From the category archives:

Travel & Road Trips

Road Trip: Taste of San Diego Walking Tour

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What you see here is what awaits you on a walking food tour of downtown San Diego. SD was my college town. Back then, the only reason to go downtown was… uh, well, there was no reason. The closest I may have gotten was my stint working in a Mexican restaurant in Old Towne, but [...]

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Road Trip: Picnic and a Movie at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery

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Confession: I don’t always share my fav things on this blog. Publicity can easily wreck a great experience. Case in point: the LA Times decided the week before this adventure to run a feature on something Larry and I’ve been trying to hit for three years: Cinespia movies at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on Santa [...]

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Road Trip! U-Pick Strawberries in Carlsbad

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Our home in Westwood is at the north-west end of LA.  Cousins Nancy and John graciously hosted a family potluck at their home in Del Mar (North San Diego). That’s about a 2+hour drive IF no traffic. But since there ALWAYS IS traffic, we brought a big ice chest to keep our dishes cold. The [...]

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Road Trip! Foodie Walking Tour of Cantonese San Gabriel Valley

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Three and a half hours, more eating than walking, we were rapt students during our culinary tour of LA’s “new Chinatown.” The San Gabriel Valley Food Tour by Six Taste Tours was Larry’s idea (again, he luvs this stuff). Adventure pals Cathi and Barry (the ones who zipped around Long Beach on Segways with us), [...]

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Camp GetAway is for Mothers – AND Others, Like Me

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Circa 2001. Somewhere in this happy crowd was me. Mountains. Cabins. Hikes. Arts & crafts. Sing-a-longs. Dance class. Water aerobics. Skits. Archery. Canoeing. Sounds like good times for the kiddies, except that THIS was camp for grownup women.

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How to Fold A Napkin Into An Ostrich

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Tablescaping at the Lianshulu Lodge in Namibia was fanciful. Each meal was decorated with fresh-cut branches, intriguing little pods, local craft art such as warthogs and dragonflies. One evening, the napkins were folded as ostriches, and later we were taught the technique. I was EXCITED for the demo, don’t laugh.

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Namibia Sunset Orange Blossom Cake

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African sunsets go on forever; the sun drops behind the horizon quickly, then melts the sky into a full hour of magnificence. Considering there are no buildings to block the view, hundreds of miles of horizon can (and do) glow every night.

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Eating on an African Safari

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When you travel 30+ hours to get home from Southern Africa, jet lag can be a whopper. But a great use of time at 4 AM is photo management. African light is naturally stunning. Morning light differed from mid-day, and sundown yet again different. It was easy for my little Canon G-10 to document how [...]

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Travel Drip Coffee Pot

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We’re in prep mode for an adventure to Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia. We have all the gizmos and whiz bang thingies road warriors have, but maybe YOU don’t have one of these. Not only is it a travel sized coffee pot, it is DRIP. Great for places with no in-room hot water pots. Not so [...]

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Food Tasting Walking Tour of LA’s Original Farmers Market

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On the hoof again. Larry and I love the kind of activity that combines walking + touring + eating. This Farmers Market Walking Food Tour by Melting Pot Tours was right up our alley. In fact, this was our second MPT, our first was a few months back when we took their great Walking Food [...]

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Road Trip: On The Hunt for Ojai’s Pixie Tangerines

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My niece, Danielle, and I were on the hunt for the most awesome of snacks, the Pixie Tangerine. They only grow in Ojai. The region produces just enough to keep the best local stores and farmer’s markets supplied and then, BUMMER, gone ‘til next season (March through summer). If Larry and I hadn’t attended a [...]

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Road Trip! Segway Riding Around Long Beach

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You know, Larry has some awesome ideas sometimes. So when he suggested to me, plus friends Cathi and Barry to buzz around Long Beach (CA) on Segway two-wheeled electric vehicles, YEAH. Was it really, REALLY fun? “Better than I actually expected,” was Larry’s review and he was right.

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Travel to Barbados, Friend

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Barbados is a little bit of heaven. Nothing here is pushy. No one’s hand feels like it’s in your pocket. I’d call it an “easy” destination. Larry and I take lots of vacations, and we tend to visit places that are hard, challenging, rough, complicated — on purpose, don’t get me wrong. Antarctica isn’t for [...]

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Food Tasting Walking Tour of Old Pasadena

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Larry and I LOVE touristy things, even in our own backyard. We’re both native Angelinos; been to Pasadena plenty of times. But never on foot for a tasting, history and architecture tour. When friend Chef Diane Scalia and her sister, Lisa, launched Melting Pot Food Tours, Larry and I were totally on board.

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Egyptian Tomato Soup

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This is a shout-out to a terrific collection of Aussies and Kiwis (plus a few Americans and one Canadian) from our trip to Egypt.  Together, we covered long distances, soaked up history, rode camels, climbed pyramids, got our Sphinx fix, and ate lots of mediocre food. Egyptian food is not so great.  Don’t drink the [...]

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