little demons in your head, not to mention the bunkers, water hazards, cliffs, bushes, trees and blind doglegs that course designers throw at you.

Sometimes, of course, golf can also test the marriage, and does so often. It’s not easy to watch someone nearly burst apart at the seams over a wicked slice or another lost ball or a chunked chip or a horrible putt. But, we have learned over the past six years that we’ve been playing this game, that our outbursts of anger and vitriol are just part of the game. I’ve learned to not let Ben’s string of f-words interfere with my composure, and he’s learned not to put his hand on my knee and try to comfort me when I’m pouting and pissed about the last hole…or holes.

Yesterday was that kind of day.

On the first golf day of our golf vacation in British Columbia, we woke early and drove west, past Kamloops, up into hills pitted with salt ponds where the mineral soups from the fractured rocks below seep up into low pots, turning the circular depressions snow white. After about 40 miles, we dipped back down to the river to Tobiano, Canada’s No. 1 new golf course in 2009, according to Golf Digest.

The course is something to see. The gum-drop shaped, sage-covered hills that line the wide river were dotted with patches of rich grass of fairways and greens, as if the tops of every other gum drop had been flattened and painted green. The new club house and restaurant provided floor to ceiling views of the river and the flattened gumdrops. We watched the U.S. Open while eating breakfast and gazed at the daunting landscape cum golf course.

Although the slope of the course – only 119 from the forward tees and 125 from Ben’s – didn’t indicate that it would be a tough course, the view from the clubhouse said differently. As we warmed up on the driving range, it was clear that wind was going to play a factor in the day’s game. And a few quick putts on the practice green also gave fair warning that the fast, rolling – dare I say rollercoaster – greens would be tricky.

We started our round with a decent par four, down wind. We had decent drives from the tee and decent lies on the fairway, and fairly routine second shots. But the tough approach and sloping green wrested a couple of extra strokes from each of us, and we ended up with triple and quadruple bogies. I will spare non-golfers the rest of the details of the round, but suffice it to say that long carries over deep, sage-brush lined gullies, and long shots into a steady 30 mph wind kept us struggling all day. We each lost far more than the usual number of balls, and Ben exercised more than his usual amount of f-word creativity. In the end, I was about 14 strokes long of where I should have been, and Ben ended up a good 7 strokes above his usual game. I suggested stopping at the club house for lunch, tempted by the smell of grilled burgers, but Ben would have nothing to do with it. “I want to get out of here and never come back as long as I live,” he said, leaving little room for doubt.

Tobiano might be the best golf course of 2008, but I don’t think it is the most fair. There is little room to bail when shots aren’t perfect, and no escapes for those who don’t want to challenge the gully gods. The wind, which seemed to blow straight down from the Cascades with nary a tree to slow it down, was constant and dreadful. It was one of those courses where you don’t leave saying, “I’m glad we played it even if we didn’t play well.” Frankly, we could have done without the pain.

But, that’s golf. Every course isn’t for everyone. Some folks need the challenge of target practice – hitting little golf balls onto tiny gum-drop hill landing spots and putting across greens with slope greater than Cherry Street in Seattle. But frankly, I’m out to play for fun, and Tobiano simply wasn’t fun.

Marking 20 years in ... Canada?

2009-06-22T19:35:00.000-07:00

South Thompson Inn, Kamloops, BC -- At the end of May, Ben and I passed the 20 year mark in our marriage, which may not seem like a lot to other folks, but if you were inside this marriage, you’d be really amazed. (Okay, I just wrote that for my husband. A bit of a tweak, you know.) Actually, there are members of my family who are amazed, I am sure, although they have the good graces not to mention it, often.

Truth be told, I can’t imagine what the past 20 years would have been like without him, but I guess that’s always true of any portion of our lives. We can’t imagine a different path or outcome, aside from engaging in fantasy, like some journalists-cum-novelists we know who have managed to not only rewrite their lives, but improve themselves immensely in the process.

So what does this have to do with travel? We were too busy at the end of May to take a proper vacation to celebrate this milestone, and instead, planned a trip to Kamloops, BC – yep, Canada – for the end of June, and here we are. It’s a bit like going to Grand Junction, Colorado, for a vacation. Looks like it, anyway. So it probably deserves an explanation.

Kamloops wasn’t our first choice, really. A couple of years ago, back when the market was flying high and we were flush with cash, we thought we’d take one of those super-fancy little-boat cruises around New Zealand and play all of the incredible coastal golf courses for two weeks, and maybe get in a hike or two. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and daily golf, all for just a tidy little $11,000 each.

But a market crash later, we’d scaled down our plans to a trip to Bandon, Oregon, for a week of golf on the area’s famed links. Then, a recession-led pay cut later, and we scaled down again, finding that we could play the No. 1 new course in Canada for 2008, and four other courses, and stay in the nicest places in the region if we went the same distance from our Seattle home – but north and east instead of south and west. And it would cost us half as much as Bandon, and about one-eighth of our fantasy New Zealand cruise. So, here we are in Kamloops, BC., a place a golfer we met today called, “not one of our nicest towns in Canada.” We’ll see when we take a trip into town later.

We flew to Kelowna, and after some self-inflicted hassles trying to get the rental car (you have to use the right key for the right car, dummies), we drove north out of town, remarking how the territory looked like parts of Colorado. We pulled off the freeway just past the town of Lake Country, and followed typical wine-country roads that wound around vineyards and then plunged in big hairpin curves down to Lake Okanagan. We had lunch at Gray Monk Winery with a spectacular view.

After lunch, we sampled the winery’s pinot and gamay noir at the complementary tasting, settling on a bottle of the gamay. We asked the cashier if we could buy the wine in Seattle, and she wrote down the name and phone number of the distributor in Seattle for us, so we can find it at home if we still like it enough to pay $20 for a bottle later.

We chugged our way about half-way back up to the highway (we’re driving a Chevy Cobalt, you see) and stopped at the Arrowleaf Winery, where preparations were under way for a wedding on the winery grounds that evening. Ben suggested moving along without the tasting, once he found out it cost $2 a person, but I convinced him it wasn’t REAL money (just Canadian), and it was the only other winery we would visit that day, out of about four dozen in the area. So, we paid our fee and sampled some more pinot and blends, and agreed on a zweigelt, an Austrian red. My previous experience with Austrian wines has been limited to gruner veltliner, so it was nice to discover a new dry red wine to add to our options.

We then drove through country that changed from thick pine forests to craggy, folded hills covered sagebrush and jack pines that evoke the western-most counties of Colorado and the dry steppes of central Montana. Diving down to the Thompson River, we passed ranches and horse farms until we spotted our hotel across the river on the left. We arrived at the gate of the South Thompson Guest Ranch, wondering if we’d made the right choice. The equestrian center bespoke the “horsey set,” which neither of us can identify with, and the sprawling inn was swarming with wedding guests who filled the rooms and porches in anticipation of two weddings that were taking place here that night.

We took to our room, a pleasant wood-floored, wainscotted room with a full view of the river and surrounding hills, and sets of wicker chairs on the balcony. Horses and paddocks behind us and only the flowing river in front of us, we forgot about the horsey set and the weddings and settled in for a comfortable night.

Tomorrow, we start our golf adventure with Tobiano, the No. 1 new golf course in Canada in 2008, a little worried about the weather. We’ll see what happens.

Why I don't fly so much anymore

2009-05-13T13:16:00.000-07:00

For years, I was the most frequent leisure traveler of nearly anyone I knew who also worked for a living. So, what’s going on? Why am I not updating this blog very often? Have I been grounded?

I started this travel blog right before I quit traveling. I didn’t quit entirely – but certainly I cut down on the number of vacation and leisure trips that used to dot my calendar like bumps on seersucker. Why? I went back to work, which entails a fair amount of business travel, which I don’t like to write about. And we bought a house in the mountains 80 miles away from Seattle. That limits both my opportunity and appetite for getting on a plane and flying away for fun.

Lately, I’ve been thinking I’ve been limiting myself too much. I haven’t been to South America in four years. Ben and I never go to Hawaii anymore; if we want to go someplace warm, it’s too easy to slip down to Palm Springs where we already have clothes, golf clubs, bikes – everything we need. No luggage required.

But as I say, I recently started to wonder if this is healthy. I came across a travel diary my friend Janet gave to me four or five years ago. Empty. On a desk, I uncovered a beginner’s guide to Slovak – evidence of a once-planned-then-cancelled trip to the mountains of Slovakia and the beer gardens of the Czech Republic. Janet has been e-mailing me lately about fantasies of a quick trip to Zuleta in Ecuador. Ben and I picked up brochures about golf and wine tasting around Mendoza, Argentina. It’s starting to get to me…I need some air under my feet and some serious non-American cultural immersion.

Well, until the past weekend, anyway. Two consecutive maintenance-caused flight cancellations with Alaska Airlines reminded me how little fun it is to get on an airplane anymore. A flight that should have taken 2 and a half hours - at the most - turned into a 22-hour ordeal – just trying to get home from Southern California. The sleep deprivation lasted for days, and I lost my nice $300 Sennsheiser head phones along the way. And wasn’t it just the last flight from Phoenix when the airline lost my golf clubs, which were checked alongside Ben’s, which arrived fine?

It’s as if the airlines are trying to drive away traffic. And, I can’t imagine I’m alone feeling this way. When this flight-hassle fatigue is combined with the coming “depression-syndrome” ethic of non-consumption on the part of consumers, I can’t help but think the heyday of air travel in the U.S. is over. Airlines that want to stay in business pay attention to preventative maintenance (get those planes healthy!), customer service and responsiveness (please tell me why my flight is delayed four hours?), creature comforts (is it really the swine flu that mandated the removal of pillows or penny-pinching?), and convenience (don’t make me drag my checked bag across the airport for loading. Don’t you have conveyer belts?) . But I don’t see that happening.

The TSA’s arbitrariness and rudeness seems to have lessened lately. But undoing that negative isn’t going to be enough when obliterated by increasingly budget-minded airline stinginess that leads to more discomfort and more and more delays.

Thank goodness Ben and I decided to drive to Canada for our big golf trip this summer instead of flying. We may actually get there on time. And we may actually have our clubs when we arrive.

Winter wondering

2009-01-05T16:27:00.000-08:00

With the economic "uncertainty" around us - I put that in quote marks, because I wonder what's so uncertain: the economy is certainly horrid - Ben and I have often wondered if we were incredibly foolish to have purchased a two-bedroom bungalow in the mountains of Central Washington this year. Granted, by the time the place was constructed, it was really too late to change our minds, as we had sunk the down-payment and stood to lose it all if we backed out. But, still, it has seemed to hover on the edge of reason at times.

I wonder if we'll end up going up in financial flames because of the investment. But, the past 11 days of solitude, sewing, snowshoeing with Carly and sitting by the fire with a good book helped put the risk in perspective. It was simply wonderful. I'd do it all over again.

Suncadia, the development near Roslyn where our duplex unit sits (under about 10 feet of snow right now), is probably in more financial trouble than we are, but it, too, will stand the test of time, I believe. Let's get Obama into office, get some fiscal stimulus going (enough of the tax breaks as be-all-and-end-all, please) and I think Suncadia will get a chance to blossom and fill out in time. But right now, there are about as many port-a-potties in our little neighborhood as there are houses, as the construction of new units and completion of half-built units have hit a deep freeze - and not just because of the weather. Still, it's a nice place: trees, paths, creeks, a pleasant golf course and a half (the other half also stalled for the lack of economic certainty), a big lodge, a tiny inn and a fitness center with a pool and water slides that keep the youngsters at bay.

It snowed nearly constantly, and Carly and I went out to snowshoe nearly every day. We broke trail occassionally, but given the depth of the snow, we ended up spending most of our time on the groomed trails cut for skiers and snowshoers. The trails were lightly used and we spent most of our time out in the deep snow and deep woods all alone, just a bouncing, happy dog and her heavy-footed mistress who wondered - with Oprah - how did I let myself get this big again?

It was far more exercise than I'm used to, but I didn't lose any weight because I got to exercise another passion of mine: cooking. And, no health food for us! I made pot roast, prime rib and carnitas. I started the day with biscuits and sausage, or eggs benedict with homemade hollandaise sauce. Ben didn't complain, although at one point he asked if I might be trying to kill him by loading up his arteries. After cooking for the past year in a kitchen the size of a small closet, the charm of the big, eat-in kitchen overwhelmed my nutritional better judgement, and with Carly at my side to catch any stray food particles that plopped toward the floor, I indulged.

(Now, of course, I'm on my new New Year's diet, the seventh or eighth in a row ... we'll see where that takes me.)

From that cholesterol-endangered husband, I received two books for Christmas - a book of essays on pre-Inca Peruvian cultures and another I had put on my Amazon.com wish list: Nothing to be Frightened Of by Julian Barnes. It was a wonderful read - like sitting around talking with a good friend, although none of my friends likes to talk about dealth. I recommend it for all atheists; believers could probably learn something from it, but most won't find reason enough to crack it open.

And sewing: I probably spent more time sewing than anything, making book bags and wine bags and finishing a quilt I've been making for my niece for the past two years. With KPLU on the radio, Carly underfoot and a fresh pot of coffee to sip on all day, I'd say I was about as happy as I've been for an extended period of time as I can ever remember.

I hope all of you had some time to relax over the holiday, too. And, someday, you'll have to come up and visit Ben, Carly and me in Suncadia. I promise I'll put away my sewing long enough to make room for the Murphy bed, and I won't poison you with too much cholesterol. I'm over it.

Wine country

2008-11-24T11:11:00.000-08:00

Yakima Valley and Rattlesnake Hills
November 23, 2008

The first time I visited the Rattlesnake Hills wineries, I did it on a bicycle with my friend Keri Robinson. We had planned our trip with the aid of a guide to Eastern Washington wineries and a map.

Maps are flat. Rattlesnake Hills should have been a clue that this small AVA in Eastern Washington is not. Duh.

It was a tough ride over big hills, but it was made managable - even enjoyable - by the consumption of small amounts of wine at each of the nine wineries we visited, the excellent weather and the friendly owner of the Hyatt Wineries who stopped to help us with some mechanical issues. He couldn't help with the bike, but it was the thought that counted - and the apples he gave us from his orchard.

Yesterday, I visited Rattlesnake Hills again, and this time, the hills were not an issue. My friend Kristine Kurey and I visited via the Explorer, stopping by the Wineglass Winery on the way back from a visit to several tasting rooms in Prosser.

More on the Wineglass in a moment...

We made the trip to Prosser from Suncadia, where Ben and I bought a duplex last summer. The boys were watching football, so we decided to make the most of a sunny but chilly Sunday afternoon and drive down to the Yakima Valley to restock our wine racks. (Neither of us is so much a connoisseur that we have "cellars" - just racks.)

We drove directly to the Olsen Winery tasting room right off the frontage road on I-90, looking for some of the Rouge de Coteaux that we had tasted last summer at the wine tasting event at the SAM Scuplture Garden in Seattle. It was my favorite wine of the tasting - rich, dark, dry and spicy. My memory of it was piqued on Saturday night at the Lodge at Suncadia. We had stopped in to share a bottle of wine in the 56 Degree Lounge (the temperature at which you are supposed to keep red wine, they inform me), and the Olsen Rouge was offered at $110. Yowie! I figured we could get it cheaper at the winery's tasting room.

I was wrong. Yes, it would have been cheaper - $33, in fact - but they had sold out. Argggh! Still, it was a commodious and pleasant tasting room, and I bought a couple of bottles of the Olsen Syrah, and we headed next door to Willow Crest.

Willow Crest has always been one of my favorite stops in the wine country because of its focus on Rhone-style wines. They make the one of the closest blends to a Chateauneuf du Pape in all of Washington (in all of the West Coast, maybe?) -- a wine they call XIII. WC's current 2005 vintage of Grenache, Mourvedre, Syrah and Viognier rivals the higher-priced Cuvee Elena from Syncline to the south, but the substitution of Viognier for Cinsault produces a slightly brighter and fruit-forward version to this dark tradition. I'll have to admit that I think the Syncline version wins my vote - perhaps due to its more traditional blend - but $28 versus $35 makes the WC a winning option.

To add to the disappointment of not finding the Rouge at Olsen, WC was sold out of the Cab Franc and the Grenache, but I loaded up on a few bottles, including the half-bottles of spicy mouvedre (perfect for a solo dinner), the pinot gris and Collina Bella. Kristine opted for a similar collection, but added some Rockin' Red, which is a cab-merlot blend. Obviously Kristine is one of the millions of people who, unlike me, doesn't taste ear wax in merlot. In fact, I don't know anyone who agrees with me, and most folks adamantly maintain they have no idea what ear wax tastes like, but I know what ear wax tastes like - and I taste it in all merlot blends - even those that are seemingly overpowered by cabernet.

From Willow Crest, we moved next door to Thurston Wolfe, which in my book is famous for its PGV - pinot gris/viognier. We added nearly a case a piece to our collection, including the fabulous Lemberger Rose - very dry in the way that vintners often promise, but rarely deliver. We stopped briefly at Apex - a nice cab and syrah were my choices. I like Apex, but rarely find anything that surprises or delights - particularly price points that delight. Another quick stop next door at Florentino had me considering the rich malbec, but it's hard to justify a $38 malbec, when so many great Mendoza malbecs are available at QFC for less than $10. Yeah, I know ... "support your local wineries" ... and I do! I just want them to give me something that is so special or unusual that I don't mind spending three or four times my usual per-bottle budget to bring it home. Or charge a price that's a bit above my usual bottle budget, and I'll justify the additional cost by chalking it up to supporting our state's most compelling industry.

By now, you might have noticed that I said "next door" a few times in the preceding paragraphs. That's a clue: Prosser offers a great quick wine-tasting trip thanks to the Wine Village that's developed right there on the north edge of town, off the first Prosser exit as you come into town on I-5 from Seattle (or Suncadia). And, at the next exit, you've got the beautiful tasting room, shop and bistro at Desert Wind, and the rather industrial strip-mall tasting rooms of the likes of Alexandra-Nicole and Kestrel (among others). All told, you can quickly taste a variety of Yakima Valley vintages, chat with the friendly owners and staff, and get back on the road - even if you only have a couple of hours to spare. You miss the pleasure of winding down country roads through the vineyards, which you get to do in Rattlesnake Hills and all of Washington's AVAs, for that matter. But, when time is short, Prosser's tasting rooms are a great alternative.

Not only that, but the folks are friendly and never condescending. You don't have to be a wine expert and you don't have to pretend to like anything. As my friend Kristine observed, all of the tasting staff we met freely complimented their competitors, and suggested other wineries to visit in the area. Which is why we decided to stop by Wineglass; at least three folks mentioned Wineglass as we were tasting wines, so we decided it would be worth a quick detour off the highway on our way home.

But first, on the way out of Prosser, we stopped at one of several wine shops in town and found two bottles of Olsen's Rouge de Coteaux at $38. Not the $33 we had hoped for, but affordable.

Up on Bonair Road, north of Zillah, we pulled into the casual and rather industrial tasting room of Wineglass Cellars, and immediately launched into a discussion about dogs with another pair of customers - always a good sign. Their springer spaniel was waiting patiently outside in the convertible while we talked about him and the dozens of other dogs in our lives and began tasting Wineglass's retinue of cab, syrah, merlot and zinfandel.

Vintner David Lowe turned out to be the charmer of the day - and what we had intended to be a five-minute stop turned into a half-hour (and could have been much longer), as we discussed everything from how hard we all wanted to work in a day to soup recipes to whether merlot tastes like ear wax and whether it should be used to "throw back the earthiness of syrah," as was David's opinion. The award winning wines and the discount on the cab tempted us, but it was David's winning personality that probably sealed the deals. We added to our stash, and headed back up the mountain to show the boys our gatherings.

Perfection

2007-12-11T18:52:00.001-08:00

Sitting on the porch of our cabin, facing the ocean, we ate breakfast and sipped mimosas while the chickens ran toward us, hoping for handouts. The hens and roosters milled around the flower beds surrounding the porch, pecking at insects or other spots they suspected might be food. The bravest, a black hen, came up on the porch, the better to catch crumbs that might fall on the deck.

Ben looked at me slyly, and turned to the fine-feathered rooster below him and said, “Cock!” He looked back at me impishly. “Cock!” he said again, more confidently. “And Carly” our female shepherd “is a bitch!” he added, chuckling.

“Oh, we’re 13 years old again,” I remarked, unable to keep from laughing. For a man who bellows four-letter words on the golf course, often using the same f-word as a noun, verb, adjective and adverb in the same sentence, he seemed to delight in the naughtiness of a couple of common nouns.

I could see pure joy in his face. He and I were having a perfect morning. I rose early and walked into town to find croissants for lunch sandwiches and a latte to drink on the beach. I returned to our cabin on the ocean at the Waimea Plantation Cottages on the west side of Kauai, and watched the sun rise over the morning clouds and the waves break on the red-sand beach. I sat out by the beach on an Adirondack chair with a book, a study in the anthropology of religion, and found it delightfully interesting, even though it had been close to incomprehensible in my exhaustion of the night before.

Ben returned from his morning run, waxing enthusiastically about his discovery of a pedestrian suspension bridge over the river and how the river ran down to the ocean to our beach, providing a perfect running path. Out on the porch, we opened a bottle of champagne and a carton of orange juice, broke open a package of blueberry muffins and shared a banana.

We were about as happy as two grouchy middle-aged, over-educated people – especially two as different as we are – can be together. For the moment at least.

Readers of this blog may often wonder “where’s the enjoyment?” Why do I travel so much and find so little joy in it? Why do I rent a $700 a night ocean-front room at the Grand Hyatt Kauai, and complain about the noise, the costs, the food, the kids, the loud adults, the leaf-blowing machines? Why not stay home?

The truth is, I am a perfectionist. I’m not perfect, I just want to be. And I want everyone and everything else to be, too. And if something isn’t perfect, then the whole kit and kaboodle can go to hell. Well, almost. Fact is, I can have a great time on a sunny day on the golf course in spite of my horrific score. I can enjoy a day at the pool with a few clouds. I can enjoy a meal at a nice restaurant even if the wine is overpriced.

But, paying $700 a night for a room at the Hyatt doesn’t ensure happiness. Indeed, it just buys you the opportunity to spend more money on overpriced services. A massage that costs $200, a buffet breakfast for $30 per person, a 2-ounce mimosa for $9. And, it doesn’t assure peace. We are surrounded by noise: noisy kids splashing around in the ostensibly adult pool; parents arguing with their children below our lanai at 6 a.m.; leaf-blowers replacing brooms on the pathways between our room and breakfast. The room loses its luxury patina once it is strewn with wet swimming trunks, wet golf clubs, dirty clothes, towels, extra pillows (does anyone really need eight pillows on the bed?) and half-consumed bottles of wine and cans of beer. We’re not really slobs, but we’re trying to live our lives in 350 square feet of space for five days.

But, a place like Waimea Plantation Cottages – with its ocean setting, its quiet (unsafe for swimming) black beach, its beautiful and tranquil grounds and roomy period cottages – harbors the potential for joy. Joy and peace.

So, here is the joy in traveling: finding a place that’s just perfect. Or perfect enough.

Vacations with Ben

2007-12-09T19:51:00.000-08:00

Sometimes vacations with Ben seem like a long string of meals. Go for a walk, but be back in time for breakfast. Lie by the pool until it’s time for lunch. Take a nap, walk on the beach, pass the time until we dress for dinner.

Ben likes his vacations simple. They are the vacations of a working urbanite who puts in long hours, leaving for the office before daylight and returning home after sunset. They don’t strain the imagination; they don’t demand heightened senses of awareness in strange surroundings. They are filled with golf, swimming pools and dining rooms. They are perfect for a man who has plenty of excitement at work: deadlines, breaking news stories, difficult sources, complaining readers.

It took me a long time to get used to this kind of vacationing. My family didn’t do vacations much, and certainly not vacations in high-end hotels with fancy restaurants and more than one pool. I remember two or three vacations as a kid: a camping trip to Wisconsin, about six hours away from our Iowa home; one to the Lake of the Ozarks, to a cabin on the lake with the sound of waves breaking outside the windows, a sound that kept me awake all night. I think there might have been another one, but I’m not sure it wasn’t the same as the Ozarks trip.

Ben’s family didn’t go to expensive hotels, either, but he does remember the anticipation of driving into the parking lot of Howard Johnsons or Holiday Inns on family vacations, the anticipation of a hotel pool and vending machines. He remembers driving to the family cabin in Northern Wisconsin and spending hours in a fishing boat on the lake, relaxing, far from the hectic world of the Chicago advertising agencies where his father worked. I understand why his father wanted peace and quiet, and why Ben does too. (And then, there was his mother, whom I invited to go on a cruise to Alaska with me shortly after his father died. “Why would I want to go somewhere I haven’t been before?” she asked, absolutely seriously.)

I’ve learned to accept these laid back vacations – even enjoy them – because they aren’t the only vacations I take. My own sense of the perfect vacation has no origin I can put a finger on: it probably was the simple result of wanting to get out of a small town in Iowa, and go as far away as humanly possible. I travel with my friends to places that Ben wouldn’t find relaxing: Mexico, Peru, Guatemala, Ecuador, Bolivia. They are full of suspense and surprise. Occasionally, they require cunning: we get ourselves into a fix and have to put our wits together to get out of it.

When Janet, my favorite traveling companion, and I travel together, mealtimes are often unwelcome necessities. We put them off as long as possible. The food is usually poor and bland, and I don’t have enough fingers to count the times I have come home with campylobacter or salmonella poisoning from eating abroad. Janet comes home with respiratory distress; I come home with intestinal parasites.

This is not to say that I don’t like to eat when I’m on vacation with Ben. I eat way too much. I love food. I weigh at least 20 pounds more than I should because of it. But, sometimes, after a week on vacation with my husband, I start to dread mealtimes. I’m not hungry. Still, I can’t skip them, because they are the only excitement of the day – the only moments of discovery and sensory stimulation.

Yesterday was such a day. Today was too. The difference between the two is that the sun finally came out today, and finally, Hawaii looked like the Hawaii of postcards. We lay by the pool, ordering beers and screwdrivers, slipping into the water whenever we got too warm. We read. We talked a little. At some point, we agreed it was time for lunch. Now, I am reading and writing while Ben takes a nap.

Tonight, we will have dinner at Dardano’s a restaurant in the Grand Hyatt Kauai, where we are staying, and it will be excellent. I will fall asleep shortly after dinner, comatose with the carbohydrates of pasta and wine. Somewhere in the middle of the night, I will wake up, thanks to the red wine, and take a couple of Advils to go back to sleep.

Later this week, I will return to Seattle tan and rested, and Ben, I hope, will too.

Rain, limitless rain

2007-12-08T15:39:00.000-08:00

Poipu Bay, Kauai

Yesterday, standing over my ball on the 16th tee at Poipu Bay, I pulled my driver back and felt the wind whipping the club head back and forth.

“Quit it!” I yelled to whoever was in charge of the wind. “Just quit it!” I have trouble enough hitting the ball square anyway, I certainly didn’t need the extra challenge of squaring up a wobbly club head.

By this point, I should have realized it didn’t really matter. Only Tiger Woods can score well playing in the conditions we faced. There wasn’t one pleasant moment. Under heavy gray clouds all day, our conditions varied from driving downpours that came at us horizontally, to lazy downpours that felt a like a heavy-duty rain shower in a bathroom, to wind gusts that made it difficult to stand still. The rain poured off the bill of my Ben Miller Invitational Golf Tournament hat, and after the first hole, there was no chance of keeping the club grips dry. My Goretex rain pants totally failed, and my Goretex coat was as wet inside as it was outside. I got diaper rash on my butt from sitting in the puddle that formed on the golf cart seat.

We have always come to Hawaii in November or December. That’s when Ben’s vacation time seems to finally build up to the point he can take a week off. And, right before Christmas, the resorts and roads are at their quietest, anticipating the holiday onslaught of tourists with kids. One year, our vacation started before Christmas and included Christmas eve and day. The first few days of the trip were pleasant and quiet, but then the children came, invading the pools and restaurants, and our trip went to hell.
Now, we plan to get here and home before the holidays, ensuring ourselves a little peace.

However, after this trip, we may reconsider our December choice. Since we got here, it’s been rainy, windy and gray. We have this weather at home; we don’t have to fly six and a half hours to see rain.

But stuck here now, we’re trying to make the best of it. We arrived on Wednesday night, and teed off at Poipu Bay at 10:00 on Thursday. The day was blustery, and we had a few sprinkles. But we had rain coats and it wasn’t bad … until the 18th hole. Then, the deluge started – the one that hasn’t stopped since – and we were miserably soaked by the time we finished the par 5. Ben and I both got a 9 on the hole, we’re not great golfers under adversity.

Actually, we’re not great golfers under any conditions. But, we’re trying, and we’ve lately devoted all of our joint vacations to finding beautiful places to swing clubs, drink a little beer, drive the cart, and, in Ben’s case, swear a bit. We’ve played in Puerto Rico, California, on the Big Island, here on Kauai, in Couer d’Alene and all over Washington. It’s a great way for a couple – especially one that seems to have few other hobbies in common – to spend time together and play.

One time in Couer d’Alene, we faced similar conditions – driving rain and fierce winds – but because it was also about 50 degrees out, I was able to convince Ben to stop playing after nine holes. Yesterday, as we tackled the coursse for the second day, Ben insisted we continue. It might be raining, but it’s a warm rain.

So, down the fairways we went yesterday, and down went our games. It rained so hard that by the time we were on the 15th hole, we decided the casual water rule pretty much covered the entire golf course, and if we didn’t like our lie, we could move the ball to a drier one (if one could be found). It didn’t help our scores much, but it relieved us from having to try to hit balls out of mud puddles.

By the time we reached the clubhouse, there wasn’t one dry spot on us or our clubs. We ran to the car, threw our wet gear and clubs in the trunk and rushed to the hotel for a shower. I brought my clubs into the room, so I could dry them off later, and stripped off my soaked clothes. It seems paradoxical that a shower can feel good after getting soaked in an 18-hole downpour, but it did. After a room service lunch, a glass of wine and a nap, I felt whole again.

Today, we rose to more gray skies, and the heavy rain showers continue. We aren’t playing golf in it, though, so we’ve had a chance to just sit back and marvel and the amount of water that can fall from the sky. I had a massage, and the rain came down so hard, the masseuse had to close the windows of the massage room. (The massage, by the way, was terrific, though very pricey at about $200 after tip.) We snuck over to the golf pro shop to take advantage of the 35%-off sale (off of everything, not just “selected merchandise”), and managed to get there and back between deluges.

Now, Ben is watching Wisconsin play basketball on the room TV. I’m sitting out on the deck of our room, which faces the ocean, and watching the seemingly limitless rainfall. It makes me homesick for our weather in Seattle, and that’s saying something.

Wintery Winter Park

2007-12-03T18:59:00.001-08:00

Winter Park, December 3, 2007

I have spent three days in Janet’s house, and I have to wonder: How do these walls stay up with all the stuff she has hung on them? I’ve told Janet this before, so she won’t be insulted.

I really love her little condo – actually not so much the condo itself, but the decor. It wouldn’t be my choice of a place to live, but she’s got the decorating sense of a quilter, which she is. She puts together textures and colors – also cultures and locales – in the random, eclectic way a quilter combines fabrics of different textures and designs. The only thing that restricts the combinations is the fit – and even that is negotiable. The effect is the colorful and fun of barely controlled chaos.

What I’m really jealous of is her loft, which she has devoted to her quilting projects. It’s an entire room that doesn’t have to accommodate any other uses or humans. What luxury!

When I arrived on Friday afternoon, we had a celebratory glass of wine – a nice Rhone blend, and then took off for lunch at Fontenot’s, a Cajun restaurant, for gumbo (for me) and fish and chips (for her). The gumbo was decent, but nothing to write home about. Then, we visited the wine tasting room of a friend of hers, where Janet left some wine-themed throw pillows that she hopes to sell at the tasting room. I liked them so much I bought three myself.

Since we planned to go to the spa the next day, and I had left home without thinking to buy a bathing suit, we checked at BJammin’ – a sportswear shop that specializes in beach and ski wear. Maybe the word “specializes” doesn’t make any sense in that context. But, in any case, I found a suit that fit, and quickly concluded that no one – no one but Paris Hilton, perhaps – should try on a swim suit in the middle of winter, when pasty-white cellulite looks its worst. Yuck! A little suntan on those upper thighs would help some – maybe not a lot, but some!

We returned home, opened a bottle of wine to celebrate my new job (I’m starting a new one Dec. 17) and watched Sea of Love on cable. We’re such wild and crazy girls!

Snowshoeing up Elk Creek the next day was spectacular. We got about 6 inches of perfect powder Friday night, and I was thankful I’d rented an SUV for the trip. We made fresh tracks with the Highlander back to the trailhead, and from there, created sloppier first tracks with our snowshoes.

The tree branches and the trail were decorated with fluffy caps of fresh snow. It was clear, sunny and – hey! What happened to the oxygen around here!? I quickly realized that I had come from sea level to about 9900 feet above sea level in two days, and I had some serious oxygen deprivation. But, Janet was patient, I got over my embarrassment of huffing like a life-long smoker, and we made our destination and turned around. Coming back was more of a downhill slope and I began to feel a little more competent. It had been a long time since I snowshoed, but I quickly rediscovered it truly is just like walking. Funny walking, but walking.

We had dinner at a nice restaurant, Untamed Grill, with a bottle of wine (a malbec). I would recommend it if you’re really hungry and don’t mind spending at least $25 a person. I had great prime rib and Janet had a tasty, but perhaps too complicated, dish of beef medallions on couscous cakes with brie and a fine, tasty sauce. We both voted for the prime rib, and split our dishes. No dessert necessary.

On Sunday, I pulled my back trying to help Sam – her ancient, sweet black lab – up on the bed, after he faltered about half-on, half-off. I spent the rest of the day on the couch, leaning against hot pads and ice packs and watching the NFL. Not a great way to spend a nice sunny day in Winter Park. I always seem to hurt myself – or at least something related to my spine – when I visit Janet. We had dinner at Mama Falzitto’s, an Italian place that I highly recommend. Lots of food for the money, and the cobbler dessert was wonderful.

I returned to Seattle on Monday. Alaska boarded the flight early, in anticipation of trying to beat some of the bad weather in Seattle, but then we sat on the tarmac for an hour in Denver while the mechanics dealt with some mechanical issues. The flight was very bumby coming into Seattle, thanks to the Pineapple Express – the flow of Hawaii winter storms, which bring warm weather and monsoons to the Northwest every December.

I nearly got frostbite Monday morning, as I scraped ice off my windows. I had forgotten how cold temperatures below zero feel.

All in all, it was a great trip, most notably for getting to see Gina, Jenny and Janet. I’m very lucky to have such great friends and nieces.

Colorado Visiting

2007-12-02T14:19:00.000-08:00

Winter Park, CO, November 29-December 1

I lived in Denver for more than 10 years. Ben and I moved there back in 1990, when I was thinking it would be my last hometown. White peaks on the horizon beckoned us to ski and snowboard in the winter. Purple peaks on the horizon called us to hike and backpack. The Broncos, Avalanche, Nuggets and Rockies kept Ben entertained. Technology, computer storage and dot-com companies gave us an Internet boom rush in the late 90s.

We lived in the Washington Park neighborhood, and we knew our neighbors well. We sat on our front porch with the dogs in the evening, drinking beer and watching the parade of people drawn to the Old South Gaylord shopping district's bars and restaurants. I worked at home for the first five years, then drove south on I-25 to the Tech Center for three years to work at a mining company and northwest to downtown to work at a public relations firm for a couple more.

But at some point, I got itchy feet. I have attachment issues that I blame on my long stint in an incubator after my pre-mature birth. I can’t stay anywhere very long. I don’t make many close friends, and those that I do make, I keep at a safe distance. So, after 10 years in one place, I started to feel like I’d been there long enough. I thought I recognized every face I saw on the 16th Street Mall. I grew tired of our house. The local authorities refused to let us build an addition on the back that would have preserved the garden landscaping we had installed on the south side of the house and would have preserved our north-side neighbor’s sun. I’ll never understand their objectives; they were actually encouraging pop-tops with their rules.

A job offer in Seattle was my ticket out. I’ll probably never move back.

But visiting is something else. Thanks mainly to the great friends I still have in Colorado, I usually have a fine time here, and usually don’t have time to see everyone I want to see or do everything I want to do.

When I arrived last Wednesday afternoon to a frozen city with an icy frosting of left-over snow, I drove straight to Argonaut Liquors on Colfax to stock up on wine offerings to pass out over the week. I remembered the store for having a big wine selection, and it still does.

At the cozy house of my friend Gina, we relaxed and shared some wine before heading out in the cold to dinner at Panzano Restaurant on 17th St. in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. I remembered it for its good pizza, but I decided to try the lasagna. Bad choice. A layer of dry, crumbly ground beef on the bottom was topped by some sticky layers of lasagna noodles, which was smothered with a grossly sweet marinara sauce. There was no cheese. Lasagna without ricotta or mozzarella or parmesan cheese! This was the laziest and poorest presentation of one of my favorite dishes I’ve ever had. Thankfully, the plate of big, fat, buttery breadsticks sated my hunger so I wasn’t totally disappointed.

On Thursday morning, Gina and I ran some errands – I had to send a FedEx package, she needed to pick up some rocks for her new landscaping, and we picked up eight of her dress jackets, which she had altered at the tailor’s shop. I bought some presents and a clock for our Palm Springs house at a great gardening store called Birdsall’s, where Gina once tested her patience for retail work.

We ate Mexican food at a restaurant along South Broadway. I ordered in Spanish, always looking for a chance to practice. However, the waitress was apparently embarrassed that she didn’t speak Spanish, so she didn’t bother to tell me. Therefore, although I ordered chile verde with flour tortillas, I received chile rellenos with corn tortillas. It wasn’t until we were eating that I overheard her talking with her daughter on the phone and to the cook in the kitchen – all in English.

Midway through the afternoon, I headed south to Colorado Springs to visit with my niece and her 10-month-old baby, Marshall, whom I had yet to see. I loaded up on meatloaf and five sides (including everyone’s favorite – creamed spinach) at Boston Market and drove more than a dozen miles east and north of the city to the suburban development where she is renting a home. It was dark by the time I got through the nasty, slow snarl of construction-menaced traffic to her neighborhood, and therefore, spent about a half hour lost and unable to read the street signs in the dark. Finally, after a frantic phone call – interrupted by signal interruptions – I reached the house to find Jenny and Marshall waiting at the door for me.

Jenny is my oldest brother’s daughter, and she recently took a job as a public defender. We look a slight bit alike. Marshall is quite possibly the best and most beautiful baby in the world, as her father will tell you. With a shock of curly brown hair and a perpetual smile, she sat on the floor happily trading toys and saliva with Jenny’s two dogs, Zoey and Swindle. The dogs play gently with Marshall, and he is not afraid of their big tongues or Swindle’s wagging tail.

Once Marland got home from work bearing a gift of zinfandel for dinner, he and I sat down and ate. Then while Marland watched Marshall, it was Jenny’s turn. I managed to make dinner last through both of these sittings.

The night passed quickly, and I found myself back on the road by 7 a.m. It took no time to find a Starbucks in the neighborhood Safeway, but thanks to some 13-year-olds’ need for blended foo-foo drinks at 7 in the morning, it took nearly 20 minutes to get my latte. Once on the road, I took I-25 to US 85 north to C-470. From there I zipped around the south and west sides of Denver, caught I-70 west without running into a bit of rush-hour traffic. This trip is much easier than I expected it to be at that time of day.

I reached my friend Janet’s condo outside of Winter Park long before noon. A snow storm was approaching, it’s heavy grey clouds just starting to spill over the mountain peaks, but I got there first.

Renting a car? A cautionary note from friends

2007-11-20T10:58:00.000-08:00

Here's a note from a friend I met in Cabo, a good thing to remember when renting a car, wherever you are:

"We had our first major incident in Cabo when returning our rental car on Saturday. They charged us for some scratches on our car to the tune of $150 that were definitely there when we rented the car. Unfortunately for us, the copy of the agreement that I signed did not show the scratches as none of the carbon went through. Upon reviewing the original, the area was marked; however, they claimed that it was a different set of "new" scratches. When the clerk called me a "liar", I nearly decked him, but I got my wits about me, told him to itemize everything on the bill, and made it clear that they would never see a dime as I'm convinced that Citibank will support our claim. So, what's the moral of the story and something you may want to share with all of your traveling friends. Use your cell phone or digital camera every time you rent a car, and take thorough pictures of the vehicle before you leave the agency. We actually did that in Austria a few years ago because we had to leave the car in a parking space early in the morning when no one manned the rental car booth, and I wanted proof later (that I didn't need) if they claimed we did damage to the car."

Damiana

2007-11-11T12:46:00.000-08:00

The mystery liquor in my margarita at Shut Up Frank's bar in Todos Santos was Damiana. See this link for more information: http://www.loscabosguide.com/mexicandrinks/damiana.htm.

La Vuelta

2007-11-11T12:32:00.000-08:00

Home, Seattle, WA November 11, 2007

Ah, sleeping at home is so good. Ben next to me, giving off body heat and an occasional snort. Carly lying across my legs, snoring from a deep, uncomplicated sleep that I will never achieve, home or not. The mattress familiar and my little foam pillow cradling my bulging cervical disc just right. Even the traffic roaring behind us on Aurora soothing in its familiarity.

I got home last night about 11, after Ben arrived at the airport with a tiny Jaguar convertible to get me. It took a lot of shoving and rearranging to get my golf bag into the back seat in such a way that we could get the top to close against the 40-degree night air. I held my driver between my legs, and shrunk back in my seat as far from the passenger side airbag as I possibly could, given the fact that my seat was so far forward I could barely get my legs in the car. But we arrived home safely and by the time we got inside the door to greet Carly, I was over my anger at my husband’s impossibly silly idea to come to get me in a tiny review car instead of the nice, comfy – if old and dirty – Explorer.

The 13-hour trip home was uneventful, mostly. The driver, who had agreed to take me from the Posada to the airport for 800 pesos, tried to strong-arm me into paying 1000 pesos when we got there. I angrily retorted – struggling loudly with being angry in Spanish – that we had agreed it would be the same price as the ride he had sold me from the airport to La Posada six days earlier. If he’d been cruel and had stopped a mile or two short of the airport before trying his extortion, he might have gotten by with it. I would have had no choice. But, once I was at the airport door, I could just hand him the four 200-peso bills I had set aside for him, and walk away. Not much he could do.

The man sitting next to me on the flight to L.A. wore his noise-canceling head phones most of the way – no music, just the filter – allowing me to ignore him and work on a book review I’m writing. His name was Randy, he told me near the end of the flight, when he dropped the ear cuffs to chat. He is a jet mechanic for FedEx at Boston Logan, hence his concern with his hearing. He had been sailing in the Gulf of Baja with a former boss who is now a friend.

My seatmate on the flight to Seattle pissed me off by talking loudly (is there any other way?) in a combination of a language I couldn’t identify and staccato English into his cell phone for about 15 minutes until we pushed back from the gate. I never talked to him, nor he to me. We ate our chicken Caesar salads (my second in as many flights) in silence. I read the Travel + Leisure magazine I’d picked up in LAX, and blazed through the airline magazine’s crossword puzzle. It seemed vaguely familiar. Had I done it before?

I am looking back on the trip with some sadness. I didn’t have as much fun as I should have for the money I spent. I made a bad choice in a hotel so far off the beaten path. I didn’t play any golf, even though I lugged my clubs all the way down and back. I didn’t accomplish much adventure shopping, returning with only a piece of jewelry and two table runners. Ben commented that I didn’t even get much of a suntan, although he helpfully noted the raccoon eyes I acquired from my big sunglasses. Ah, the joys of returning home to those who love you unconditionally.

Next time, and there will certainly be another trip soon, I will not go until I have a reliable buddy to go with me – Ben or someone else. And, I will think twice before I again choose serenity over access.

Hasta luego!

Going Gringo

2007-11-10T07:07:00.000-08:00

Todos Santos, BCS, Mexico November 10, 2007

Going Gringo isn’t so bad afterall. When I travel, I try to avoid the Gringo hang-outs. In San Miguel de Allende, where I lived for a month last year, I didn’t step foot in the New Orleans-style bar owned by an American ex-pat until Ben came down. And then, we only went in because we could get free wi-fi. Janet and I cringe when we see large groups of Gringos gathered someplace south of the border, loudly sharing tales that proved their cleverness and worldliness to each other.

But yesterday, I talked with local ex-pat Gringos in Todos Santos, hung out at a bar packed with ex-pats, and had two glasses of wine in a restaurant that only Gringos and Europeans flush with inflated Euros could afford. And, it was a good day. At least I didn’t spend it at the Hotel California.

My new friends, Marshall and Carolyn, bankers from Southern California, gave me a ride into town about noon, after both Carolyn and I had both had a relaxing massage out in the gardens, under a white canopy. Carolyn was in pain with a bulging disc in her lumbar region, but armed with a big, black orthopedic belt to strengthen her back, she was game for a shopping trip into town. I left them on the corner at the Santa Fe Café, where they went to have lunch, and I headed up the street to look at some ceramics I was considering.

I ran into an American sitting at an outdoor café with a Sprite. He told me he had ridden his Harley down from Placerville, California, but had fallen in Northern Baja, which laid him up at a hotel up there for two days. His trip had taken five days instead of three, and he’d missed the chance to cross over to mainland Mexico on the ferry to join a motorcycle festival. He was nursing a swollen right hand, a sore collarbone and a break in a small bone in his foot. He told me about his property in Todos Santos and the friends he made down here. I told him about my dog, my husband, the Posada La Poza and my hopes for landing a job when I got back. I glanced at my watch and realized I’d better get moving.

My ceramics purchases were squelched when the shopkeeper couldn’t find a complete set of blue and white Puebla dishes for me. But we had a nice long discussion about them, which gave me ample opportunity to hear and speak Spanish, and we parted friends in spite of the failed transaction. I stopped to buy a couple of table runners from an ex-pat whose brother I had met in the café here at Posada the day before, and she filled me in about her brother’s new romance. I told the sister that I thought the woman her brother was with seemed like a new girlfriend. I didn’t care for her brother much, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to hear all the details.

Then, I joined Marshall and Carolyn for a glass of wine at the cool garden inside the Santa Fe Café before we headed back out of town. On the highway leading to our turnoff, they convinced me we had to stop at Shut Up Frank’s, an ex-pat bar. The bar supposedly made “the best hamburgers on the block,” one Gringo told me, shouting above his noisy friends who packed the small patio on the street. We stepped inside and sat at the bar, and had what had to be the best margarita on the block: an inspired combination of tequila, fresh lime juice, a Mexican Cointreau and a dash of a peculiar Mexican liquor that I need to investigate further. A local pescadero who had lived some years in the U.S. worked to teach Carolyn some new Spanish words, and Marshall and I talked about golf. By the time we left, the ex-pats had all wandered off, and the streets were packed with what passes for rush hour in Todos Santos. We topped it off with a bottle of wine and dinner at the Posada.

While yesterday wasn’t the “going native” experience I usually try to find when I travel abroad, it seemed oddly appropriate for my last full day in Mexico. After a lonely week on this lonely beach, it was nice to connect with new people, and it reminded me that wherever you go, it's the same story: It's meeting people that makes the discomforts of travel all worthwhile.

Low blood sugar

2007-11-09T10:40:00.000-08:00

Posada La Poza, Todos Santos, BCS, November 8, 2007

Okay, I have to tell you: This place sucks.

I have never had such indifferent hosts at a “boutique hotel” and paid so much for the privilege. No offers to help arrange rides to and from this mosquito-ridden swamp at the end of a long, dusty road. No suggestions of where to go or what to do. No recognition that a person without a car might need some assistance in getting to dinner on the night the restaurant is closed. Or even that you might warn her that the restaurant will be closed.

On the website and when you arrive, Juerg and Libusche promise the world, and for $265 a night, they should. But for that price they ought to deliver too. At the pool: “Just ring the bell, and the server will bring you whatever you want.” I rang the bell and no one came. Ever. At the bar, you can sit for hours and never get a drink. “Early-riser” coffee service is promised, but it isn’t set out until after 7:30. That’s early?

At the front desk, I ask: “Is the mission or church downtown open for visitors?”
Answer: “No.”
Hmmmm….. “What else might there be to see in town?”
No answer. Juerg is at the front desk, but doesn’t seem to be listening. I try again.
“Is the cultural center worth seeing?”
Answer: “They have some exhibits.” He turns and walks into the back room.

So here’s what I’d put on the website if I owned this place and wanted to run it like Juerg and Libusche do: “Come if you want. Drive your own car; there’s no other way to get around. And figure out what you want to do before you get here because we’re too busy to be bothered. And, by the way, our kitchen is closed on Thursday nights and the bar is almost never tended. We shut off the wi-fi when we want to. We turn it back on when we want to. If you think you can run the place better, go right ahead. We don’t care.”

Breakfast is served from 8 until 10. This morning I arrived shortly after 8, and Libusche curtly told me I couldn’t sit in the dining room yet. “We aren’t ready.” The tables were set and the lights were on, but dammit, I wasn’t going to sit in there until she was ready for me. So, I sat at the bar while she answered e-mails. Then, the magic moment arrived and I could enter. As far as I could tell, the only difference was it was now 10 minutes after 8 instead of 5 minutes after.

Here’s what I want to say to Libusche and Juerg: Folks, I imagine that it is hard to run a B&B. It’s a 7-day a week (or six-and-a-half, in your case) job, 52 weeks of the year. But you knew that. If you don’t want to do it, sell the place. Find someone who does. Anyone who is paying $265 a night for a hotel room deserves better than you can deliver.

I’ll tell you this: if I ever get out of here, I’ll never come back. But given the level of “service” around here, I may never find a ride out. Perhaps the Hotel California’s motto has moved from its namesake in town to out here: “You can check out, but you can never leave.” Now that would be hell.

Pasado La Poza, Todos Santos, BCS, November 9, 2007

Now that my blood sugar is approaching normal, having had breakfast, I should add a little perspective. This is not a place for singles, except those who really need a lot of time alone – like all day and night – to study or read or examine their navel. It is also certainly not a place for those who don’t want to drive in Mexico. Those two things should be made clear on the hotel’s website and in its marketing materials.

Last night, after realizing the restaurant was closed, I ate Cracker Jack and mini-Pringles out of the mini-bar in my room. I hate both. Because the bugs at night are thicker than molasses, I couldn’t go outside, and because the bar and restaurant were closed, my only option was my room. I couldn’t go into town, as there was no way to get there in the dark.

Now, if I want to stay in my room and read a book and eat junk food, I can do that at home. A $265 a night hotel room in Mexico is not the place. But, when I reserved this place, and told Juerg that I would not be driving, he did not say one word about the isolation here. He knew I’d be stuck, but he let me come anyway. I think that is bad guest relations.

And about the service: Although I've had better service a Ramada Inns on the interstate, at times Libusche is okay - she will stop and talk and even offer assistance. Juerg must just have too much to do. I find him obsequious at times, totally rude at others.

There are people who love it here. This morning I met Marshall and Carolyn, two bankers from Southern California who have a home near Cabo San Lucas. They are here for the third time, and say they like to come here for the first two days of every trip to Baja to relax before returning to the craze of Los Cabos. But they drive, of course. They can get into town to get dinner. And there are two of them. They can row out to the beach together and watch whales or simply gape at the huge breakers. They can talk.

Yesterday, I walked into town, looked around, had lunch and walked back. I was going to take a cab back to the hotel, but the driver wanted about $10 to take me the mile and a half, and I decided that was crazy. (Like a $265 room isn’t?) I tried to buy some jewelry, but earrings that should sell for $5 were priced at $20. How do you even begin to bargain from there?

I nearly bought two antique retablos – the hand-painted “muchas gracias” to saints or to Jesus or to the Virgin for miracles that saved lives or horses or whatever – but had to abort the transaction. Here, many things carry the same sign - $ - for both pesos and for dollars. When the peso is 1/10th the value of the dollar, it should be obvious which is intended on the price tag. When it isn’t obvious, something is horrendously overpriced. I thought the retablos were 190 pesos each, but the vendor wanted $190 each! After he had wrapped them up for me and presented me with the bill, all I could do was back out of the store and apologize.

“But they’re antiques,” he said. “Did you think they would be only $19?” Well, yes, I did.

I had a nice massage under a tent on the beach today. It was one thing that has not been overpriced – only $75 for 90 minutes. It was a nice massage, too. I feel much more relaxed. But then, relaxing hasn’t really been the issues here.

No pasa nada

2007-11-08T07:18:00.000-08:00

Todos Santos, BCS, November 8, 2007

As I re-read and then post the blog entry below, written last night, I am disgusted with myself. It appears that yesterday morning, I came to the conclusion that there are only two things to do here: golf or nothing. Exploring the mission in town, finding a good desert hike, sitting in a downtown bar practicing Spanish by chatting up some locals – all perfectly good options to both golf and nothing – had escaped my imagination.

Perhaps the frustration with not finding a taxi that could take me back to my hotel on Tuesday strangled my sense of adventure. But, I have now bored myself. I hope to have a more interesting, less self-pitying entry to share with you tomorrow. If not, I should quit this obsession with travel and stay home. Perhaps armchair tourism is my style.

Egads, let’s hope not. On to a more adventurous day!

Todos Santos, BCS, November 7, 2007

Last night, I lay awake unable to sleep and wished I were home. I missed Ben and Carly. I was squirming because I saw two very large bugs in my room – or really one beetle and a large spider – right before going to bed. I was unhappy because my ground-floor location required keeping my sliding glass door closed, even though the room was stuffy and humid. And, the surf was particularly violent last night. In the still of the night, the roar was deafening and I had visions of a huge tsunami crashing into my casita, which sits only 150 yards from the beach and no more than a half-dozen feet above sea level.

As I lay awake, I weighed the possibility packing up this morning, trying to get a seat on the Alaska Airlines flight from La Paz (it only departs on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday), and heading home.

In the middle of the night, the thought of “wasting” three more days with nothing more to do than sit by the pool, walk on the beach, catch up on NYT Book Reviews and read novels wasn’t pleasant. Because of the poor transportation options, I realized I won’t be able to play golf. If I had someone to share the cab ride to the courses down by Los Cabos, it wouldn’t be so bad. We could split the fare, and we could work on finding a ride back together. But alone, it would cost me $200 roundtrip, and the cost of the golf would double that outlay. And who knows if I ever would get back?

If I go home, I thought, there is so much I can do, so much I can get done.

By daylight, my outlook improved. I could see that the surf, while high and noisy, was still no closer than it was the day before. I began to re-examine my options. I’ve already paid for this hotel room, so I wasn’t going to save any money going home early. The sun is going to shine down here for the next three days, for sure. And what exactly do I have to get done back home? What are those urgent items on my “to do” list? And what’s so wrong with not having anything to do? Isn’t that what some people think vacation is all about?

The problem is, I’m just not very good at having nothing to do. I decided to spend the day seeing just how lazy I could be, and seeing if I could figure out how to enjoy that.

No, I couldn’t manage to take a nap, in spite of how little sleep I got last night. I tried, but I couldn’t quit fidgeting. But I passed the day without doing anything that could be considered athletic or productive. I didn’t write postcards or go for a hike. I didn’t learn anything new about Mexican history or Mexican culture. I never even left the hotel grounds.

Instead, I had a leisurely breakfast while checking my e-mails. I read the second half of the Ann Patchett novel I brought. I read two more NYT Book Reviews. I took a picture of the bunch of green coconuts on the tree above my head. I got in the pool – just to get wet and cool off, not to get any exercise. I sat in the sun. I sat in the shade. I had lunch up on the terrace above the bar and scoured the horizon with my binoculars looking for whales. I made small talk with a couple from Denver and Palm Springs whom I didn’t even like. I checked my e-mails again. I had a margarita at the bar and talked to a couple from New York who recently bought a house down here. I had a salad and a glass of wine for dinner. That’s it. And I managed to spend about 14 hours doing all of this nothing.

I am not yet sure that I enjoyed it. How do you know when there’s so little to remember?

Tomorrow, I’m ratcheting it up a notch. I’m going to walk into town to find some jewelry for Christmas presents and cash for my ride back to La Paz on Saturday and a book about the region. I’m going to walk along the beach if the surf isn’t too high. The other thing I’m going to do … I’m going to have nothing but dessert for dinner. Yes, me, the anti-sweet, protein-loving me. Will wonders ever cease?

Traveling alone

2007-11-07T07:01:00.000-08:00

Todos Santos, Baja California Sur, November 6, 2007

When you travel alone, wonderful things can still happen to you. You just have no one to share them with…at least not immediately. Bad things can happen too, but I don’t think those are the ones that make you most lonely.

Today, I was walking along the beach before breakfast, wondering what was causing the water to splash way out in the middle of the ocean, far from where the surf was breaking. Climbing up on a granite rock, I figured it out: whales were jumping up, splashing their tails, and diving down in real-life Pacific Life commercials. As if in a congo line, they swam along the top of the water, heading north, dived down, splashed their tails as if posing for postcard photos and apparently (though I could not see it) dived down and back below the surface to rejoin their joyous pod at the back of the line. The joy, from what I am told, is from the fact that the mating season has begun. Or as my new friends from Italy put it, the “loving season.”

“I’m not sure what is making them frolick is love,” I murmured to my breakfast companions, with the weight of 54 years of cynicism pulling down my vocal chords.

“It’s a rough translation,” laughed Fabrizie, a beautiful, red-haired, freckled Italian, whom I guess is about my age but looked much younger.

I met Fabrizie when I ran back to my room to get my binoculars so I could better spy on the “loving” ritual out on the sea. She joined me on the beach to watch the whales, both of us with cups of “early riser” coffee – the coffee the hotel puts out in the garden for those of us who can’t wait until 8 a.m. for our first caffeine fix. Later, she introduced me to her husband and daughter at breakfast. We talked about the whales and about U.S. politics and economics, and about their trip down from L.A., where the daughter and her new husband have settled recently for his new job with Boston Consulting Group.

Fabrizie and her family gave me ride into Todos Santos shortly before noon, as they headed south for Cabo San Lucas. Given how much they loved the birds and gardens and tranquility of our little beach hotel, I am certain that noisy Cabo, home of the chug-til-you-puke Cabo Wabo, will be a disappointment.

Catching the mating of the whales and meeting my new Italian friends were two of the great things that happened to me today. Another was the offer of a comfortable, air-conditioned ride back to the hotel. But more on that later.

Ten years ago, when Ben and I rode through Todos Santos on a Backroads bicycle trip, the town boasted 900 full-time residents. It was a quiet artists’ and fishing enclave with one decent tourist hotel and one restaurant that was open for dinner. The Hotel California was a rundown, slightly seedy and totally laid-back waystation housed in a crumbling stucco building with a creeky two-story portillo that ran along the main street into the village. Upon request – or more often without prodding – the desk clerk or bartender would plug the jukebox with centavos and play the Eagles’ “Hotel California” over and over. You could buy a muscle shirt that said “you can check out but you can never leave” for five bucks. If you had plenty of pesos –no credit cards accepted – and were in town from 11 to 2 in the middle of the day, you might be lucky enough to find an artisan shop open that would sell you something that bespoke raw talent but little polish.

Realizing what the thriving tourist industry has brought to this town was the worst part of my day. Today, the Hotel California has a fancy new paint job, a fancy front desk, and a huge bar and restaurant suggestive of a Mexican Macroni Grill. A busload of tourists brought in from Cabo had just arrived when I walked along the portillo this noon, and the restaurant was crowded with guayabara-clad retired Yanquis and large women with gigantic costume jewelry. I felt like I’d stumbled across a Tex-Mex restaurant in Oklahoma City.

Dozens of tourist hotels and shops now crowd around the handful of surviving artisan galleries. The shops all sell the same wares – ceramics from Puebla and Guanajuato, painted figurines and cheap knock-off weavings from Oaxaca, and silver jewelry from Taxco. Once upon a time, you could only buy a Bronco’s tee-shirt if you went to Denver and you could only find fine Talavera ceramics in Puebla. Is something of value to regional culture lost when you can’t tell one part of a country from another because all of the once-local crafts (or sports-franchise tee-shirts) have become commoditized across the continent?

There are more jobs in Todos Santos now, and the town’s official population count – well into the thousands - can’t keep up with the in-migration. Local people have more choices and more opportunities. Tourism has brought many things we take for granted in Seattle within reach here – including those things they can now buy at Home Depot and Best Buy. There are more and better doctors in town. (Probably more lawyers, too.) The roads are being improved so that the September rain doesn’t cut Todos Santos off from the flush visitors coming in from La Paz and Los Cabos. It’s not the place it used to be. That is all good. Except for academic anthropologists, aging locals who can’t keep up with rising rents, and nostalgic travelers like me.

Hot and tired of the dusty streets, sticky air and crowded tourist shops, I decided to head back to the hotel only a couple of hours into my visit. Libusche (the owner of my hotel) had told me that I could find a taxi at the pueblo’s main park. But, no taxi was to be found. An old man peddling sugary popcorn from a ped-cart offered to ride off to find me one. But, given the heat and his skinny frame, I couldn’t allow him to burn off energy solving my high-class problems. So, I walked up the street to a prosperous-looking jewelry store and asked if they knew where I could find a taxi.

“Hagame el favor de decirme, donde se peude encontrar un taxi?” I asked.

“There are only three taxis in town,” said a healthy-looking young man, stringing silver pendants on an earring tree at the counter. Nine times out of ten, whenever I ask a question in Spanish at an establishment aimed at Gringos, I am answered in English. I’m practicing my Spanish, they’re practicing their English and everyone is trying to show off a little. “Everybody here has a car already,” he explained. “Where are you trying to go?”

He had never heard of the Posada La Poza, where I am staying, but offered to take me, if I could tell him how to get there. I thanked him, but said that was asking too much. He had a business to run and I couldn’t let him do that. I would just go back and wait at the park for a taxi. Perhaps after lunch and siesta, someone would show up looking for a fare.

I went back to the park corner and sat up on the crumbling stone wall surrounding the weed-chocked gardens and thought about how prosperity may have arrived, but it hadn’t bolstered enough civic pride or tax receipts to provide for a nicely manicured park or decent sidewalks. My fascination with Third World travel was wilting in the grime, heat and humidity, when the man from the jewelry store pulled up in front of me in a brand-new American-made SUV.

“If you know where the hotel is, I can take you,” he offered again. Thinking quickly that this could be the stupidest thing I had ever done – hopping in the car with a stranger without a license to chauffer and possibly no other way to be traced should he decide to rob me and leave me stranded along some dusty Baja highway – I threw judgment aside, doubled down on my faith in my fellow man, and jumped in. The truck was even air conditioned! I thanked him for the air conditioning, and he looked at me with resignation. What was I expecting? A horse and buggy?

Fifteen minutes later, I asked my benefactor if I could possibly pay him for the ride, but he refused, and I hopped out at my hotel entrance.

Other than that, I have little to report for today’s adventures. I swam a bit in the cool saltwater pool, read half of a new Ann Patchett novel in my hammock, cleaned up for dinner, took a picture of the beautiful red sunset (“red skies at night, sailors delight,” my grandmother used to say), and checked in with my husband by e-mail.

I wish all of you were here, as I am more and more convinced, the older and older I get, that travel is better with friends (or husbands), with whom to share the good and the bad. Perhaps by reading this, you’ll make me feel less alone.

Todos Santos Dia Uno

2007-11-06T09:14:00.000-08:00

November 5, 2007

Todos Santos, Baja California Sur, Mexico

The day started well with an on-time trip to the airport (thanks for the ride, Ben) but while sipping my Starbucks in the Alaska Boardroom, I got a call from Deb, who was supposed to meet me there for our flight to Todos Santos. Deb forgot her passport in Yakima. She couldn’t get on the plane, and so I’m going alone.

I am disappointed, of course. The most unfortunate thing about that is – okay, two things – are that it doubles the cost of the cab rides and the hotel room for me, and that I will be picking up a game of golf by myself, always an intimidating experience for a high-handicapper, aka shitty golfer. But, otherwise, I’ll be fine.

I’m staying at the Posada La Poza, which is isolated out on the coast, a mile or so from Todos Santos. I was glad my cab driver from the La Paz airport knew where he was going, as I would have given up on the 15th or 20th turn down the dusty dirt road from town to the coast and I would never have made it.

The owners of this boutique hotel, Juerg and Libusche, are gracious, and I hope they stay on the light side of obsequious. He is Swiss, and she is Czech. She says she speaks seven languages, and I’m not qualified to test her on that, so I’ll take her word for it. His English is better than hers, and from what I could hear, his Spanish is too. I’m sure she excels at Czech.

My room is large and generally pleasant, except for the Botero-like mini-sculpture on the desk, which makes me want to skip dinner for the next five nights. I have my own patio and Jacuzzi outside my room. If it doesn’t cool off considerably, I’m afraid the Jacuzzi will be a waste, but the patio is serene.

From my room, I can hear and feel the pounding Pacific surf, even though the droan of the air conditioning unit behind the building is working hard to drown it out. If I could leave the surf-side door open, it might help, but without any security latch on the screen, I can’t do that.

The grounds, however, are gorgeous. The bookcase is stocked with several books, including a bird guide, as the garden attracts hundreds of hummingbirds and song birds. Without appearing highly groomed, the landscaping is dense enough to create privacy, but random enough to evoke the desert outside of town.

The saltwater pool’s irregular shape and muted color nearly fool you into thinking it’s a lagoon instead of a man-made pool. Across the real lagoon, on the other side of the pool from the hotel, is the beach, which runs two miles south and “almost endlessly” to the north, according to the hotel’s brochure. I’ll have to check that out tomorrow.

I am taking seriously the hotel’s warning to keep away from the ocean and the surf. Ten years ago, when Ben and I were here on a Backroads trip, I happily rushed into the surf with a beer in hand, and was promptly knocked on my ass, losing my beer, my sunglasses and my hat in an ignominious display of Midwestern naivete. I won’t make that mistake again.

Dinner at the restaurant tonight - $20 before tip and taxes – was excellent, and that’s a good thing, as I think I’ll have to eat there every night, given the distance into town and the early sunset (about 5:45). A young couple from Montana, who sat at the table next to me, said they have eaten here every night on their stay and were never disappointed. There’s something nice about being able to have a glass of wine and relax over dinner without worrying about the logistics of getting home – or back to the hotel. Also, I was able to buy a bottle of wine – much less expensive than wine by the glass – and the waitress will cork it and keep it for me to finish over the week.

I saw little of Todos Santos on my way in. But it does seem much bigger than it was when Ben and I rode our bikes through here 10 years ago. People told me it had grown a lot, and that’s apparently true.

Stay tune for my next exciting tale, likely to describe sitting by the pool, catching up on weeks of NYT Book Reviews. It’s bound to mesmerize.

Nodding off, I am happily in Mexico again.

Packing up

2007-11-04T11:04:00.000-08:00

So, I'm getting ready to go to Todos Santos for some sun and golf and sitting around talkin'. Deb Holbrook is going with me. She's Diane Gamache's sister. Diane and I met at Expedia, and she's now doing her own thing, managing SOX compliance for small companies. Deb is a dental technician and she lives in Yakima, center of the Yakima wine viticulture area (AVA).

You can find out what we're doing everyday by reading this new Viajesdelacostachica blog, written by me, La Costa Chica, herself. It's easier than writing longhand, you see. And it encourages stream-of-conciousness writing - or uncontrolled regurgitation of unconsequential thoughts - which is the same thing.

I hope that I will get to post many more such viajes blogs over the next year, although the threat of a real job looms. I'd say "ominously looms," but I think that's redundant.

My loving husband promises to read this blog. If anyone else happens to tune in, be sure to post your responses to my blathering. They will doubtlessly be more interesting than this blog itself.

If you want a postcard from my viajes, send it along. I promise to oblige. In fact, then everyone can start sending everyone else postcards, and we won't have time to waste on that silly game of golf anymore.

Hasta luego, amigos!