It was a great travel year for yours truly, with wonderful visits to the Mediterranean, Singapore, and some places pretty close to home. Here's a look at a few of the highlights, including a McDonald's designed to look like a Japanese temple, a cigar-rolling experience and a Seattle restaurant called Biscuit Bitch.
Bold
I had never driven any boat larger than 25 feet and never for more than 20 minutes at a time. And I'd never tried to dock anything bigger than a canoe. But my wife and I were given a 42-boat to traverse the Trent-Severn waterway for four days this spring, passing through 20 locks with nobody else on board. A few days before we left for the trip, my wife turned to me and said something like, "Wait a minute. We're doing WHAT? Are you out of your mind?" Being a guy, I dismissed her concern as absurd and insisted it would be a piece of cake. Inside, I wasn't 100% sure of my boating skills, but I wasn't going to let her know that. We got the boat south of Peterborough and took her for a spin with a fellow who said he was a qualified expert.
I was a little nervous but got the hang of it. We also had a lot of help in the locks from friendly, engaging Parks Canada staff. On day two on the water, my wife, who was a huge help along the way with ropes and other tasks, turned to me and shook her head. "I was dreading this,” she said. “I really was. I didn't know if you could do it. But you're pretty damned good, and I’m loving this.” The trip was not without its challenges, mostly from a very difficult (for me, anyway) docking attempt in Lakefield. But we enjoyed the deep quiet and the bright lakes and deep green trees, and the freedom of being out on the water. Later, as we sadly drove back to the big city, we both said it was one of the best trips we’d ever taken. And we were only an hour from home.
Silly
I suspect it’s pretty common for a teppanyaki dinner to include a chef who tosses sushi toward the mouths of hungry customers. But I’d never experienced it until our Mediterranean cruise on the MSC World Europa in March of this year. The chef was immensely talented, with knives and spatulas flying hither and yon. He was also quite adept at flipping pieces of fish in towards the faces of waiting cruisers, and I managed to get a fun photo with my iPhone. Did the chef toss a piece to me? Yes. Did I catch it in my mouth? Yes. Okay, maybe not on the first try.
Frustrating
We were in Tampa for the Super Bowl and, being a huge NFL fan and someone born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, wanted to watch the SF 49ers take on the Kansas City Chiefs (and their annoying superfan Taylor Swift) in the big game. We watched the first half at a sports bar, but it was hard to hear the commentary. So we ubered back to our modest Hyatt Place hotel to watch the rest. I got comfy on the bed and clicked on the TV. They had maybe 34 channels available, but none were CBS, the network that had the Super Bowl rights. What the f---? I called down to the lobby and was told, "Oh, we don't get CBS." What? This is AMERICA. It's the friggin’ Super Bowl!
I think they said we might be able to get it in the lobby, but that didn't sound attractive. I turned on the TV in our room but the only telecast I could find was on Nickelodeon, where they like to entertain the kiddies by having Sponge Bob Square Pants dance across the field after a smashing play and dump pretend, massive buckets of slime on people in the stands. I was so mad I could hardly breathe. The play-by-play was equally annoying. I tried the radio and even SIrius XM to see if we could get a good pair of announcers to complement the TV screen, but the radio seemed to be a minute or two behind the TV broadcast, so that didn’t work. After maybe 15 minutes I told my wife to turn off the sound so her husband, a former sportswriter and avid, 60-year NFL follower, could describe the action. It was bad enough to watch the Niners lose to the Chiefs, but to have to suffer through Nickelodeon characters and buckets of yellow-green slime was a bridge too far. A year later, I can laugh about it. But I still don't like the Chiefs. Sorry, Taylor.
Weird
When we were in lively Singapore on a wonderful Air Canada trip in the spring, a couple media people on my fam were excited about what they said was a McDonald's in town with a Japanese theme. On our last day of the trip, we took an Uber to a Mickey Dee’s that was built to (somewhat) resemble a Japanese temple. Out front there was a large pond filled with koi and hundreds of small turtles, with tiny islands dotted with sculpted bonsai trees. I don’t know the story behind it, but full marks for standing out in a crowd. We also tried some violet-coloured sweet potato ice cream. Let's just say it's an acquired taste.
Lucky
I chickened out on a scary-looking drive on Catalina Island in California but ended up with a good story to tell. The tourism folks for the island and the Catalina Express ferry team had suggested a hike during a visit. It sounded splendid, so they arranged for a guide to pick us up at our hotel. As it turned out, the regular guide couldn’t make it, so they brought in a local fellow named Pastor Lopez to drive us to the hiking area. Lopez, who’s in his mid-70s and was dressed in jeans, a black t-shirt, and a weathered baseball cap, showed us around the town. He told us how he had served in Vietnam and developed cancer, likely due to the military’s use of Agent Orange. As we began to make our way into the hills above town, he said he was born and raised in Avalon (population roughly 3,300 on a good day) had six kids, and that he was an avid surfer.
I liked him immensely. But I took an almost instant dislike to the road he was driving on. Avalon sits at the base of some pretty steep mountains, and the only way out of town is on very twisting, turning roads. I have a fear of heights, and I was distinctly unhappy at how close we were to a pretty severe slope that looked like the side of a Himalayan cliff to a wuss like me. “Is it like this all the way,” I said to Lopez as I tried to look away from the scenery. “Um,” he replied. “It’s actually worse up ahead.” I felt like an utter fool, but I had to pull the chute. “I can’t do this,” I said. “I just can’t.” Lopez quickly came up with a new program for the morning, taking us to a scenic lookout that offered fine views from a rounded, gentle slope, and then to the tranquil Haypress Reservoir.
And that’s when I got lucky. As Lopez, my wife, and I were chatting by the shore of the lake, a woman pulled up in her car. “Oh, hey, Pastor. I thought you might be out surfing, but I saw your truck and thought I’d say hi.” Lopez introduced us to local artist Robin Cassidy, who is responsible for many of the ceramic tiles on the pretty fountains in Avalon. “She designed the ones that still look good,” he said with a laugh. Both Cassidy and Lopez were born and raised on the island, and the banter flowed as easily as a first-rate Hollywood script, which makes sense given how the likes of Marilyn Monroe and John Wayne spent so much time on Catalina back in the day. Cassidy told me the original tiles she used in the fountains are highly valuable. “When I did those in the old days, it required uranium to get some of the colours.” She paused for dramatic effect. “For some reason, nobody wants to sell it to me anymore.” We had a wonderful chat, and I came away with a nice story to tell. If we had continued driving to our hike site on that mountain road we would’ve missed meeting Cassidy. And I probably would’ve fainted.
Naughty
When we were in Seattle prior to our Holland America Line Alaska cruise, I found a shop near Pike Place Market called Biscuit Bitch. Restaurant employees greet women and men alike with phrases like, "Morning, bitch. What can I get you?" Maybe not the place to take your grandmother, unless she’s pretty cool.
Inspiring
There are things in the world as over the top yet achingly beautiful as a tour of the Vatican. I hadn’t been in some time, and was blown away by the ostentatious beauty.
Noisy
On the other hand, we stayed in a private rental unit near Piazza Trilussa in the Trastevere district of Rome prior to our MSC cruise. I loved the area, which was filled with lively cafes and streets with tons of atmosphere. And I loved our apartment, which had a nice view of the dome of St. Peter’s. But, boy, was it noisy. The area was filled with bars, and even on cool nights in early March, the noise from midnight to 2 a.m. was remarkable.
Surprising
I had a fabulous three-day visit to Detroit this past summer to see how the city might handle a convention of SATW, the Society of American Travel Writers. I’m on the board of directors and on the sites committee that looks at future convention sites, and we wanted to see if the tales of Detroit’s rebound were true. I’m happy to say they are. The city is alive and thriving, and there are wonderful restaurants, amazing museums and glorious architecture all around. A stylish, new Edition Hotel is slated to open downtown next year. Detroit will host our SATW convention next September.
Luxurious
I somehow ended up with a roughly 1,200 square feet at the sumptuous Peninsula Hotel in Istanbul in November, a massive suite overlooking the Bosporus with a telescope trained on the Blue Mosque and a walk-in closet big enough to hold Cher’s wardrobe. One of the best features was the enormous marble bathroom, which had a hot tub with a choice of settings. I quickly found out that if you hit the “spa” button, the lights dimmed in the room, and soft music began to play.
Aromatic
My wife and I had an entertaining, educational tour of the J.C. Newman Cigar Company factory in Tampa, Florida this year. There were hundreds of cigar factories in the city at one point, but I was told J.C. Newman is the last one standing. It’s quite interesting to see how the tobacco is treated and the cigars rolled out. You also learn a lot about Tampa history, and you can try rolling a few of your own, which we did at the end of our tour. Ours came out looking vaguely like a proper cigar.
