For many American’s 2009 was a year of challenges. We faced job loss, pay cuts, furlough days, home foreclosures and empty promises. Despite the economy’s efforts to bring us down, we have banded together and remained strong. Now as we move deeper into 2010, it is time to rely not on the government but on [...]

The forest and the trees analogy can easily be applied to the past and present in New York City.  For people who live here, the past is evident everywhere, and most know some of the multiple histories that make up the people who live in the city, but the specter that haunts is always in [...]

When we arrived to the boarding desk, the attendant explained that since we’ve been upgraded to Business Class we could have boarded the plane to New York a while ago. We don’t know how we got bumped up, but we didn’t care, because there was free champagne, which I drank, since my husband would be [...]

Mardi Gras is soon approaching, and for some people, that means that New Orleans and its legendary hospitality and hotels are about to be put to use for Fat Tuesday, the big blow out before Ash Wednesday, and forty days of Lent.  The French Quarter’s reputation precedes it for most people who have ever traveled [...]

By the time I landed in New York City, went through customs, then took the C train all the way to Penn Station and walked to my New York hotel, which wasn’t too far away. I had dinner at the hotels restaurant and felt some what delusional. The combination of jet-lag, travel fatigue, being up [...]

South of Jacksonville, Florida, along the First Coast, lies the oldest European settlement in America, the city of St. Augustine, established in 1565.  Also known as the Ancient City, St. Augustine is an excellent spot for travelers wanting to take in four hundred and forty-five years of history in the New World.  It’s easily reached [...]

Phoenix is a collective series of multiple contradictions, beginning with the lawn.  The city was designed on an idea of Americana, where the picket fence sensibility was transplanted here in the 1950s and has stayed for reasons that are perhaps lost by now.  The lawns are still here, however, and some of the greenest lawns [...]