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Oh Canada!

The favorable exchange rate for the American dollar not only extends to Europe. If you haven’t looked lately, $1 US will now fetch $1.25 in Canada. I haven’t seen an exchange rate like that since I was at an Expos game. If the exorbitant flights to Europe limit your options to the continent, especially if you want to travel as a family, head north. I’m already planning to go to Nova Scotia in early June and Montreal and the Eastern Townships in October. I’m also heading to the Canada Media Marketplace next week in New York, where I’ll be learning about all the new travel opportunities in the country. I’ve had the good fortune to travel extensively around Canada, biking around Niagara-on-the-Lake and Prince Edward Island, hiking in Cape Breton and the glorious Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland, savoring the charming town of St. Andrews in New Brunswick and the resplendent beauty of Salt Spring Island in BC, going on such memorable adventures as whitewater rafting down the Klinaklini River in BC, a multi-sport vacation with the family in the Canadian Rockies, or canoeing through Ontario’s remote Wabakimi Wilderness, and loving my time in the cities while vintage shopping in Toronto and eating my way though Vancouver. If you need me to point you in the right direction, I’m happy to help! 

 

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Choice Music Cuts of 2010

Most people think the life of a travel writer is glamorous. Realistically, I’m only on the road a quarter of the year. The rest of my time is spent chained to a desk cranking out stories on my third-floor home office in solitude. To overcome my hermetic existence, I crank up the tunes. In fact, I savor music far more than literature, with most of my day listening to iTunes and Pandora. One of my favorite times of the year is when the Boston Globe music critics put out their list of top CDs. In the past, I found favorites like Passion Pit and Jamie Lidell on this list. This year, there are some strong Jazz songs like young trumpeter Erik Telford and his smoking groove, “Kinetic.” Also good is the live sax playing of the Sherman Irby Quarter. Check out the tune “Bohemia After Dark.” R&B and Electronica were pretty weak this year, though I did like “Locked Inside” from Janelle Monae’s first CD and “Low Shoulders” from the chillhouse sounds of Toro y Moi.

The strongest genre by far was hip-hop. Forgot about all the airplay Eminem, Kanye, and Drake receive. Listen to “Famous” by Curren$y, “Leaders” by Nas and Damian Marley, “Angels” from Diddy’s surprisingly good “Last Train to Paris” release, and Big Boi’s “Night Night.” However, my choice for album of the year goes to Rick Ross and his “Teflon Don.” Listen to the symphonic “Maybach Music III,” featuring my girl Erykah Badu, and just wait for Ross to come in at the end with that take-no-prisoners voice. Oh yeah, I’m ready to kick some ass.

As always, thanks for checking in. I’ll be back with my “Top 5 Adventures in 2010” on January 3rd.  Wishing You a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous 2011!

 

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Favorite Fall Outings in New England, Visiting Weir Farm, Connecticut

Sort of ironic that the only time I’ve ever been published in National Parks Magazine, the National Parks are closed due to a government shutdown. When congress gets their act together, be sure to visit the 60-acre Weir Farm National Historic Site. This serene pastoral setting in southeastern Connecticut, an hour’s drive from Manhattan, is home to the only national park unit devoted to American painting. Century-old barns and a homestead still stand, stone walls are built around fields of swaying grass, and a large pond is lost in a canopy of tall maples and birches. They would become the fodder for J. Alden Weir’s ambitious body of work. Weir’s early paintings reflect an appreciation for the scenery of rural life—dogs sleeping in the tall grass, his wife Anna sitting on the steps that lead to the house. By the latter half of the 1880s, he began to show an interest in painting landscapes, possibly due to the influence of his friends and fellow painters, Childe Hassam and John Twachtman, who often visited the farm to fish and paint the grounds. These weren’t the grand theatrical landscapes of his American predecessors, Thomas Cole and Frederick Church, but intimate portrayals of pasture, thickets of trees, barns, and meandering stone walls. Have a look and don’t forget the sketchbook. 

 
Photo by Tim Washer/FLICKR
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Lake George Week, A Landscape That Inspired Georgia O’Keeffe

In the mid-90s, I was hired by Art & Antiques Magazine to write a story on the period of time painter Georgia O’Keeffe and her husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz, lived on the shores of Lake George. This was to coincide with a photography exhibition of Stieglitz’s work at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. I knew renowned abstract sculptor David Smith lived in Bolton Landing, but I honestly had no idea O’Keeffe lived in Lake George, since she’s far better known for her New Mexican motif. From 1918 to 1934, O’Keeffe would spend a good portion of her summer at the lake. She would return to Lake George for the last time in 1946 to spread Stieglitz’s ashes at the foot of a pine tree on the shores of the lake. Today, those ashes lie on the grounds of the Tahoe Motel. Next door, the house they lived in, Oaklawn, is still standing at The Quarters of the Four Seasons Inn. On a wall next to my desk, I have a poster of a dreamy mountain and lake landscape simply titled Lake George (1922). My brother, Jim, purchased this for me at the San Francisco Museum of Art, where the original O’Keeffe oil still hangs. 

O’Keeffe wasn’t the only artist inspired by the majestic Lake George landscape. In the 1860s, most of the noteworthy Hudson River School painters, including Thomas Cole and Jasper Cropsey, descended on the shores of the lake to put oil to canvas. Exquisite works by 19th-century American landscape painters like Albert Bierstadt and William Merritt Chase can be found at the Hyde Collection, a gem of a museum in nearby Glens Falls. I returned to the Italian Renaissance-style villa yesterday, only to be blown away once again by the bounty of impressive works that include paintings by Rembrandt, Botticelli, Raphael, El Greco, Rubens, Renoir, and Picasso.
 
A special treat was an exhibition on contemporary sculptor Larry Kagan. Kagan twists tubes of steel into abstract shapes that, when illuminated, project shadows on the wall into images of a bald eagle or a stilletto. I love the images that pay homage to artists Andy Warhol and Keith Herring. Bring the kids–this is an exhibition for all ages to enjoy. Much has been made about the reopening of the Clark Art Institute this summer in nearby Williamstown, Massachusetts. Art lovers should make one additional stop to tour the Hyde. You’ll be happy I sent you! 
 
 
 
 
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Driving Avenue of the Giants

It’s been called the finest forest drive in the world, a 32-mile stretch of road that winds through 17,000 acres of old-growth redwood forest. The Avenue of the Giants is the primary reason people from all over the globe visit California’s Humboldt County. After experiencing the route yesterday, I can easily say that you should put it on your travel wish list, without hesitation! As soon as you veer off Highway 101 onto Avenue of the Giants (Exit 674 from the north) and stop to pick up a map, get out of the car and lost on a trail surrounded by these gargantuan patriarchs of the forest. Covered in shaggy bark with trunks the size of a Dodge Ram, you look up and it’s impossible to see the tops of these trees piercing the blue skies. At the next stop, the Drury-Chaney Grove, my brother, Jim, and I climbed atop a fallen redwood, some 15 feet above the ground, and walked a good 50 meters on that same tree. Mind-blowing. It’s hard not to feel Lilliputian dwarfed by these mega-sized giants rising from a carpet of ferns. The tall redwoods hug the road, allowing only a splinter of sunlight into the dark forest as you drive along the route. In Myers Flat, you get to take that iconic shot of driving a car through the roots of a redwood at the Drive-Thru Tree. With an opening only 7-foot wide, it was ideally suited for our Toyota Corolla rental, inches to spare on either side. 
 
Ten miles south of the southern end of the Avenue of the Giants, right off Highway 101, is one of California’s classic retreats, the Benbow Inn. Open in the summer of 1926, the Tudor estate on the shores of the Eel River soon attracted such Hollywood elite as Clark Gable and Joan Fontaine, and other luminaries like Eleanor Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover. Today, it’s still the premier address in the region, ideally suited for folks who made the 4-hour drive from San Francisco. Ask for Room 109 and you’ll get a private patio with two redwoods sprouting up from the deck, and a view of the arched stone bridge, built in 1932. Owner John Porter is a wine aficionado, so expect your dinner of nearby Shelter Cove salmon or locally sourced rack of lamb to be washed down with some of the finest wines coming out of Napa, Sonoma, even Humboldt County. 
 
 
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Go Dutch

I just received this promo from the Netherlands Board of Tourism. Starting a week from today, February 4th, you can click on www.holland.com and enter to win such prizes as a monthly delivery of fresh tulips for a year, a Dutch bicycle, an iconic piece of Dutch furniture, even a diamond made in Amsterdam. The biggest prize is two round trip, KLM business class tickets to Amsterdam, given to the person who sends in the most creative photograph under the heading “Just be. In Holland.” While there, take that Dutch bicycle on the country’s increasingly popular biking and barge trips. The beauty of these bike trips is that unlike a typical inn-to-inn biking trip, you don’t have to pack your bags every morning to check in at the new night’s lodging. The barge follows you along the route, so you’ll be staying in the same berth the entire trip.
 

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Holiday Gift Idea No. 1—The Wojo Wallet

When the temperature hit 60 degrees on Sunday, I decided to go for one last bike ride in 2014. I always bring my license on any of my adventures, just in case I slip down the crevice of a mountain on a hike or a text-sending teenager on a bike ride flattens me. I hate taking a thick wallet, so when I found out about the Wojo Wallet, I quickly snagged one. The thin neoprene sleeve is sweat and waterproof, so it actually floats on water. No wonder, it’s already a big hit with surfers, fishermen, and people hanging on the beach who want to go for a swim and don’t trust leaving their wallet behind. I love it because it’s thin enough to hold my credit cards, license, key, and cash when I’m out for a ride. Cost is $12.95. Add $2 if you want to add your college colors. 

 

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