Let me first say congratulations to the Boston Red Sox. The better team won and if I didn’t love the Dodgers, I would have rooted for the Red Sox. They are an impressive team.
So I survived the longest World Series Game in history. I even left with a smile on my face. It was the single most intense professional sports event I have ever experienced – On television or in person.
Books and travel, travel and bookstores, they go together like peanut butter & jelly, cracker and jacks and iced tea on a hot summer day. I have been an avid reader my whole life and since I started the blog I have learned to combine my reading life with my travel life. As part of every itinerary, I look for local bookstores when I visit a new city. Do you do that?
This passion for connecting my travel destinations and my readerly needs has gotten stronger and stronger now that I have so much more time to read. When my children were young and we were so busy with school and sports activities, I was lucky to read a book a month. But now, I can plan my reading life, explore more and even try to pair books with my upcoming destinations. And there’s more…
In just a few days, Alexandra, our oldest child, will be a bride walking down the aisle, thirty-four years to the day that I did. Did I know three and a half decades ago that our daughter would be getting married on the same day as we were? No, of course not.
Is the Newport Beach Wine and Food Festival on your entertainment radar? Why did it take us five years to put this event on our travel schedule? It was a dreamy experience where we could celebrate our passion for upscale dining and supporting local restaurants and wineries. What better way to investigate the best of what Orange County has to offer than by nibbling and sipping in the same place? Under vast white tents and flanked by cars from Range Rover and Jaguar, this event was over-the-top fantastic.
Every Labor Day weekend, The Los Angeles Times holds their annual food and wine festival and it is uniquely Los Angeles. Aptly named The Taste, this fabulous culinary bash at Paramount Studios is the place to nibble and celebrate all of the culinary talent here in Southern California.
For the first time, The Taste food fest will continue for one more weekend in Costa Mesa, CA on October 19-21. Check the highlighted link above for the details.
As a fourth generation Los Angeleno, I am especially proud and excited to indulge and taste the eclectic food possibilities unique to our city. It is our fifth time attending this spectacular event and we mark our calendars way ahead of time to make sure we are available. We chose to attend on Saturday evening, but The Taste LA actually began Friday evening with the Opening Party and there is one more party on Sunday evening.
Yes, it’s true, the Los Angeles Times is packing up and moving from Downtown Los Angeles. The new owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, announced in April, that he is vacating their historic, architecturally significant home and taking The Times to El Segundo because he could not reach a satisfactory lease agreement. The new building is just about twenty miles (but a long commute) from Downtown. The landowners wanted to increase the rent by $1 million per month. Wow!
This news came as a huge shock to the employees of the newspaper and Los Angeles history will be forever changed. The fearless leader of our Happy Hour Hiking Club, author and columnist Chris Erskine, has worked for the LA Times for twenty-eight years and he was able to arrange a special tour for us just before they all left for good.
Trying to decide what to see in Seattle is a major challenge, but a fantastic problem to have! The city is so amazing and there are so many tasty restaurants, picturesque spots and fun bars. Time and again many friends and colleagues ask me where to go and where to eat in Seattle. These personal recommendations are our absolute favorites and are places we go on a regular basis. This list does not include every single touristy activity – you can get those from another travel site or guide book. Of course there are several insanely great shopping areas (Downtown and University Village are our favorites) and a visit to the Flagship Nordstrom is a must.
Happy Friday! If you missed it…You can find this week’s post about == > How to Stay Fit When You Travel ===> HERE My Friday Roundup: Links to Awesome Stories You Have Probably Not Seen. Don’t you love it when someone else does the work? OMGee 20 Books everyone ill be talking about this Summer! …
The magical drive up the rocky California Coast should be on everyone’s adventure list and anytime of year is the perfect time to go. As a native Californian, I have been making this drive since I was a youngster and my husband and I have been vacationing in Carmel for at least 30 years. We have stayed here during every season and they all offer something different.
So I decided to do a quick year in review, not to boast about how many places I have been, but to unpack, pause and appreciate what can be accomplished through thoughtful planning, careful research, great relationships, accumulated miles and points and the best dog sitter in the world!
I started the year with knee surgery on Jan 6th, so the pace of the travel was slow in the beginning, but it quickly picked up in early March. I may not have been fully recovered but we had adventures to take, people to see and places to go. There was no sitting around.
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