We review as we travel… destinations, lodging, cruises, resorts, you name it.
The centerpiece of Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterey Bay, CA is the massive Monterey Bay Aquarium . It’s an incredible structure which includes some of the largest fish tanks in the world and some of the most elusive creatures in our oceans
DAY 4 — It’s just after 9 a.m. and the spanking new Kids Vacation Center at Steamboat—it has doubled in size this year—is in full swing.
I’m soaking in Steamboat’s famous Strawberry Park Hot Springs in a natural pool that is about 105 degrees surrounded by mountains and snow covered trees. There are two other pools that we sample—one that is 101 and one at 75 degrees is downright freezing. Some hardy souls are rolling in the snow and jumping back in.
DAY 2 — “If you have good coaching, skiing is effortless. You just need to use the equipment properly,” says my 72-year-old instructor IJ Fisher, a former Christmas Tree farm owner and ski patroller from the East Coast who followed his kids here in Steamboat, Co
It’s our annual family reunion on snow—11 of us this trip from five to 60–something and we’ve gathered in Steamboat, CO known for having more Olympians—79, including 17 this year—than any other American town and just as important to thousands of American families, pioneering kids-ski-free—some 27 years ago.
This quaint little ski area in the Green Mountains near Burlington, VT., is known for its hospitality and public service – hosting both the Burton’s great Chill Organization as well as the Vermont Adaptive Sports program
After braving the rain all week in San Francisco, my boyfriend, a friend, and I decided that a trip up to Lake Tahoe for the weekend would be a must—especially considering that the area had received 79” of snow in the last five days that we had been soaked in the rain. We left the city before dawn Saturday morning and made it to the mountain in time to ski some fresh powder in the first sunshine Tahoe had seen in a week.
It’s cold and the snow is dumping but that doesn’t stop hundreds of locals from turning out to cheer on the Snowboarders in their final comp before the U.S. Olympic Team is named. “It’s fun family time,” says Dan Kemp, with his wife and two young daughters.
Eight-year-old Henry Silverman may be a little jaded—at least when it comes to Olympians, his mom Caroline admits.
You can’t really blame him since he’s growing up in Park City, Utah, a town that’s home to the U.S. Snowboarding Team and chock full of past and present Olympians. “We see Olympians every day,” she laughs.
I’m lying on a heated massage table in the spanking new spa at the St. Regis Deer Crest at Deer Valley. “We’ve been very busy,” the massage therapist tells me. It is a great massage complete with paraffin treatment to soften and help the blood flow in my tired feet and a scalp treatment. Great steam room! Another massive luxury hotel property is on line to open next year. The people checking in to the St Regis don’t seem concerned about the price of the rooms.
Deer Valley has been named the #1 ski resort in North America in 2008, 2009 and again this year in North America by the readers of SKI Magazine.
Add in 300 annual inches of famous Utah dry powder, 100 trails, six bowls, 21 chairlifts and a limited number of skiers allowed on the mountain each day; three day lodges glowing warm with firelight and gourmet food, the well respected Ski School and Children’s Center; and the sheer ease of the place — parking lot shuttles, complimentary ski storage, ski valets and more.
A GIRL’S JUST GOTTA HAVE FUN! I’m sitting in one of ski country’s newest posh resorts—The St. Regis Deer Crest in Deer Valley. My room looks out over the groomers Deer Valley is known for and I can see the hotel’s hot tubs. There’s a fireplace and a marble bath and oh-so-comfy beds.
We’ve stopped in a native village called Machucha Town –at over 12,000 feet where local Attacamas stay while herding their llama. Today we don’t see llamas—just tourists—and a local man dishing up llama shish kabab while a woman fries llama empanadas inside. In case you are wondering, llama tastes like lamb.
It is not easy to breathe the air up around 18,000 feet, especially when hiking straight to the top of a volcano. The Toco Volcano is the most difficult excursion offered by Tierra Atacama, one of San Pedro, Chile’s most luxurious and beautiful boutique hotels.
I’m not dreaming. The handsome, long-haired 29 year old Chilean is Max Vera, who is guiding us on a challenging hike uphill along the canyon floor, scrambling over big rocks, along a sandy trail, in between large “fox tails” that grow in this region and Cacti that are 12 feet high with needles so sharp that local Indian women use them as needles to sew and knit.
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Day 10 — Welcome to Laguna de Chaxa (Chaxa Lake) and the National Reserve of Flamingoes that is about an hour from St. Pedro, Chile from where we’re staying at the lovely 32-room Tierra Atacama
DAY 8 — We’re in Bernardo O’Higgins National Park, the largest in Chile with several hanging glaciers including Balmaceda and Serrano Glaciers. We’ve taken a small boat from Puerto Natales, about five minutes from Hotel Remota (www.remota.cl) where we are staying for a three-hour cruise—past a huge waterfall and condor nest! “You read about it in books and then you can look and see it,” says Sandy VanLandingham, from Arizona visiting here with extended family.
DAY 7 in Chile — It is one of those vacation days I think I must be dreaming. I’m in the Patagonian hills of Chile riding a gentle horse named Chinosca as we climb higher and higher on a traditional estancia or ranch, past grazing sheep and cattle. The hills are dotted with stumps of the traditional Linca trees—cut down in the early 1900s, our guide Alvaro Jaime tells us, both for energy in the new settlement of Puerto Natales and to provide more grazing land in those days.
I’m bushwhacking up a trail in Patagonia, scrambling over loose rocks and getting more frustrated by the minute. My knee aches. The guide is not helpful or attentive. I wish I’d remembered to ask for hiking poles—they really help. I wish he’d remembered to offer them.
This isn’t our neighborhood–the sweeping expanse of Torres del Paine National Park in Chile’s Patagonia belongs to herds of rhea (small ostriches), the gray fox, and herds of guanaco—a kind of llama who totally ignore our presence as the males chase each other (only one male can be dominant in a herd of females) and the females nurse their oh so cute babies.