Travel Tips & Adventures

Boston, Massachusetts conjures up images of the fight for United States independence, history and old buildings.  It’s all of that and much more.  With the 4^th of July this week, Boston seems a great place to celebrate the USA’s birth.

Quincy Market - where street performances happen often

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Scotland: Fall 2009

DAY 15

ST. ANDREWS

FORE!

DUCK!

GET OUT OF THE …. WAY!

OOPS! SORRRRY!

It’s time to hop a golf cart over to the birthplace of golf over 600 years ago, St. Andrews.

Actually, birthplace is not quite accurate. Golf in some form was probably played in another country before it came to Scotland, but hey, Scotland just had a better marketing department! Read the rest of this entry »

Scotland: Fall 2009

DAY 14

Even though we just got there (Edinburgh), it’s time to get out of town!

What do Mel Gibson, Liam Neeson and Angus Macfadyen have in common? They have all portrayed Scottish heroes at your local Cineplex. Whether or not the movies were entirely accurate (Braveheart & Rob Roy) is beside the point. The characters were real. William Wallace, Rob Roy and Robert the Bruce were, in fact, local heroes, much to the chagrin of the British monarchy at the time. Read the rest of this entry »

When I launched Travel Tips and Adventures about three months ago, I knew I would have lots of adventures and travels to share. I still do.

 
But, I would like to hear from other people who have destinations they think are worth sharing.

 
Please, send your experiences as attachments or in the body (English only please) to the comments section.

I will credit you as a Guest Columnist if you have written something that is entertaining and I can verify the information. (I also reserve the right to edit the piece for appropriate language, grammar, spelling and punctuation. I was an English teacher once upon a time.) 300-500 words is about the right length. Read the rest of this entry »

South Mountain Park, located in Phoenix, Arizona is the largest city park in the US. Especially on weekends, throngs of people spend time hiking and exploring the trails. (51 miles worth of trials, according to the City of Phoenix’s Web site.)

 
Certain perspectives are almost otherworldly as you can be hiking with no one around, yet you’ll see the City of Phoenix below, spread out as far as the eye can see!

View of Phoenix from South Mountain Park

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Every girl likes her pearls – or other beads. It turns out that men, too, throughout time have valued beads. Beads are the featured and the only items on display in the unique Bead Museum in Glendale, Arizona.

What are beads? Anything that has a hole in it that can be strung. That means that our ancestors of 13,000 years ago who took a reindeer tooth and strung it on a leather strand had an early bead.

Iridescent decoration made from beetle wings

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If you’re looking for a challenging hiking experience that promises – and delivers on – scenery, a visit to Chiricahua National Monument is in order.

Entering Chiricahua after driving through miles of open and desolate desert (about an hour south of Willcox, Arizona), you arrive at the visitors center. After all of that driving, you begin to wonder why you made the drive…and then you get into the park a bit and it’s like you’re in another world! Read the rest of this entry »

Scotland: Fall 2009

DAY 13
EDINBURGH

At this time, we will be nearing the end of our trip. There are still enough things to see that we could probably spend another week in Scotland, but that’s not going to happen. So, we have to make some decisions about what to see and not … Read the rest of this entry »

When you travel to the National Parks in the Southwest and start with Zion, as we did, you find yourself overwhelmed and feeling very small.  The cliffs tower over you and you can get lost on the trails.  

Part of the “Grand Circle” of National Parks, we really enjoyed the diversity of the trails.  One moment, walking along a nice level path, you might see a deer grazing not too far away.  

Red cliffs of Zion National Park

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Landscape Arch

From Moab, Utah, it is a fairly easy drive to the Park’s visitor center. Allow a very full morning or afternoon or even a day to visit the evocatively named formations. See “Courthouse Towers,” “ Parade of Elephants,” “Three Gossips” and the famous “Landscape Arch.” Landscape Arch looks likes it will fall down any time now, but it might take thousands of years. As recently as 1991, a large segment fell from Landscape Arch and the section left looks very close to fragmenting entirely.

Parade of Elephants

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