Guest Patrol

As a member of a generation commonly referred to as a “Baby Boomer,” I have grown up genuinely expecting the world to improve with time. Things might have been tough at different stages in my life but I had faith. With a bit of hard work and determination, payday would eventually come in the form of being able to travel and see the world for myself. It seems I am not the only one with these dreams because according to industry sources, Baby Boomers spend $157 billion each year on travel. With children educated, mortgages nearly paid off and retirement looming on the horizon, we are cashed up and have travel dreams – “our bucket list”- to fulfill.

What exactly is a heurigen? It’s Austria’s answer to a beer garden - only with wine. A heurigen is one of the best places to sample regional wines and delicious simple home-made cuisine and true “Gemütlichkeit ” - warmth and coziness. Heuriger means “this year” and heurigens began when Emperor Joseph II allowed vintners to sell their new wine directly to customers without any taxes. Families set up tables in their vineyards, gardens and cellars, and hung a wreath made of straw or evergreens as a signal that they were open and ready to serve their family wines.

At any rate, the official Launch of “Blackberry Pie Murder” was at Powell’s Cedar Creek Crossing in Beaverton, Oregon. This is a really cool bookstore and… can you say a really big bookstore? It is almost 3,500 square feet of pure delight: filled with half-a-MILLION books and Book accessories, and if that weren’t enough, many other strange and wonderful things that you never KNEW that you needed, but for which you have been desperately searching for YEARS.

Yeeeeehaw!

Austin, Texas-    What can you say about a town that has a Nightclub sign stating: “3 Floors, 2 Patios, Fireplace, COME DRINK”, and another on a deserted parking lot wall proclaiming, “Music saved my Black-Hearted Soul”? The latter was adorned with a graphic of Joan Jett – she of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts fame (the maiden faire who starred in oh-so-many of my adolescent, late-night fantasies).

There are certainly not many times in life, if ever, that you are looking forward to taking yourself to jail.  But in this case, that is exactly what a happy group of 5 did on a beautiful Sunday in August.  After many, many, many, weekends of rain, Rod, Kathy, Chuck, Chris, and Jeff gathered for a long and beautiful motorcycle ride to a small Brandenburg, KY, jailhouse.

Blog #2 : The Pre Launch Party

(Yes, I know… I know, this should have been the first blog I wrote for BoomerTravelPatrol.com; but hey… nobody said I was the writer in the family)

Anyway, here we go!

Held at the beautiful “Grand Ballroom” at the Canoga Park Elks Lodge # 2190 in Canoga Park Ca, this preview party was just way too much fun. A very homey and friendly small-town feel meet and great, the party was the perfect kick-off for the “Blackberry Pie Murder”- the #17 in the Hannah Swensen Mystery Series- for Hannah Swensen, (Joanne Fluke’s cookie-baking, coffee-shop-owning, murder-solving title character) and all of her “Hannah-Maniacs” and “Fans O’ Hannah” from all over the country.

“One” should, (and by “One”, I mean John Fluke - as in John Fluke should… Strike that… I mean John Fluke REALLY should) have learned by now to be careful what “One” wishes for; especially, when said Authors’ latest book in her Cozy Mystery series (from the beloved Hannah Swensen Mysteries series,) entitled “BlackBerry Pie Murder”, has just hit #7 on the New York Times Best-Seller list - with a bullet- and she gets it in her head to go on a 21 city North American tour, dragging “One” with her!

While on a family emergency trip to Beaumont, Texas, we had the fortune of finding the Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen which was at the same exit as our hotel.  Pappadeaux’s is a small chain based out of Houston, Texas.  The restaurant concept was founded by the Pappas brothers who have created a group of different small restaurant chains that serve seafood, Italian cuisine, Mexican cuisine, steaks, BBQ and burgers. They had their start in Houston in 1967 with the opening of The Brisket House in Houston.

For my birthday this November I asked my husband for a trip to Niagara Falls, Canada.  Although we’ve traveled extensively during our married life, have lived in 8 states, we’d never been to the falls.  We enjoy driving because we can take our time and think it’s a fun way to learn about our country.  So, even though we could have driven the 600 plus miles in one day, we stopped overnight in Cleveland, Ohio.  

“Kiawah should have been a poem,” someone wrote years ago, and how true those words are. Our first trip to Kiawah, May 1980, came about because of a friend’s recommendation. “What a funny name,” I said. He explained, “It’s named for the Indian tribe that lived there during the 1600s. In 1699, a so-called pirate named George Raynor was granted the land and after that, the island was handed down through two different families for the next 250 years. It was purchased again in 1951 then, sold to a real estate developer. You won’t believe how beautiful it is,” he promised.

Home Exchanging or Home Swapping is when you agree to swap homes and often cars, with someone; you stay in their home and they stay in yours, and no money changes hands. 

We can't cover everything, but with your help we can certainly try. Our latest guest patrol contributors are Jeff Unger who will be covering motorcycle travel and Sandy Gladfelter, a widely published author.

My Grandpa Cliff used to tease my Grandma with one particular phrase and this one a real gem from Minnesota farm country, that he enjoyed sharing with folks when he was mildly amused by something my Grandma had done or said and he was trying to tease her. He would say, “I suppose, she’s just a Few Clowns short of a Circus”.

In 2005 I had the unique opportunity to travel to the nation of Ghana in West Africa. I had been invited by my good friend and colleague, Dr. Godfried Williams, to be the keynote speaker at an information technology conference in the capital city of Accra. The conference was the 1^st International Conference on Advances in Information and Communication Engineering held in August 2005 at the behest of the Ghanaian government. My topic was “Bridging the Digital Divide:  Linking and Closing the Gap between Advanced and Developing Economies.”