Travel Tips & Adventures

Everyone loves a day at the zoo!  And one of the best zoos is the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.  Get on your comfortable walking shoes and plan to spend a day visiting the animals with your human animal family, because the zoo is even more fun with kids.

It’s All Happening at the Zoo

There is often a newborn – animal, that is – that creates quite a stir.  

The pandas are one of the prime attractions at the zoo.  With everyone jockeying for position, it may be hard to get some great photos.  It was fun watching the pandas, though, as they ate their bamboo and lumbered about.  They are so big and fluffy that you have to remind yourself that they are bears, so I was glad of the separation from them.

There are three pandas to view these days and they are playful and fun to watch, but sometimes, not totally active.  Hey, you wouldn’t want to move around a lot in the DC heat and humidity, either!

Playful Panda with Bamboo

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What better way to celebrate USA’S birthday than a visit to Washington, DC!

Imagine standing in bone-chillingly freezing weather near a large, manmade lake (The famous Tidal Pool) with two impressive monuments across from you, just waiting for sunrise.  That was the scenario for me several years ago in Washington, DC during the spring cherry blossom season.

Almost on a dare, I decided to try photography at sunrise since I’d always heard it was the best.  Well, it was, but the cold was so numbing that I almost couldn’t get my fingers to push the camera shutter.

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Jefferson Memorial at Sunrise

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When a group of upstart colonists decided they wanted self-governance back in the 1770s, there was a hotbed of activity in Boston, Massachusetts.

Names familiar to many American schoolchildren – Paul Revere, John Adams and others – resided in Boston or the nearby area.

Paul Revere statue

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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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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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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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Canyonlands, located in Utah and one of the US National Parks, cannot be judged by a photograph or other image. You really must be there to feel how open, deep and vast the earth stretches out in front of you. It seems to dwarf the Grand Canyon in immensity!

 
Standing on a ledge several years ago, wind blowing and rain threatening, I felt very small and insignificant looking out at the giant canyons, eroded by time and the Colorado and Green Rivers.

Canyonlands - nature at its most amazing

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While growing up, I had my share of deli food. I love it!  Once in a while, I need my fix of the savory, scrumptious tastes, usually served in copious quantities.

I’m a good cook, but I really love to try the deli food of other great cooks. Plus, some deli food takes a really long time to make well.

I’ve eaten at Carnegie Deli in New York City. I’ve eaten deli food in many cities. Some is better than others: some is so-so; some is incredible; some is so bad you don’t want to take the leftovers home.

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We were invited by the Decker sisters to visit their alpaca ranch, Tranquil Spirits. A cria, a baby alpaca, had recently been born and they were expecting more. Lady Godiva, or “Lady G,” as the Decker sisters called their first cria, was born early, weighing only 13 pounds, 1 ounce. For a human, that would be extraordinary, but Lady G was in jeopardy since she was only about half of a normal birth weight.

Lady G

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By Guest Author Joan Koczor

As you pull into Austin, MN, you begin to see billboards along the highway advertising the Spam Museum. The billboards say things like “The SPAM® Museum– Even we don’t really understand,” and “The SPAM® Museum– Yes, we do answer the ingredients question.

SPAM® Museum's retro 40s and 50s look

 This sense of humor carries over into the actual museum, the shrine to the canned meat that is produced and packaged right there in Austin, Minnesota, otherwise known as Spam Town, USA.

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