Chinese New Year? Remembering my Beijing visit, April 2005
January 04, 2014 While the garden sleeps I thought I’d start off the New Year with a post about the most foreign place I’ve ever visited: China. (Tanzania in Africa might have won that distinction but for the fact that I was on a guided tour and mostly in national ...
California coastline, Point Lobos wildflowers, and Stinson Beach
August 20, 2013 Northern California is home not only to one of the most beautiful cities in the world but also to breathtaking natural scenery. During our family vacation in San Francisco in early July, following the Garden Bloggers Fling, we rented a car on two occasions in order to ...
Surfing the Wave Garden: San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling
July 18, 2013 Our last stop before dinner on the 1st day of the San Francisco Garden Bloggers Fling was the aptly named Wave Garden, a Bay-hugging, terraced garden — all curving, terracotta-tinted paths, wavy metalwork, and a cascade of colorful, exotic plants from South Africa, Australia, and other frost-free ...
Santa Barbara street painting festival, Old Mission, and jacarandas
June 13, 2013 Santa Barbara’s 23rd annual I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival was held Memorial Day weekend on the plaza in front of the Old Mission. We stopped by on that Monday to see both. A crowd was gathering under bright-blue skies to watch the artists — the madonnari ...
Vancouver orca-watching expedition with killer whale views
September 04, 2011 After the magical orca-watching experience from shore on San Juan Island, we doubted we could top it, even though we’d already reserved a whale-watching expedition in Vancouver, British Columbia, the final stop on our Pacific Northwest vacation last month. And we were right. It was more incredible ...
Orcas, eagles & scenic views in the San Juan Islands
August 30, 2011 A chilly, misty, 6 a.m. ferry ride across the Rosario Strait late last month spirited me and my family from Anacortes, north of bustling Seattle, to charming Friday Harbor on San Juan Island, part of the archipelago known as the San Juan Islands of Washington State. Easily ...
Everglades National Park: A beautiful, mysterious waterworld
March 23, 2010 Anhingas and flowering bromeliads in the Everglades, Florida On telling friends that we were planning to visit Everglades National Park, my husband and I found that raised eyebrows and wrinkled noses were the most common responses. Why visit a bug-infested swamp, they asked. We have a thing ...
Florida Keys, a subtropical paradise
March 19, 2010 Midway in our recent road trip through the Sunshine State, we spontaneously decided to visit the Florida Keys, a series of islands extending into the Gulf of Mexico for 127 miles, traversable via the Overseas Highway and ending in Key West, the southernmost point in the continental ...
Sunset at the beach
July 12, 2009 Our summer vacation this year is happening a lot closer to home than the Magical History Tour of last summer. Specifically, the back-yard pool. But while in Houston this weekend, visiting my sister and her family, we took a day trip to Galveston to give the kids ...
