Two Writers, 50 States, Endless Stories
Posted in Discuss, Do, Go, Montana, Texas, Three-fer Friday, Wyoming on Jul 31st, 2009
Pretty soon everyone is going to be talking about our national parks; Ken Burns’ latest project is a six-parter called The National Parks: America’s Best Idea and will debut on PBS on September 27.
We’ll be watching, for sure, but in the meantime we decided to get a jump on the chatter with our own national [...]
Posted in Discuss, Eat and Drink on Jul 30th, 2009
My husband Tom’s from Chicago, I’m from New York City, we live in Texas and haven’t been to the supermarket this week. We’re running out of everything, including tortillas. So last night’s dinner turned into a metaphor–a little bit of this and a little bit of that for a quintessentially American cultural crossover: Leftover brisket [...]
Life in Miles City, Montana, revolves around horses. Head from I-90 into town and you’ll likely pass a cowboy running some errands by horse. On the near side of Main Street, east of the old train trestle, you can still spot some old businesses with hitching posts out front. The town’s annual and rollicking Bucking [...]
Posted in Arizona, Do, Eat and Drink, Go on Jul 27th, 2009
Monday nights on the road are strange beasts. With most locals eating dinner at home, working late, or watching TV to block out thoughts of all that week left ahead, restaurants and other usually-fun stuff feels blah, lifeless. I always feel most out of step with wherever I am on a Monday night. I don’t [...]
Posted in Alaska, California, Colorado, Go, Massachusetts, Montana, Ohio, Stay, Tennessee, Texas, Three-fer Friday, Utah on Jul 24th, 2009
With apologies to Tina Fey for, above, bastardizing her character’s now famous line, here, the hotels/B&Bs/other-places-with-beds-that-aren’t-our-homes that we would like to move into permanently.
Jenna’s Picks
Few hotels–if any–merge whimsy, history, and upscale delights like Boston’s Liberty Hotel, which is partially housed in a former jail. I would spend my Saturday mornings doing Yoga in the [...]
Posted in Discuss on Jul 23rd, 2009
Flying out of big airports these days can be so impersonal—the ticketing kiosks, those different boarding groups, and the newsstand cashiers that hardly speak English. With the same Cinnabons and Starbucks, the big boys also look and feel the same.
Perhaps this is why I love departing and arriving at the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County [...]
Posted in Alaska, Discuss, Maine, Massachusetts on Jul 21st, 2009
It was best to stand with your heels hanging off the edge of the concrete, your toes just touching the metal of the vent. We pushed our faces forward a bit to catch the stream of air escaping the vent behind the library at Boston University. It smelled of books. It was the condensed version [...]
Posted in Discuss, Indiana, Listen, Michigan, Watch on Jul 20th, 2009
A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I got a gal, in Kalamazoo.
Don’t know that song? Do yourself a favor and burn eight minutes on the video clip below. Delicious. (And if you bail before the Nicholas Brothers go into their dance, we can’t be friends anymore.)
How could any place with a whimsical, singable name like Kalamazoo be mean? But according to [...]
No greater test of friendship exists than a six-day road trip in a 32-foot RV (or, if you prefer the industry lingo, motorhome). In college, I would have named seeing my best friend start dating the love of my life/cute boy down the hall (drama, blurgh) as the end-all be-all of friendship tests but that? [...]
Posted in Eat and Drink, Go on Jul 15th, 2009
Summertime in Bar Harbor, Maine, can only mean one thing: Lobster ice cream at Ben & Bill’s Chocolate Emporium.
Yes, you read that right—lobster ice cream. For those of you scoring at home, the frozen wonder comprises butter-flavored ice cream with bits and chunks of honest-to-goodness boiled lobster meat.
Once or twice a month (depending on demand, [...]
