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Posts tagged with: travel
Armchair TravelPosted by Anna Campbell May 10 2012, 12:02 am in Anna Campbell, anya seton, Barbara Cartland, Dorothy Dunnett, Inspiration, Lorna Hill, Mary Stewart, reading, travel, Victoria Holt, writer's life
I’ve always been a really enthusiastic reader, right from the first moment I worked out what those scratchy black marks on white paper meant. And I can’t tell you how many ways reading has influenced my life and the person I’ve become. One of the big things reading has done is give me the desire to travel. All those tired, aching Visa bills from my wanderings can be blamed on the fact that I always have a book on the go – and usually more than one! As I think I’ve mentioned before, I had a pretty idyllic childhood on an avocado farm on the Queensland coast. Now when I know how rotten a lot of kids have it, I’m enormously grateful. But at the time, it seemed that everything happened somewhere OTHER than Redland Bay. I wanted drama. I wanted glamour. I wanted adventure. Not much of any of those where I grew up.
So far, I’ve knocked a serious number of those places off my list. Still lots to go if anyone wants to donate to my travel fund! Today I thought I’d wander down Memory Lane (yet another place to visit!) and talk about some of the books that made me want to see the world. The first book I’d like to talk about was a firm favorite when I was in late primary school. It’s called A DREAM OF SADLER’S WELLS and it’s about an aspiring ballerina called Veronica who has to leave London and her dance school to live with her cousins in the wilds of Northumberland. I was a ballet-mad kid so this was right up my alley. Not only that, it was funny and heartfelt and there was a lovely romance between Veronica and a boy called Sebastian. I still think Sebastian is one of the most romantic names out there!
Another writer who got me interested in an enormous number of places is the much-maligned Barbara Cartland. I must have read hundreds of her romances in late primary school and early high school. I think they’re wonderful for that age – they’re not too explicit and the historical detail is fascinating. The very first Barbara Cartland I ever read was snaffled from my grandmother’s library pile – LOVE UNDER FIRE. It featured an intrepid young Spanish girl who disguises herself as a boy and joins Wellington’s Army so she can get to England and safety. Hmm, interesting that the Regency was such an early subject of my reading, isn’t it? Not to mention dark and dangerous aristocratic English heroes!
About the same stage as I was reading Anya Seton, I discovered the wonderful romantic suspense novels of Mary Stewart. Now that’s someone who REALLY inspired me to travel. Her descriptions of setting are unrivalled. I recently re-read MY BROTHER MICHAEL and WILDFIRE AT MIDNIGHT for a review that’s coming up on The Romance Dish on 24th May (check it out!). Mary S. can still take my breath away with her gorgeous writing about place. She engages every sense when she’s talking about Greece or Skye or the South of France. It’s really like being there in person.
The last of the books I want to talk about today when it comes to travel obsession was a slightly later crazeme. I must have been in my early 20s when I discovered the vivid historical world of Dorothy Dunnett. My obsession for the Lymond Chronicles (starting with THE GAME OF KINGS) set in 16th century Europe outshone all previous obsessions. My poor friends – they heard nothing except Francis Crawford for quite a while there!
So did any books influence your life? Have you read any of these authors? Any early reading that still resonates with your life today? Have you ever visited a place just because you read about it in a book? Let’s talk armchair travel today in the lair! Shake, Rattle, and Aloha — An Earthquake TalePosted by admin Aug 27 2011, 4:28 am in Aunty Cindy explains it all for you, Hawai'i, travel posted by Loucinda McGary aka Aunty Cindy When an earthquake rattled the East Coast this week, it made me think about my own experiences with having “the earth move.” The DH and I are native Californians who have never lived anywhere but the Golden State. Given California’s reputation with regard to earthquakes, the two of us have lots of stories to tell about quakes, right? Wrong. DH has never been in a major earthquake, and the only one I was ever in happened when I was six-months-old (which hardly counts). In fact, these two old Californians had to go all the way to Hawaii to experience an earthquake first hand! We are very lucky because we live where it is easy to find inexpensive deals to Hawaii. Such was the case one recent October when a travel agency we’ve often used offered a five day trip to Honolulu, and w Sunday morning at 7 a.m. I was awakened from a sound sleep by the bed shaking. Thinking the DH had returned from his morning swim and was playing a game of ‘let’s wake up the slug’, I rolled over ready to yell at him but NO DH. Instead, I heard a very loud roar, while the bed and the room both started to sway! I may have never been in an earthquake before but I KNEW what was happening. I threw some clothes on over my pajamas while the room continued to sway. Then I grabbed my umbrella (Did I mention it was pouring rain?) and RAN down all nine flights of stairs to the lobby! I had a friend who was trapped in an elevator for four hours during the Loma Prieta quake in 1989 so there was NO WAY I was getting in an elevator, though that stairwell was pretty icky. I’m just glad we weren’t on the eighteenth floor. When I reached the lobby, huffing and puffing like a steam locomotive, I saw a lot of bleary-eyed people milling about. An emergency generator was already set up to run one elevator and some lights. Staff also had turned on a battery powered radio and I listened anxiously for about ten minutes for news of death, destruction, and… a tsunami! All I heard was that one power grid had gone down and in doing so, had triggered overloads on all the power grids so electricity was out all over the island. Also, that the quake I couldn’t quite believe that last part, and worse — DH was still out there SWIMMING IN THE OCEAN! I walked out to the front sidewalk and peered through the sheets of rain. Finally, I decided if he didn’t show up in five more minutes, I’d go looking for him. Two minutes later he walked up, towel around his shoulders, dripping wet. He headed straight for the elevator and couldn’t understand why all those people were standing around in the lobby. When I mentioned THE EARTHQUAKE, he gave me a blank stare. He hadn’t felt a thing! Luckily the only consequence of the earthquake turned out to be no power in Honolulu for thirteen hours. Inconvenient, yes. No cooked food, no air conditioning, no running water above the third floor… But in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t that bad! We spent most of the day sitting on the lanai of the Hawaiian Princess hotel, which was right on the beach and had a lovely breeze. I give the highest kudos to the Honolulu police, who were out directing traffic within 30 minutes of the quake knocking out the power. Officers were stationed at every traffic light down the length of Waikiki, and they stayed until the power came back on at 8 P.M. As the electricity was restored to each high rise hotel along Waikiki, a cheer went up from the patrons inside. Ours was no exception. By the time we flew home on Tuesday morning, everything on Oahu (the airport, the roadways, the tourist attractions) was running as smoothly as it had been before the quake hit. So there you have my earthquake tale, now it’s your turn: Did you feel the quake this week? Have you been in another earthquake? If not, do you have a ‘wild weather’ experience you can share? Walking in the steps of historyPosted by Trish Milburn Aug 15 2011, 4:04 am in history, travel, Trish Milburn
One of my favorite school subjects has always been history, particularly American history. One of my minors in college was in History. So it’s no surprise that I love visiting historic sites be they homes, battlefields, roads, whatever. Growing up in the South, you can almost pitch a rock in any direction and hit something that has a tie to the Civil War. Historic re-enactments almost always pit the blue against the gray. But one of my favorite periods in American History is actually Colonial/Revolution. So this summer when I had the opportunity to visit New England for the first time, I was mucho excited. I was going to see places that really helped to shape our country before it even became the United States of America.
This summer, I experienced it again when I stopped at Minute Man National Historic Park outside of Boston. Here I walked along the road (pictured here) that Paul Revere rode down to warn the countryside that the British were coming. The park and the Battle Road commemorate the famous Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, the beginning of the American Revolution. I stood in the middle of the road and was hit with an overwhelming sense of history.
In nearby Marblehead, I visited the grave of Wilmot Redd, the only person from Marblehead to be executed for being a witch. Another must-see in Salem is a literary landmark. The famed House of the Seven Gables (pictured), made famous by Nathaniel Hawthorne, sits overlooking the harbor.
Now I’m curious — do you enjoy visiting historical sites? If so, what kinds in particular? Have you ever visited a site where you really felt the history of the place? If so, where? And tell us about your favorite historic site. The Day I Became A CelebrityPosted by admin May 19 2011, 5:01 am in Aunty Cindy explains it all for you, Thailand, travel posted by Loucinda McGary aka Aunty Cindy The iconoclastic artist Andy Warhol was once quoted as saying, “In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” Well, I got part of my fifteen minutes, if not exactly fame then a taste of what it is like to be a celebrity. It happened in Thailand, an amazing and beautiful country with some of the nicest people in the world. DH and I were doing a ‘self tour’ of the Summer Palace which is a short boat ride up the river from Bangkok. The palace is actually about a dozen different buildings on extensive, beautifully landscaped grounds. I was walking by myself across a pretty little stone bridge over an ornamental pond, when I heard a huge group of school children approaching. There must have been a couple hundred of them, around ten years old and wearing crisp blue and white uniforms. Undoubtedly they were on a field trip. I scooted out of the way, and stood with my back against the low stone railing of the bridge to let the big noisy group pass. As the first dozen kids walked by me, they all stared (I was probably one of the first if not THE first American they’d ever seen live and in person). Then, one bold youngster shouted out, “Hello!” To which I answered, “Hello!” This brought a gale of nervous giggles, followed by a raucous chorus of hellos. After a few dozen more kids, all chirping out “hello” like myna birds, scurried past me, one little boy got brave and stuck out his hand while exclaiming, “hello.” I obligingly shook his hand and said hello back. Well, that opened the flood gates! Next thing I knew, about a hundred enthusiastic kids were crowded around me, all shouting hello and grabbing for my hands. YIKES! It was more than a bit scary! All those eager little bodies pressing around me could have easily sent me over the railing and into the pond. Dozens of them might have fallen with me! Fortunately that didn’t happen. I kept smiling, shouting hello, and grabbing as many outstretched hands as I could, while the teachers herded the kids the rest of the way across the bridge. They also smiled and bobbed their heads in thanks to me. The whole incident lasted maybe ten minutes, but it felt like a lot longer at the time. When I got back to the DH, I collapsed onto the shady bench beside him and said, “Now I know how Michael Jackson feels.” And I can just imagine the discussions in the school yard days later. While one kid brags about his adventure, another kid whines, “No fair! We didn’t get to shake hands with an American tourist at the Summer Palace!” Have you had your fifteen minutes of fame? Maybe five minutes? Please share your exploits as a celebrity with Aunty and the rest of us here in the Lair! Close Encounters of the Reptilian KindPosted by admin Apr 18 2011, 4:44 am in Aunty Cindy explains it all for you, Banditas at Large, reptiles, travel posted by Loucinda McGary aka Aunty Cindy Trish’s book launch and the talk about National parks reminded me of my first trip to the Everglades, and the first time I ever saw an alligator “in the wild” — as in not inside a zoo or other compound. This did not happen on our first trip to Florida. We’d already been there several times. First we did the Disney World/Epcot experience, then we did Speed Week. Heck, we’d even ventured down to the Keys a few weeks after a hurricane devastated the surrounding area. But this was the first time we ever ventured into the Everglades. It was a wild and blustery winter day in south Florida (but still a LOT warmer than here in NorCal!) when we pulled into the ranger’s station intent on taking one of those swamp buggy tours into the Everglades. Unfortunately, the weather made it unsafe for swamp buggies or anything else out in the ‘Glades, the ranger politely explained. Road closed. End of line. But seeing how crest-fallen we were, she directed us to a nearby spot where we would probably see some alligators. We followed her directions and within minutes found ourselves driving slowly along an elevated gravel road with water on both sides. The vegetation was lush and there were birds galore. Suddenly, DH threw the car into reverse and backed up about 100 yards, then inched forward a bit, saying, “I think I see a gator!” He rolled down the window and pointed. I couldn’t see anything, so he shut off the car and we both got out and walked to the back bumper. What is it about reptiles, especially large reptiles, that brings out the stupid in mammal brains? The DH pointed again and I squinted a little more, until I noticed the partially submerged black log he indicated actually had AN EYEBALL! Oh WOW! An honest to goodness gator! This was exciting. ACK!!! In about one-tenth of a nanosecond, the thing whipped around and these massive jaws went SNAP! As my eyes bugged out and my throat made this funny little EEP sound, my brain shouted, “That thing is FAST! And it’s A LOT BIGGER than it first looked!” Well over six feet! But mostly I’m thinking, “RUN YOU IDIOT! DON’T JUST STAND HERE!“ Apparently DH read my thoughts, or he was thinking the same thing. But he managed to tell me, “Do not run! Slowly get in the car.” Yeah, right! We both shuffled carefully and quietly around and got into the car. Gravel flew as we high-tailed it outta there! We’ve been back to Florida many times, and have been into the Everglades more than once. AWESOME PLACE! We’ve even been on a couple of swamp buggy tours. But we have NEVER again been stupid enough to try and feed the gators! Are you like Aunty and Indiana Jones, do reptiles make you break into a cold sweat? Or do you like our reptilian inhabitants? Do you have any encounters with reptiles you can share with us? Going Ape On GibraltarPosted by admin Mar 18 2011, 5:15 am in Aunty Cindy explains it all for you, travel, wild life posted by Loucinda McGary aka Aunty Cindy Not long ago, I watched an excellent travel program all about the Camino Santiago Pilgrimage in Spain. The show brought back memories of my trip to Spain and Portugal and one of the funniest moments of my travel adventures. We’d been in Spain and Portugal for ten days. We had prepared ourselves for the cold wet weather, it was February after all. But we had not expected the lack of heat and hot water in several of the pensiones where we’d stayed. The morning we rolled up to the border crossing to enter Gibraltar, I was When the guard in the crossing booth asked for our passports in his precise English accent, I almost jumped out of the car and kissed him. Then we drove a few hundred yards down the road and on my right I saw a Safeway grocery store and knew I was in Heaven! After we hung out in the quaint downtown for awhile, we got on the tram to take us to the lofty heights of The Rock. The views were truly spectacular and we were awed by the formations inside the limestone caves. Since it was a beautiful clear day, we opted to walk part of the way back down and found ourselves at the only other tram stop on the mountainside. This spot While waiting for the tram to arrive we watched some of the moms with their babies and a few larger youngsters playing along the stone wall designed to keep us humans on the path. I took a couple more pictures of the harbor, and the apes. In spite of signs in several languages warning NOT to feed or tease the apes, some people waiting with us started offering them cookies. Meanwhile, DH took the camera and directed me to stand over near the wall so he could get some shots of me with the apes in the background. Only they didn’t STAY in the background. As I stood smiling and oblivious, a half-grown “teen” ape made a big leap toward my shoulder. I saw him just as he made contact. I screamed, jumped and pushed him away. I think he may have yelped too as he bounced onto the pavement, then leaped back over the wall. The DH was doubled over laughing, and yes, he got one picture but it was blurry because both the ape and I were moving QUICKLY! VERY QUICKLY! DH still claims that the fastest he’s ever seen me move. Fortunately, the tram arrived a couple of minutes later. Once we were safely back within the confines of Safeway and I’d consumed a Cadbury chocolate bar, I was able to laugh about my misadventure with a young, and maybe amorous (or at least hungry) ape. I realize not everyone can have an elephant follow them home from school like our Helen, but have you ever had an up-close and personal encounter with wild life? A rabid squirrel or prairie dog perhaps? Please share the details with Aunty and the rest of the Lair. Runnin’ Through the Airport….Posted by Jeanne Adams Mar 9 2011, 5:01 am in airports, Jeanne Adams, travel  This weekend, I was at the RWA Board meeting in Austin, Texas. Now, this isn’t the topic of my blog and if you’re interested in what we did, grab a look at the RWA Hot Sheet on the website.
No, what I want to talk about is travel. Yes. Travel. We’re all thinking about it, I know…..Going to conferences, RWA National included, or thinking longingly of Easter/Passover visiting, Spring Break or summer vacations ahead. Are you flying? Now don’t wince. This isn’t a diatribe about flying either. I do NOT love to go through security, but I’m fairly tolerant of all the nutso rules and regs. I’ve mailed my beloved Swiss Army Knife home to myself at least three times, thrown away perfectly good bottles of water, Diet Coke, Milk, etc. right at the gate of security, let them confiscate my nail polish (a gorgeous OPI color too!) when the no-liquids rule first went into effect, and all that insane stuff.
What I’m not fond of? All alcohol and caffeinated drinks on a five-hour flight and no food. (Can you say “belligerent passengers”?) Running through Atlanta’s airport. That is one airport you just CANNOT run through. The floors are too slick, the train too slow. Impossible. Memphis ain’t real fun either, as I can attest from this weekend!
My cousin is a flight attendant. Some of the stories she can tell would curly your hair if it were straight and straighten it to board straight if it were curly. She also tells wonderful stories of meeting Phyllis Dillar (the life of the show, even on board an aircraft), and other celebrities, most of whom behaved beautifully. Grins. It’s a hard job, being a service person on an airline, who really is there to protect you. They serve as “staff” but their real job is to be there, be on the front line, when there’s a problem. To handle it, to keep people safe, to make sure everyone gets off alive. Daunting thought, especially when faced with a whole planeful of drunk or over-caffienated, over-salted, tired, cranky, “I’m-sitting-next-to-a-screaming-toddler-who’s-mother-is-sleeping one-row-up” people. They pat and soothe and get stern, and issue alerts and warning and somehow balance that frickin’ heavy cart in high winds down the center of the aisle and still manage to pour coffee without spilling it.
Then there’s the weird shops in airports, like the Braves Shop in Atlanta – hey ya’ll, the Season opens in 3 weeks! Go BRAVES!!! And the weird souvenirs that come with travel. I’m always fascinated with the stuffed armadillos in Texas, the giant guitars in Memphis, the Cubs, White Sox, Bulls, and Blackhawks mania in O’Hare, and New York’s Rolex clocks. So tell me your travel stories, good and bad. What do you HAVE to have with you when you travel? Pillow? Eye mask? Magazines? What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen in an airport? (For me, it’s a chiropracter adjusting his girlfriend on the floor of the waiting area) What’s the strangest thing you’ve carried home on an airplane?
Strangest thing you ever brought home for the family as a souvenier. OH!! And if you’re traveling – or even if Arches and I Don’t Mean GoldenPosted by admin Mar 6 2011, 6:36 pm in Aunty Cindy explains it all for you, travel posted by Loucinda McGary aka Aunty Cindy A few months ago, the DH and I took a little jaunt to celebrate our anniversary. This time around we stayed pretty close to home, only a few states away. We went to Arches National Park near Moab, Utah and close to the Utah/Colorado border. As anyone who knows Aunty will attest, she is NOT an outdoorsy type. But the sights at Arches were just too spectacular to view strictly from the car window. Within an hour of our arrival in the park, I actually found myself doing something I literally had not done in years –HIKING! But there was just no other way to see these fabulous rock formations, which are unlike anything I’ve ever seen anywhere else. Here are a few of my piccies so you can see what I mean: The Windows One of the most famous formations in Arches National Park. Individually they are the South Window (on the left in this picture) and the North Window. They, and all the other fantastic rock formations in the park are the result of wind and water erosion over hundreds of thousands of years. I’m standing about 100 yards down the hill so that I can fit the whole thing in. And yes, it was a stunning day, as evidenced by the clouds and blue sky behind the South Window. Delicate Arch Probably the most photographed and therefore the most famous of all the formations in Arches is this one. Also called “Bloomers” or “Cowboy Chaps” for obvious reasons. I viewed it from a very long distance and let the DH hike the extremely steep three mile trail for a closer look. Delicate Arch stands 52 feet (or 16 meters) tall, and sits all by itself on the edge of a rocky plateau in the absolute middle of nowhere. This photo does not do the bright red and orange coloring of the arch justice. It is absolutely striking (even through binoculars down in the parking lot)!
This is the longest arch in the park, and I’ll have to take DH’s word that this is it. Once again, I stayed behind and read a book while he make the arduous hike through the Devil’s Garden to view this arch and the other formations. It does look like the other pictures I’ve seen of it, so I guess I can trust his word that this is the genuine article. One of the rangers told us that ten or fifteen years ago, a piece of rock cracked and fell from the center of Landscape Arch. Luckily it happened at a time when very few tourists were around and nobody was hurt! The Three Gossips Finally, a formation that is not an arch. The guide book described these gigantic pillars that look like over-sized human figures as the Three Gossips. I personally thought they resembled the Three Wise Men of New Testament fame. Or perhaps three ancient Egyptian dieties. The park is full of pillar type formations. Some of them were undoubtedly arches whose middles collapsed. Other formations look like giant ships or castles. I won’t bore you with any more of my less-than stellar photos. If you check Google Images, you’ll see many fabulous ones. Better yet, take a trip to Arches National Park yourself. Aunty guarantees you won’t regret it! When you travel, what is your favorite destination? City or great outdoors? Foreign or domestic? Same place different day or some place entirely new? Croozin’ and Schmoozin’Posted by Anna Campbell Jan 5 2011, 5:02 am in Anna Campbell, Banditas at Large, New Zealand, travel
Happy New Year!!!! Hey, guys, I promised you a report on New Zealand and also some photos so here goes! If after this deluge of photos, you’d like to see some more, please check out the My Favorite Things page of my website where there are MORE! Oh, and I’m blogging on the 11th January on Tote Bags ‘n’ Blogs about the beautiful botanical gardens in Wellington so if you want pictures of rainforest plants and roses, check that out too.
I really enjoyed shipboard life. Everybody was tremendously friendly and I spent way too much time in the cocktail bar. And food! Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, they feed you on the boat like it’s going out of style! It’s a very relaxing way to travel – you can do precisely as much as you feel like doing. And it was wonderful to see so many people reading as I wandered around the decks (well, perhaps lurched – take note of the cocktail comment above!).
Our hosts greeted us with a traditional welcome when we arrived. Very impressive! Then they whisked us off for a lake cruise on Lake Rotomahana where we got to see how incredibly unsettled this landscape still is. After the cruise, we did a walk through the landscape. I kept expecting a dinosaur or two to pop out and say hello. It was definitely primeval!
Our first stop on the South Island was Christchurch which was rocked by a major earthquake in 2010. Hmm, the whole volcanic thing is turning into a theme, isn’t it? I didn’t spend very much time in Christchurch itself although the drive through its main streets indicates they’ve done a great job of cleaning up what was obviously a major disaster.
Sadly, none of my photos of this trip really do it justice! But take my word for it, it was beautiful! Our last port was Dunedin which was the only place where we had rotten weather. I’d always wanted to see an albatross and so immediately signed up for a wildlife cruise to the only mainland nesting colony in the world for these majestic birds.
No comment! Anyway, photowise I thought I’d skip to what scenically was the highlight of the trip – Fiordland National Park on the bottom west corner of the South Island.
We visited Dusky Sound, Doubtful Sound and Milford Sound – that’s the one with the icy glaciers in the photo.
Definitely a day that I’ll treasure in my memory forever. Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed this long but very pictorial glimpse of my recent travels. As I said, the day in the fiords was heavenly, almost too good to be true. Have you had a travel day that was like that? Just a perfect day that lives in your memory with that special golden glow? I’d love to swap travelers’ tales with you today! Lugging the Luggage on a Lugger…Posted by Anna Campbell Dec 10 2010, 5:10 am in Anna Campbell, Five Things, New Zealand, travel, writer's life
..to a Desert Island! When this post comes up into the light of the lair, I’ll be heading for the end of my wonderful two-week cruise on the ‘Pacific Dawn’ (that’s it on the left) to New Zealand. I’m so excited about this. In return for giving a couple of talks about romance writing, I get a free cruise. How cool is that?
I even went wild and bought a digital camera for the trip. It takes me forever to adopt new technology – which may turn out to be the subject of a future blog. Perhaps called Lugging the Luddite! I’ll be stoked if I take a shot as pretty as the one of New Zealand’s South Island on the right! Isn’t that beautiful? Wow!
So as I started putting out all this stuff that I’m taking with me, I wondered what were the five things I’d take to a desert island. And I came up with:
2. A year’s worth of Smith’s potato chips, especially barbecue flavor 3. Sunscreen 4. 50 cases of champagne (hmm, I’m starting to like the sound of this island!) 5. MOBY DICK. Because while Richard is off catching dinner, I might actually read it in the absence of other entertainment OK, what five things would you take to a desert island? Oh, and if you want the Banditas as company, we count as one item. Oh, man, perhaps I should take the Banditas and their cohorts instead of MOBY DICK. We’d have a WHALE of a time!
Thank you so much for all your wonderful support during the year. And thank you to all my wonderful Bandita sisters. You and the Bandita buddies are definitely something I give thanks for, not just today which happens to be Thanksgiving, but every minute of the year. See you all next year! Oh, and now for the bad news – I’m not sure what email access I’ll have on the ship so I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to respond to comments. But hey, guys, party on!
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