COLORADO: Days 7 and 8
DAY 7: I had a VERY bad experience at the Dump Station. I do NOT want to talk about it. DAY 8: I stayed at a hotel.
COLORADO: Days 5 and 6
Kebler Pass: This scenic byway has its own Tripadvisor page: 5-stars. I had wondered if I should really take the camper up and over this winding road, but after I learned that the Cottonwood Pass was closed…
COLORADO: Days 3 and 4
I arrived a bit later than planned at campsite #2: State Forest State Park, a place so nice they (almost) named it twice. This little campground had gotten good reviews online…
Colorado Road Trip Begins
What do you do when you’ve had 4 hours of sleep and then 12 hours in transit to reach the first stage of your Rocky Mountain solo road trip, to find yourself in the middle of a summer hail storm?
Japan and China, July 2016: Nanning
The last days of our trip were spent in Nanning, the town — the very same hotel — where we first held Anna in our arms. It has been 14 years since that day in 2002, and 7 years since…
Yangtze River Cruise
This is the longest river in China and the third longest in the world, with the largest dam in the world. There were no permanent bridges across it until 1957; today there are 76 bridges across the Yangtze, including 3…
How To House a Billion People
I find it difficult to convey my awe at the forest of residential high rises that dominate every city in China. Every city, for miles before and miles after we pass through it by train. Row after row after row….
Night and Day
Japan and China are such radically different countries that it’s a real culture shock having gone from one to the other. Before trying to describe the China we are experiencing (with, granted, our own cultural biases), I want to remember…
Last Days in Tokyo
We arrived in Shanghai two days ago, and I immediately had the sense, à la Dorothy and Toto: We’re not in Tokyo anymore. For one thing, I had to smuggle this post out of China. I use Blogger, a Google…
Shop ’til Mom Drops
I held on as long as I could, but to give you a sense of the full sensory overload: Yet another Pokemon store. This one had just had its “Grand Open” [sic] two days earlier. And also, bunnies (look up…