NOTE: Please see a portfolio of our Quebec photos. Part Two of three parts The accordion player ambled through the chalet-like dining room, belting out Quebecois folk songs as we played along with sets of spoons. We were in a cabane a sucre, or sugar shack, on the Ile d’Orleans next door to Quebec City. Especially in the spring, the sugar shack is a venerable cultural tradition sticky with sirop…
NOTE: Please see a portfolio of our Quebec photos. Part One of three parts At 6:30 a.m., we heard a rustling at our hotel door. Was someone trying to break in? Tentatively, we peered out. Hanging on the door was a wicker picnic basket. It was breakfast! Croissants, patisseries, yogurt, glass bottles of orange juice, cheese, and fruit. Amazed, I went down to the lounge of the Hotel…
Chincoteague is less than two hours from our home, and yet we had never visited. So we drove down the day after Labor Day, with Hurricane Dorian looming at the end of the week. We are already planning to return. Chincoteague is a throwback to childhood days at the beach. You have to forgive the tacky wooden billboards, one after the other, anchored in the marsh (oy) as…
Please see trip photographs on our portfolio site and video at end of post. We could hear the Colorado River long before we actually saw it, the relentless clash of water and rocks. We were descending Cathedral Wash, a puzzle of multiple levels of ledges and drop-offs, including one called The Pit. Many of us agreed that we would have turned around when we came to the first…
Please see our New Mexico photo gallery. The last stop on our RoadScholar tour of Albuquerque, Taos and Santa Fe was another kiva – this one at Coronado Historic Site in the Albuquerque suburb of Bernalillo. A kiva is a sacred room within an Indian pueblo, where religious rites are performed. This visit required climbing up one ladder and down another one into the underground chamber; only 13…
There are a few places on earth where I feel like my soul is at home. Where the psychic roots run deep, my DNA is buzzing contentedly, and I always feel a welcome familiarity no matter how long I have been gone. One of those places is the Texas Hill Country, land of my mother’s clan and a rocky, rolling landscape of cedar, winding creeks and limestone bungalows.…
Our camping experiences date to Girl Scouts and, for me, a few miserable outings in high school. That was quite awhile ago. But we thought trying again might be an antidote to my desire for a small RV. The two-night outing to Trap Pond State Park near Laurel, Delaware, was only about 25 miles from our house. We would not starve. We could try out some of the…
Maybe not everyone thinks of pairing bird-watching with African-American history. Well, we do. And near Cambridge, Maryland, you can do just that. We recently spent a spring day visiting the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park in rural Dorchester County, Md., followed by a drive through Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. The trip was about 60 miles from our home in Sussex County, Delaware, on two-lane roads past…
November 2 – For two retired women, visiting five National Parks (plus Monument Valley) in 10 days was probably a bit ambitious. Now that the trip is over, we have some insights: Our favorite parks were Bryce Canyon, Zion and Arches – close but roughly in that order. A revised itinerary would probably omit Canyonlands and Capitol Reef and spend more time exploring the other three. We did…
Wednesday, October 25 – Driving through southern Utah, the landscape changes are often immediate and stunning. From a rolling sea of slickrock to high-altitude pine forests to towering red rocks, it’s hard for us East Coast flatlanders to absorb. Approaching Zion National Park, the rocks again change to red – and so does the road. Jagged, majestic peaks jarringly transform the landscape. We were on the Zion-Mt. Carmel…
October 25 – The most wondrous 2.5-mile trail I have ever walked was breath-taking, in more ways than one. The one must-do hike for me on our Utah National Parks itinerary was a combination of the Navajo Loop and Queen’s Garden trails at Bryce Canyon. An elevation change of 320 feet did not sound like a lot, but what goes down must come up. Starting at Sunset Point,…