Bed Bug Alert: What to Know Before You Go
Okay, it’s gross and no fun to read about, but frequent travelers everywhere are buzzing about…bed bugs. Is this for real? Apparently it’s all too real; a pest we thought was a relic of depression-era tenements is now taking up residence in hotels across the globe. What surprised me the most, I must confess, is [...]
Best Bay Area Walks: Wildflowers and Waterfalls, Part I
Spring flowers may be the primary product of April showers according to conventional wisdom, and in the hills and green belt areas that ring the San Francisco Bay Area there are plenty of those. But another result of all that water is, well…. more water than most of us are used to. Which means certain [...]
A Special Welcome at the Hotel California, Todos Santos
Sometimes the various worlds that we keep carefully compartmentalized come crashing together. That’s what happened to me when I visited the Hotel California in the tiny Baja town of Todos Santos. (Not the Hotel California the Eagles sang about, or at least not exactly, but I’ll get to that later.) In addition to being a [...]
All Glass Art, All the Time in Tacoma
Why does art make us happy? I asked myself that question over and over while staying at the Hotel Murano in Tacoma, Washington, where you can’t turn a corner without coming upon some startling confection of color, light, and shape. I fight a tendency towards a gloomy outlook, particularly in gray weather, which Tacoma in [...]
