Vermont Week, Mountain Biking the Kingdom Trails

This past July, I had the pleasure of staying at the JW Marriott Ihilani Resort with the family on Oahu’s blossoming leeward coast. Part of the umbrella Ko Olina Resort (which also includes Disney’s Aulani and Marriott’s Ko Olina Beach Club), this is the quiet side of the island. We snorkeled with wild dolphins straight from the Ko Olina marina, saw the ring of Saturn one night stargazing through a powerful telescope, listened to live Hawaiian ukulele music on the beach, and dined at some of the finest restaurants on the island including Roy Yamaguchi and Peter Merriman’s Ko Olina outposts.
All trips to Greece should end with a sunset cruise aboard a private boat in the sublime Santorini caldera, a mesmerizing mix of aquamarine waters, jagged volcanic islands, and the whitewashed houses on the island clinging precariously to the cliffs. Add the reddish/orange/pink orb of a sun melting into the sea, shading this scene with the full spectrum of color, paired with a glass of crisp Santorini wine, and you have a fitting ending to a memorable trip. It took me 25 years to return to Greece and I hope I don’t make that mistake again. In the meantime, I’ll certainly be selling the experience with passion to the members of ActiveTravels. I want to thank John Cagle at Heritage Tours for designing an ambitious itinerary. We packed a lot into a one-week trip.
Having spent half my childhood listening to Pink Floyd on my headphones, I’m incredibly excited by the following news. Starting tomorrow at London’s V&A Museum is a blockbuster exhibition on the band titled “Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains.” The show traces Pink Floyd’s origins from the 60s London psychedelic scene, when they were house band at the UFO nightclub, through landmark albums like “The Dark Side of the Moon” and “The Wall.” On display are scores of instruments, letters, items of clothing and other artifacts, as well as some impressively large installations, like a replica of London’s Battersea Power Station, the structure that appears with the flying pig on the cover of the band’s 1977 album “Animals.” Yes, the pig is also on display. There’s a hint of nostalgia to the show, which comes 50 years after the release of Pink Floyd’s first album, “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn,” recorded at Abbey Road Studios the same time The Beatles were creating “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” in the next room. The exhibition will be at the V&A through October 1st.
It’s easy to pen a story about being on safari in Kenya or driving Italy’s Amalfi Coast. But if I look back at the scope of my 23-year career as a travel writer, the articles I’m most proud of writing are the ones that occurred after tragedy. Writing about New York after 9/11, New Orleans after Katrina, Detroit bouncing back from the latest recession. I feel like I’m doing my part in the travel world to bring much needed revenue to a destination that genuinely needs your love and assistance. As I’ve often mentioned in this blog, the best way to support a country or city is to bring your hard earned money to that locale and spend it. So this week I turn my attention to my hometown of Boston. Last Monday, my wife and I went to the marathon to cheer on the lead runners and then returned home to watch the Red Sox win in the bottom of the 9th. A perfect day, sunny and slightly cool, much like today, a great day to run a marathon. Then in a moment, everything was shattered. Adding insult to injury was that this was vacation week in the Boston area. So instead of heading over to the MFA or Newbury Street with the kids, we were stuck in lockdown, waiting for the captives to be arrested. Thankfully, May, my favorite month in Boston, is just around the corner. I love walking the Public Garden, where the hundreds of colorful tulips can’t help but boost spirits. If you want to support Boston, follow in my footsteps and dine in nearby Back Bay, the neighborhood that was hit the hardest from this week of terror. This week, I’ll be writing only about my favorite things to do in Boston as my heart and prayers go out to all the victims of this shocking tragedy.
Yesterday, I received a call from an editor of an auto magazine in Detroit, wanting me to rent a Chevy Malibu in Boston and drive to Washington, DC. A photographer will be joining me to take shots. She wants me to describe the drive. Okay, not exactly the most scenic stretch of highway in America, especially when you’re passing the chemical plants in northern New Jersey. I’ve been a travel writer for 20 years, so I’ve had my fair share of absurd assignments. The worst was a request from Men’s Journal to backpack along a stretch of the Mojave Desert with a guy who was designing a long-distance Desert Trail though the Western states. I had to backpack in with over 30 pounds of water and my own blend of dehydrated food. The heat was brutal and the only signs of civilization I saw were deflated balloons hanging from the cacti. You want to know where your kid’s helium balloons go when they lose them? This forgotten hellhole. By the third day, my feet were covered with blisters, my supply of water was sucked dry, and the tape in my trusty microcassette recorder had melted. The editor ended up cutting my 1500-word story to 500 words due to space limitations. But I did better than the photographer I was traveling with, who had to schlep in his heavy camera equipment on top of the water. They didn’t accept any of his work. Must have been that glaring sun.